Vocal mixing and mastering

As an artist you want to focus on the creative process of making your hit song. Creating a beat with a music producer, writing lyrics and coming up with good vocal melodies are normally the first things you would focus on. However, there is a lot more to making a hit song. Probably the most underestimated aspect of music is mixing and mastering. But what is it and what makes it so important?

Mixing

Let’s start with mixing. A beat is made of multiple instruments and a song usually has multiple vocal layers. The volume of each layer has to be adjusted in order to make the full song ”in balance”. You don’t want the guitar to be too loud or the drums too soft compared to the piano in the total mix.

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Panning

Besides balancing the volume of each individual instrument and vocal track, you can apply panning. Panning means adjusting the stereo spectrum of a vocal track or instrument. It helps to make a song element stand out and be heard clearly without ”clashing” with another vocal track or instrument.

EQ

Equalizing means adjusting parts of the audio frequencies to your liking. So for each instrument or vocal track, you can boost or lower the frequencies. If you want a fuller sound, you would normally boost the lower frequencies. If you want more body in the sound, boosting the mid frequencies is the way to go. To make a sound more sharp, you can increase the higher frequencies. Once again, the keyword is balance.

Effects

When these steps are done, you can focus on additional effects such as reverbs, delays, filters or distortion. The amount in which the effect is applied can also be ”automated”. This means that the effect will be adjusted during the song. For example in a beat break you might want the vocal reverb to last longer than during the beat.

Mastering

When all the mixing is done and the song is perfectly in balance. You can start on mastering. Mastering is the term used for the process of preparing your audio mix for distribution. Mastering involves tiny adjustments in the master equalization, compression, limiting and more. The process will boost the volume of your audio without disturbing the balance. When a song is mastered properly, it will not only sound good on a computer device, also in club or mobile phone. Balancing issues and enhancing audio characteristics is the main goal.

As a professional sound engineer, i can help you mix and master your tracks. I will make sure the quality of your tracks is as good as possible so you can upload the songs to platforms such as Spotify, iTunes, Deezer and YouTube. Below you can find the prices. Feel free to contact me for more examples. Click here