Fantastic advice and a validation of how I've been approaching my mixing and mastering for the past 22 years! Thank you!

On point! Very much agree. I would add one more benefit to that list. To protect your reputation and relationship with your client as a producer. If you send off a song for mixing or mastering and the engineer is having an off day, doesn't understand the vision, is going through a divorce or for whatever other reason their head isn't in game you need to be able to rise to the occasion. This means being able to diagnose and correct issues when necessary. It also protects you during transitional phases where an engineer gets too busy, passes away, and such. You don't want your livelihood to be solely reliant on someone else.

@mixdownonline

23 күн бұрын

That's actually a valid point! Thanks for your comment :-)

@Studio22mix

23 күн бұрын

I’m sorry but if my mix isn’t working my client won’t sign off on it. That means I have a revision scheduled and fix it. If your engineer doesn’t want to do a revision, find someone else fast 😉

@natecornell-official761

23 күн бұрын

@@Studio22mix my point exactly!

Great video as always! Will the the mastering course be available again?

Thanks Chris, just like your previous courses, this one lands on my desk just when I need it most. Signed up!

@mixdownonline

24 күн бұрын

Fantastic! Hope you enjoy it!

OK, I'm with you now: Mixing is like cutting a tree in a wood, while mastering is like devastating the whole Amazon primary forest. Got it. 🙂

@Durkhead

24 күн бұрын

I think its more like mixing is cutting a baseball bat out of a tree and mastering is more like sanding that bat till its smooth

@mixdownonline

24 күн бұрын

All analogies are good :-)

@Studio22mix

23 күн бұрын

@ErixSamson You’re so funny 😂 At least then you won’t have any hiss, no resonances, no peaks, everything clipped to zero 😳

Agree 100%. A great exercise, I learned a lot doing both.

@mixdownonline

24 күн бұрын

That's awesome!

Love this.

@mixdownonline

24 күн бұрын

Yeah, man! Thanks!

Earlier, I mastered my own tracks with Wavelab, but nowadays, especially in Cubase 13, I only master in Cubase itself, and it's quite easier for me and having the same tools and the same environment, it helps me in deed making better decisions while mixing. But I'm still by far not the best at both steps...

Hi Chris, Is there any option in Cubase to locate unused instruments in the Vst rack in case if I loaded a lot of them, but I don't know exactly which one I use for the project and which I don't?

Mastering is putting a frame on that musical picture.

Bro CB is dope daw but have many latency problems. Tbh is hard to record vocals with effects and no to many effects. I am sound engineer. I love this daw, but is the reason I leave it. Hope fix it in future or 13 because I stop in 12 version. Singer can’t “sound”him self and is not practical to recording dry. Any tip?

If I have Cubase Pro 13 do I have al the tools to get the most from the course? Thanks man!

@mixdownonline

24 күн бұрын

Yes, you do. I use Cubase plugins, free and premium plugins also, and focus a lot on the mastering techniques and mindset, so you can work with your favorite plugins

Very interesting … on the sale page there is an offer for a yearly subscription to Mixdown Academy : there’s no monthly plan for it ?

@mixdownonline

22 күн бұрын

Mixdown All Access is a Yearly Subscription only for now

Sorry if this was answered somewhere, I’m new to your courses, but can it be used with any DAW? Are there stock plugins or techniques that are specific to one?

@mixdownonline

24 күн бұрын

I work in Cubase, but use stock, free, and paid plugins in this course. I focus more on the mastering techniques, what to listen for, and getting in the mastering mindset. Most DAWs have the same processing tools, and there's often Free alternatives, that I also mention in this course.

@nicholasvegas2899

24 күн бұрын

@@mixdownonline amazing thank you! So I should be able to follow along in pro tools just fine because it’s more conceptual than actual DAW technique?

@mixdownonline

24 күн бұрын

Excalty! And don't forget that I reply to all questions left on all lessons, so you can ask your questions as you go

I always separate mixing and mastering. I have to, as I use separate apps. Cubase Pro for recording/mixing and WaveLab Pro for mastering. Maybe I'll rethink that as WaveLab Pro can be opened in Cubase Pro as an ARA extension, in the latest versions.

@DerekPower

24 күн бұрын

Even with that ability, I think it's a good idea to "keep them separated" ( ;) ). If nothing else, it will help you to keep the mix and the master in their own lane. And yes, there have been times where I "went back to the mix" during the mastering stage, which honestly doesn't bug me in that I would rather take the time to fix it there than wreck a mixdown because I was "too lazy" to go back in the session. I too use Cubase and WaveLab for their respective roles =]

@mixdownonline

24 күн бұрын

Wavelab is great to work with, and like @DerekPower mentions, I would use them separately. Good to know that there's Wavelab users here :-)

I do treat the 2 processes separately. However in my situation in SYNC music I'm faced with all kinds of suggestions sometimes. So I have to have editing, mixes, master up in one session.

