"The difference between mixing and mastering is one of the concepts that most often confuses musicians who are just entering the world of music production because they are terms that are sometimes used interchangeably and because the line that divides both processes can be quite fuzzy in some cases. Let's start by understanding each process:

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What is audio mixing?

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It is a process whose main objective is to achieve a balance in the finished song. Be it frequencies, levels, the location of each sound in the stereo panorama (panning). Once the mix is finished, we have the song as it is supposed to sound, possibly missing some process (mastering).

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During the mix, we work with the "raw" sound product of the recording, that is to say that what we receive are the tracks to which no process was previously applied and we start with a series of steps that seek to ensure that everything is in its correct state. place and occupy your space properly.

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Another thing that works in the mix is the application of effects such as reverb, delay, echoes, creative pans, etc. The choice of effects has a lot to do with style and what the particular artist is looking for.

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Generally a typical mixing process has as its final product the song itself in stereo, that is, once the sound has been processed, it is “mixed” into a single stereo track which is what we will hear through our speakers.

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The reality is that a musical production begins to mix even during recording if, for example, we decide the gain level that each drum microphone will have. This is already a mixing process because we make decisions taking into account that each thing has its place and corresponds to what we expect to hear. A recording where the kick drum is not heard at all but a cowbell or cowbell mic is heard very loudly is not a balanced recording to cite an example.

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What is mastering?

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Mastering is a process in which  refine details of the mix and bring the songs to a commercially acceptable level. The particularity of mastering is that during this process the order of the songs on the disc is also decided, the application of fades, the insertion of meta-data necessary for the identification of the work (such as los_cc781905-5cde-3194 -bb3b-136bad5cf58d_ISRC codes) and the spacing of the songs (the number of seconds of silence between songs) is also decided.

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Originally, mastering was a process that was done only for complete albums, however, it is also common to master separate tracks or projects of a few songs that are not going to be included on an album. The importance of mastering lies in a fresh perspective that gives quality control to the mixing process.

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With the birth of self-production and discs recorded under semi-professional conditions, mastering has become a necessity since the mixes almost always require some improvement to be suitable for satisfactory reproduction in the different listening media, however, it should be noted that you can't do magic with a poorly mixed song during mastering either because resources are limited and it's not the idea of the process.

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A peculiarity of mastering is that many times the songs do not need to be retouched beyond bringing them to an acceptable volume level for commercial distribution, but this happens exceptionally when the mixes are very well done and do not have_cc781905-5cde-3194-bb3b -136bad5cf58d_serious shortcomings.

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So what is the difference between mixing and mastering?

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Making an analogy with the kitchen, the mixture would be the process where once we have decided that we are going to cook (composition) we proceed to obtain the raw material (recording) to later develop the intermediate step where we mix the ingredients according to the proportions (mix ) to later give it the final touches such as ornamentation and present it on the turntable (mastering).

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To continue with the analogy, just as we can eat directly from a pot we can mix without mastering, but we cannot master without mixing. Or rather, we can do it but it would be just as funny as pretending to eat from an empty plate."

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Original text at 7notasestudio.com