Why Mixing?
Why would anyone pay to have their music mixed? Can't I mix it myself and send it on to a mastering service?
- You certainly can if you are confident in the accuracy of your mixing environment, but you are most likely to get the best results avoiding corrective mastering (mastering to fix mix problems), which cannot give you the result that a properly mixed and mastered solution will bring. Ideally mastering should be reserved for the final finishing touches on your music explained further on the mastering page.
- Mixing, when done with skill and expertise, is hugely important toward getting the best possible sound from your song. The process is much more powerful than mastering toward shaping your sound because you have access to sculpt each instrument / vocal as well as access to shape the overall joining of your tracks into a whole.
- All that to say, your focus should be toward getting the mix as good as it can be (or hiring qualified help) rather than relying on mastering to work miracles with problematic mixes. (For tips on optimizing your mixing space see GIK Acoustics' Room Acoustics Primer page or Universal Audio's article on Studio Acoustics & Soundproofing Basics).
- Finally, one of my aims at Burro Music Mixing is to offer a mixing service for those who feel they have already done a tremendous amount of work by writing, playing and recording their tracks and would like to hand off the mixing duties to capable hands for a superior result in an acoustically accurate environment.
It was great working with Bryan because his musical expertise and engineering experience work together very well to make the music sound great...it's so easy to work with him because his personality is easygoing, but honest, and he always gives specific feedback on the mixing and mastering decisions he ends up making.
-Aaron Hedenstrom of Hedenstrom, Evens, Helsley & Young
