You’d bring people close, light it properly and ensure a clear view. You wouldn’t place it 10 meters away so it’s too distant to see any detail, light it badly so it’s too dark, or place an obstacle in front of the main feature of the painting. Now imagine you then wanted to show that painting to people. Imagine you are an artist, and you paint a painting. Mixing and mastering can help achieve what the listener expects to hear. Things like volume evenness throughout the track, the distribution over the stereo space, clarity of the vocals, or a strong but not overpowering low-end.ĭeviate too far from these expected norms, and the listener’s ears will tell them that something is “wrong”. This is the case even if they are not musicians or music producers themselves – they may not be able to exactly describe what they expect, but will know if a track falls short of those standards. There are certain standards for music produced today that listeners expect. It’s not like they don’t have any other songs they can listen to! If your lead vocal is a little muffled, or the bass is overpowering the rest of the song, or the volume isn’t comparable to other songs on the platform, then within a few seconds your listener will be gone. This makes it incredibly important that your song sounds the best it possibly can.

That is a lot of competition fighting against your song to be listened to. For example, Spotify has over 50 million songs, with 40,000 new songs added every day. The amount of music available on digital streaming platforms today is enormous. 1 You only have a few seconds to grab the listener If you are interested in checking out the best recording gear such as audio interfaces, studio monitor speakers, microphones, etc., you can find them at Amazon by clicking here. Let’s look at some reasons why it is worth taking the time to learn mixing and mastering in some detail, or to employ professionals to get your music sounding the best it possibly can. Mastering produces a great sound across all listening systems, and brings the volume up to expected commercial levels. Mixing ensures all instruments are heard clearly and are balanced against each other. Mixing and mastering are important as they enhance a song to present it in the best way possible. So why are they considered to be so important, and what can they do for your music? There is a vast amount of information available online on mixing and mastering, with a huge number of tutorials and courses available.

Mastering music