As soon as you are done recording, you proceed to the most significant procedures that help you hone the piece to perfection, Mixing & Mastering. If done with precision, these procedures make your track ready for the commercial market. Mixing and mastering demand patience, hard work and endless dedication as the task is both tedious & time-consuming. This is the very reasons, the new artists are recommended to send their music pieces to the expert of sound engineering to get them mixed and mastered.
However, this notion of outsourcing the mixing & mastering services was disregarded some years back when contemporary musicians started trying their hands on this cumbersome job. Despite having the expertise of honing the tracks, these musicians were not able to make them the masterpiece that takes the market by storm. Finding out the flaws in their techniques, the musicians concluded it as the lack of the proper setup and the various mixing and mastering tools that expert audio engineers use in their acoustically set studios.
If you are wondering what these mixing and mastering tools are and how they help you make a recorded track all set for the launch, here is some detailed analysis you must read:
- Monitoring:
The goal of mixing and mastering a record is to make it ready to be played in a variety of devices starting from headphones to music systems. This demand making high-quality tracks that offer a melodious experience to the end user. To make this possible, you would need monitors AS THEY show you the visual images of poorly recorded stereo sound. Through effective stereo imaging, you can address the issues in uneven frequency response more closely. This makes it easy to get rid of.
- Equalisation:
This is the second and the most critical equipment in the list. An EQ device is used to achieve the smooth tonality of the track in the record. A smart use of EQ can help define a smooth tone to each instrument in play and ensure that each sound is clean and unmasked with other sounds.
- Compressor
The third tool in the list is the compressor. These are the tools used for regulating the dynamics in the track. Dynamics of any audio piece defines the expression of the track. There are two primary motives to use the compressors; smoothen the track or emphasizing on the basic pumps, kicks, and punches in the song. There are different types of compressors available in the market. The type of compressor you choose for your track must depend on the type of track as there are different use of compressors for slow & fast tracks.
- Multiband dynamics:
Another critical tool of the Audio Mixing & Mastering process is Multiband Dynamics. These tools help in compressing as well as limiting individual frequency bands in a song. The equipment helps you do multiple things at a time. This includes, highlighting the vocals, reducing the harshness, controlling the bass, amending a bad mix, and fixing other impediments.
Besides this critical tool, signal analyzers, processor, and a variety of spatial processors make part of your perfect mixing and mastering setup. So, if you have a fresh record in hand, go try your mixing and mastering skills using these tools and make the best tracks.