When you really break down audio production into the various steps that add up to making a song, score or album, there are clear-cut jobs that play an important role in any project. In this article, we’re going to break down the differences between the post-production parts of this process—mixing and mastering—so that you can make the best decisions possible when it comes to the techniques and gear you need to take your productions from fledgling recordings to finely polished masterpieces.

To begin with, recording engineers and producers are typically focused on capturing the essence and quality of a performance as close to the vision of the artist as possible. Then, mixing engineers are tasked with piecing together all the recorded parts that make up an entire production, similar to combining the ingredients of a delicious meal to feed a hungry guest. To finish, mastering engineers finalize the production’s sound and fidelity, striving to accomplish artistic or commercial goals, and ensure the mix translates well to different playback mediums—akin to “seasoning” the meal, so to speak. So, let’s dive in and explore what these processes look like, and the outcomes you can expect from each.

Table of Contents

Mixing vs. Mastering
What Is Mixing?
   A Look at the Mixing Process
   The Results of the Mixing Process
   Popular Mixing Software
What Is Mastering?
   A Look at the Mastering Process
   The Results of the Mastering Process
   Popular Mastering Software
Comparing Mixing and Mastering
Getting Set Up

Mixing vs. Mastering

Let’s start with some similarities and differences. Whether mixing or mastering, there are common, more general techniques that can be applied to both areas of production. Processes like compression, EQ and effects are used in both stages to differing degrees to bring out the character in your recordings, highlight or address problems in certain areas, as well as paint a cohesive picture of the project’s creative direction. When mixing, these techniques are typically used to treat individual elements of a recording like the drums, guitars or vocals, or groups of these instruments that are artistically being affected together—for example, submixes of low-end elements like a bass and a kick drum, or vocals and background vocals.

When mastering, however, these processes are most commonly applied to the mix as a whole, in stereo format. This means your compression and EQ settings affect all the instruments or individual elements simultaneously. This process requires careful attention to detail and a trained ear that listens to everything as one cohesive artistic thought or idea. Both mixing and mastering advance a production’s degree of completion, but mixing comes first in the process, while mastering follows—both working in tandem to realize the artist’s and producer’s hard work during the writing and recording stages.

What Is Mixing?

Whether you’ve been handed a hard drive full of instrumental recordings or hundreds (if not thousands) of pieces of audio that comprise a feature-length film, mixing takes these pieces and combines them into one single “final mix” that is as close to completion as possible. This involves steps like balancing the elements at varying volume levels; panning and placing them in the stereo (or, in the case of immersive audio, the 360-degree soundscape) field; applying effects like compression, EQ, reverb and modulation; and a multitude of other adjustments to paint an all-encompassing picture of the individual audio components as a whole.

A Look at the Mixing Process

The process typically begins with things like editing the recorded audio tracks to be free of unwanted noise (including that dreaded click track), tuning any vocals that may be off-pitch (if stylistically warranted by the project) and arranging them in a session in an organized and efficient fashion, be it on a console or in your DAW of choice. This can also involve grouping or printing multiple tracks down to a single or stereo track to further simplify the individual elements—a process commonly employed in the age of analog recording where engineers were restricted by the limited availability of channels on multitrack tape machines. These are referred to as stems or submixes, and can consist of groups of instruments or "takes," like all of the guitar or vocal tracks. This process allows simple volume, panning or effects adjustments to be applied to entire groups of tracks simultaneously.

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Once you’re ready to hit play, the real fun begins. Some engineers prefer to start the mixing process with foundational tracks like drums and bass to get a “groove” established, while others lean toward balancing the key elements, like vocals, guitars, and keys or synths that may play an important role in telling the creative narrative. Sometimes these parts are treated “in the mix” and compressed or EQ’d while listening to the entire production. One example of this is EQing a guitar and a snare drum simultaneously to carve out sonic niches for each instrument, enabling them to “sit” or coincide nicely without taking up unwanted room in the mix. This can help achieve clarity and definition. Other times, they are soloed to focus on certain frequencies being affected by plug-ins or outboard gear being utilized.