@mixdownonline

24 күн бұрын

There you go, a very good reason to master your own music :-)

If I sign up for this and don't use it until next year when I plan finishing mixing my album. Will this course still be valid?

@mixdownonline

24 күн бұрын

Yes, absolutely, if you purchase the course on it's own, it's lifetime access... The exception is the All Access Annual plan is a subscription to all my courses.

@stevebrownmillhill

23 күн бұрын

@@mixdownonline ok thanks .ive went for the yearly package.

Hi Chris, I got your email about the mastering course. What’s the difference between the standard and the pro version?

@mixdownonline

21 күн бұрын

On top of the Mastering course, The Pro version has Production / Mix Walk-through videos of a single I released... Hope that helps

@Marathanz

21 күн бұрын

@@mixdownonline Thanks Chris! I’m going to register for the pro course! 👍🏻

@mixdownonline

21 күн бұрын

@@Marathanz Thanks a lot!

What's one mastering plugin you can't live with out and can live with out

@AVDRE

21 күн бұрын

Black box analog design

2nd try: mixing is like painting a car, mastering is like polishing it.

@mixdownonline

24 күн бұрын

Lol, love it!

If it's the same knowledge, same tools and same set of ears why don't you just master on the master channel in the mix that way you have the ability to solve a problem at the source without effecting other things?

@mixdownonline

22 күн бұрын

It's all about the mindset. When I master I don't mix, I master. It's like when I mix, I don't record, and produce, I mix. So in this case, my mixing session is separate from my production/recording session. This way my brain focuses on that specific task only, which helps productivity, and workflow. Secondly, if I have more than one song to master part of the same project, mastering inside the mix session will not work, cause mastering is also about the relationship between songs from the same project. Hope that helps! :-)

@1loveMusic2003

21 күн бұрын

@@mixdownonline Cool thanks. It's a very weird topic and there are many strong opinions out there as you probably know.

Why on earth would you want to master your own music ? A producer can help you with structuring your arrangement and polish the performance, a recording engineer can help you to get the best recording, a mix engineer can help you get the best possible sonic balanced sound, a mastering engineer can help you getting the best cohesive and loudness. All these engineers communicate with each other, if the recording isn’t good the mix engineer will tell you, if the mix isn’t right the mastering engineer will ask to fix it in the mix before mastering. Everything in a production must be done as best as possible achievable. Great sounding instruments, great musicians delivering their peak performances, great acoustic environment to record, great engineering skills to track with the right equipment, etc, etc, etc… And then after listening to the song for a thousand times we somehow think that song fatigue doesn’t play us part and we still are able to judge our sonic decisions accurately 😂 Even though I’m an airplane builder by profession I still bring my car to a garage to get fixed.

@mixdownonline

24 күн бұрын

I agree, all those music production steps are important, and working with the right people will help for sure, but here's a 2024 reality check...For one, the big majority of music artists, are self produced independent home studio musicians, and producers, who don't have lots of budget, and resources to work with. So my job is to share my 20 year of experience producing, recording, mixing, and mastering professionally, to give the independent home producer the tools, and knowledge to make better sounding music. Secondly, today's technology gives the opportunity to so many home producers to develop themselves, be creative, and produce way more music than before, and the chance to learn about all the steps of music production, and be good at it. And to answer your initial question, just watch my video ;-)

@Studio22mix

23 күн бұрын

@@mixdownonline I understand the points that you mention, people calculate everything in money while the fact is that we’re talking about professionals. If we want to replace them with diy it’s not necessarily cheaper. You don’t pay a professional for their time but for their skills. I think for doing top of the notch masters, recording or mixing you need to invest a lot of time and money. You’ll need a acoustic well tuned room with an on par monitor system to do decent mastering. You can’t fix what you can’t hear right? You can’t do a car check. It’s not that I say that you can’t do masters ‘in house’ but only do it when you’re good and consistent in mixing. Being good at tracking a band took me years of experience, being good at mixing also took me years. I rather have fresh ears of a mastering engineer giving me feedback on my work and noticing stuff I missed out on. Maybe one day I will pickup mastering but then again I wouldn’t want to master my own mixes. My best mixes were done fast and intuitive, before song fatigue kicks in. And believe me song fatigue kicks in faster than we think. My experience is that the longer a song takes, to write, to play, to record, to mix, to make it perfect, the worse it’s going to be.