A 7 Seven Step Guide to Mixing and Mastering

Step 1- Prepare the Mix.

• Bounce down your final mix and export it as an uncompressed, audio .wav file.

• Create a new project and import your finalised audio track.

• Use a sample rate of 24 bit 96kHz, as it's the most frequently used rate.

Step 2- Fix up the Mix.

• Compare your track to two or three commercial pieces of music similar to your piece, and try and find subtle similarities that could be replicated or issues that would end sorting our before you begin to mix and master.

• Analyse all of your frequencies and make sure there aren't any frequencies that lack or have too much energy in them; such as boomy bass sounds or a muddy low end.

Step 3- Enhance the Mix.

• Use effects and plug-ins such as EQ, exciters, emulation effects and stereo wideners to give your mix some more life and bring individual sounds out more.

• For tracks with lots of bass such as EDM or House, use a bass enhancer to bring out low end frequencies.

• Experiment with stereo wideners and boost EQ if necessary.

• This stage is known as the MASTERING stage.

Step 4- Compress the Mix.

• Compressors can either work for a mix or they can't, if it doesn't, don't bother trying to make it work and move on.

• A ratio of 1:5:1 to 2:1 is usually a good place to start, as it isn't as intrusive.

• There are also presets that some DAW's offer to speed along the process.

• 2dB's of gain reduction is a good number, but don't go over 4/5dB's.

• If you have lots of instruments in your track with varying frequencies, use a multi-band compressor, which works well with tracks that need compression or different spectrum's of frequency.

Step 5- Clip the Mix.

• This process intends clip all of the peaks out of the track while leaving little side effects.

• If your track is intended to be very loud, this is a very good idea; but do NOT use for mellow/quieter tracks.

• Plug-ins for this process an be costly however, so make sure your track is going to be commercially successful.

Step 6- Limit the Mix.

• This stage is to make the track as loud as possible without clipping or losing quality.

• Limiting is essential as it makes the track as loud as itcan be, which is good for leisurely listening.

• Once you've inputted a limiter, do NOT add anything else, as it can ruin a final mix.

• Limit between -0.1 and -0.3 as they're both commonly used and usually sound the best.

• This is the end of the mastering cycle.

Step 7- Review and Reference the Mix.

• Compare your track to the ones you listened to earlier and make sure you've included and dis-included all the bits you do and don't want.

• Listen through all forms of speaker, monitor and headphone; especially on Hi-Fi systems if its a bass track, as all of these have built in EQ's.

• Repeat this process until you're happy with your mix!