The Results of the Mixing Process

When the desired balance and artistic vision is achieved by combining all the individually recorded parts, a final mix is created by recording all of the tracks to a single stereo track (in the case of immersive mixes, many, many more) and passing off the stereo track(s) to a mastering engineer. It’s important to leave some headroom for the mastering engineer so they have some dynamic range to work with, and it’s common when sending a mix to a mastering engineer to print a “loud” and “quiet” version to ensure they have what they need to work with, as well as a better idea of what the artist and producer expect the production to sound like.

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However, some mixing engineers prefer to take things a step further, and it is now common practice to perform some typical mastering processes during the mixing stage. Inserting plug-ins or outboard gear on the stereo bus and applying them to the entire mix has become more and more popular in the competitive world of professional record production. In the heyday of analog recording, popular consoles employed built-in compressors (famously, SSL, Neve and API recording and mixing desks) on the stereo bus to help control dynamic information, push the mix louder and “glue” the tracks together in a tasteful and musical way. The effects of properly utilized compression can result in a “radio-ready” sound where individual elements of the mix sit or mesh well together. EQing a mix is also standard practice these days, and engineers use high-quality stereo EQs to enhance low- and high-end frequencies to provide punch and clarity to their mixes.

Popular Mixing Software

As technology has advanced, plug-ins have turned into essential tools for mixing engineers looking for that record-ready sound. If you’re looking for an array of options from surgical EQs to saturation, the FabFilter Mixing Bundle provides an entire suite of plug-ins for you to craft and carve your productions with the sonic accuracy and convenience you need to take them from raw tracks to mastering-ready projects. Searching for what could be the most effective vocal compressor of all time? The Universal Audio 1176 Classic Limiter Collection is a versatile and popular unit worthy of the most iconic engineers. Don’t forget to add that perfectly polished sound to your lead vocal tracks with the legendary “air” of the Maag EQ4 from the Universal Audio UAD Complete 3 bundle, a popular choice amongst engineers seeking pristine presence and clarity.

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The key thing to note about mixing is that it is a dedicated step in the production process that comes after recording—before mastering—and consists of treating the individual elements of a project instead of the project or song as a whole.

What Is Mastering?

Mastering is often referred to as a “dark art” and is commonly misunderstood. While it employs simple processes and techniques, the precision to which it is performed is typically much more nuanced than mixing. Because mastering engineers are typically working with only stereo tracks (unless mastering from stems, a common practice in electronic music), every move they make affects every element in the mix. They cannot simply go into a session and turn up the snare drum or turn down the bass—if they want to hear more snare drum or less bass, it takes careful EQing or compression (sometimes multi-band compression) to accomplish this simple task without audible changes to other instruments or elements in the mix.
Using the bass example, if low end is EQ’d out of a mix to reduce the amount of bass being heard, it would also be changing things like the bottom of the kick drum, the low-end frequencies of guitars, synths or pianos, and so on. This can present a myriad of problems for a mastering engineer and is essentially like “working with handcuffs on.” The importance of a well-balanced mix cannot be understated when it comes to effective mastering. As is often said, “The better the mix, the better the master.”

Some common techniques used in mastering are similar to those used in mixing. Things like compression, limiting, EQ, saturation and even reverb are used to enhance and problem solve issues occurring in a mix. They are, however, generally performed with a much gentler “touch.” Processes like heavy-handed compression, limiting and EQing are much more audible during the mastering phase because even the slightest adjustments can make extremely noticeable shifts, changing the listener’s focus and the inherent balance of the mix.

