What's Mixing / Mastering, and Why do I Need it?

• Mixing is the process of combining and balancing individual stems in a session to create a cohesive stereo audio file. It involves adjusting levels, panning, EQ, compression, effects, and other audio processes to ensure each element of a song fits well together. Mixing shapes the song, defining how it feels and how listeners perceive it. Without proper mixing, a song might lack clarity, impact, or emotional engagement.
• Mastering is the final step in the audio production process, where a finished mix is polished and prepared for distribution. It involves subtle adjustments to the overall sound to ensure consistency and compatibility across different playback systems. Mastering ensures the song translates well across different platforms, from headphones to car speakers, maintaining its integrity and quality.
• Is it necessary? If you want your music, sound, or any piece of media to truly shine, professional mixing and mastering are essential. The quality of the final product often comes down to the engineer's experience, critical listening skills, and the precision of their listening environment. Unlike creating or composing music, engineering requires a specialized approach. It’s a meticulous, technical process that demands expertise and several years of experience, allowing artists to focus on what they do best — the creative process. My job is to take that creation and refine it, ensuring it meets the technical standards required for all systems, platforms, and listeners.
• Can't I do it myself? No one's stopping you if you're comfortable enough to do it yourself, especially if you have the critical listening experience, the tools and a proper listening environment. However, in the process of creating music or any piece of audio, it is rare that the creator has all of those things of the same quality as a mixing or mastering engineer does, which is typically why these two processes are commonly separated. Without a suitable listening environment or a substantial enough critical listening experience, the engineer wouldn't be able to make the best judgments on where to place sound in the stereo field. Although I was making music 10 years ago, if younger me would be doing this now it would be as if I was walking blind. With that being said, you typically want to hire someone you trust with respect to someone who is well-equipped to make critical and perfectionist decisions.
• But AI mastering is like 10x cheaper! Well I'll be honest, LANDR certainly does a better job than a majority of self-masters out there, but I'm not here to give just-good-enough service for a cheaper price, I'm here to give you the best. I've provided an example of my master and LANDR's masters under my previous work. Aside from better sonic quality, I can communicate with you about what visions you have for the track and make absurd amends, whether it's distortion on the master or soaring over -2 LUFs (albeit not recommended).

More Questions

• Why don't you have tiered pricing for mixing? A tier list of services encourages compromising the quality of the sound for a cheaper price. Aside from making the finished product 100% satisfactory to you, what comes out of my studio and service is equally as important, as the product represents the quality of my service for future business.
• Do you mix and/or master for Spotify, SoundCloud and other platforms? Absolutely not. I HIGHLY advise against any service that offers this, as it is a waste of money for you and a cash grab for engineers. The job of an engineer is to make the sound translatable on all platforms, the same reason why audio is engineered to be translatable on all speaker systems.
• How are payments processed? I use Stripe for my payments, which allows for use of Paypal, credit card, debit card, payment plans, or bank transfers.
• How should I send you files? Use a file transfer or cloud service of your choice, such as Google Drive, Dropbox or WeTransfer.
• How should I export my files? Please render them in wav. The render settings must be identical to your DAW settings. All effects must be rendered in the audio file, however I may ask for a re-render for any stems that have a problematic effect that needs to be removed at no additional cost. Please make sure these files represent the music as it is currently, and make sure no files are clipping at 0dB.
• Do you also do videos, films, podcasts, or trailers? I can service all audio!