A Look at the Mastering Process

Mastering typically begins by adding gain to achieve any desired loudness. Because the human ear perceives louder content as brighter, it’s important to adjust the volume of a track (keeping in mind the Fletcher-Munson curve, which suggests specific monitoring practices to account for the inaccuracy of human hearing) to be in the ideal listening range before making any EQ or compression adjustments. This can be accomplished by a single gain stage, or multiple gain stages throughout the mastering chain that slowly increase the level of a track. (Feathering—or using multiple instances of the same effect/processor—is extremely common in mastering. For example, four compressors each doing 1dB of gain reduction is much less audible than one compressor doing 4dB of gain reduction.) Some engineers then move on to controlling the dynamic range of a track by inserting compressors or limiters, while others prefer to EQ next. Typically, these two processes are performed in conjunction with one another. “Pushing” EQ into a compressor can provide more “glue” to certain frequency ranges and sounds different than EQing after compression, which can provide a more open and aggressive sound. Balancing these two processes—whether it’s to problem solve or color and enhance certain elements in a mix—is a delicate dance. It’s common for mastering engineers to employ any combination of these techniques, some even multiple times, to carefully mold a track into the perfect artistic shape that the project, its creators and the audience desire.

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The Results of the Mastering Process

As a mastering engineer nears the finish line and they feel like the creative goal of the project is being realized, they begin to assess how the project will translate when heard across a variety of listening platforms. Because their work will be heard on everything from phone speakers and earbuds to hi-fi systems and club PAs, it’s important to consider things like tonal balance (especially low end and sibilance) and dynamic range to ensure consistency in every playback scenario. This can take the form of extremely technical adjustments or “splitting the difference” so that a track sounds as good as possible in less-than-ideal environments. When performed correctly, all these subtle (or, sometimes, not so subtle) changes and considerations help shape the overall sound and texture of a mix in an expressive and musical way that abides by the mastering engineer’s golden rule—do no harm.

Popular Mastering Software

Plug-ins are also invaluable tools in the realm of professional mastering, allowing engineers to work quickly, recall settings easily and make extremely minute adjustments that were previously impossible using analog gear. You can fine-tune your tracks with impressive precision using the Cambridge EQ from the Universal Audio UAD Complete 3 bundle to give them clarity and bite while retaining the carefully preserved digital fidelity of your project. Or, if you’re looking for that elusive “glue” producers and engineers have sought for years on end, some time-tested compressor options include the Universal Audio API 2500 Bus Compressor and the infamous Universal Audio SSL 4000 Bus Compressor. These indispensable tools have become cornerstones in mastering rigs all over the world and will help you push your productions across the finish line with ease and convenience.

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Comparing Mixing and Mastering

Since there are many similarities and differences between mixing and mastering, we’ve broken it down for you in the chart below so you can better understand the processes and approach to these crucial post-production steps. It’s important to remember there’s considerable overlap between their tools and techniques, but they are most often treated as two consecutive stages with different goals and outcomes.

	Mixing	Mastering
Scope	Ranges from simple 2-track + vocal sessions to immersive and feature-length movie scores that include thousands of cues, dialogue and FX tracks	Ranges from single mono tracks to full stereo albums, compilations and movie scores with thousands of cues
Focus	Balancing the individual elements of a track and creating a complete, sonic picture of the artist and producer’s vision	Creating balance across the frequency spectrum, controlling dynamic range, achieving desired loudness and crafting a cohesive sound between the different tracks of a project containing multiple songs or recordings
Techniques	Panning, EQ, compression, limiting, clipping, stereo widening, saturation, modulation, automation and gain staging	EQ, compression, limiting, clipping, stereo widening, saturation, modulation, automation and gain staging
Goal	A stereo (or in some cases, surround/immersive) mix that represents all the individual tracks of a given song or production	A stereo (or in some cases, surround/immersive) master that is a well-balanced representation of all the individual mixes of a given album or production

Getting Set Up

Any mixing or mastering engineer needs the right hardware, software and techniques to perform their job to the best of their abilities, and we encourage you to expand your knowledge base and audio toolbox so you can learn, grow and challenge yourself with every project you take on. Whether it’s taking your songs from demo to polished, album-ready masterpieces, or your podcast from raw to realized, starting at the right place is paramount to succeeding in your artistic endeavors. If you’re looking to get equipped, check out our articles on The Best Gifts for Music Producers in 2024 and The Best Audio Interfaces of 2024. Or, you can look at our entire collection of mixing and mastering gear in our recording section. Take ahold of your destiny and dig into your productions with the confidence and expertise they deserve.