I’ve talked before about how important it is to compare your mixes to other mixes that already sound good. Mixing in isolation is a bad idea. You get instant perspective on your mix when you bring in a track and listen back and forth.
But I seem to get a related question a lot: “Should still I reference my mixes to other tracks that are already mastered? Isn’t that a problem?” The answer is no, its not a problem. Rather it’s the best thing you could do!
Via Seongbin Im Flickr
Mastered Tracks Are The Standard
Simply put, mastered tracks are what people listen to, not unmastered mixes. So honestly it would be rare for you to find great sounding mixes that haven’t been mastered to use as your reference tracks. Mastered tracks are what actually make it out into the world and it’s what people listen to. Therefore these should be your benchmark, your standard.
They are a standard for two reasons. First of all they should translate well onto almost any speaker situation. Second, they have usually been “signed off” by a few different professionals as being rock solid in terms of balance and clarity. This means, by comparing your mixes to mastered tracks you will learn a lot about your speakers, your room, and your ears. You’ll want to do whatever you can to make your mixes more closely match those masters.
Mastered Tracks Aren’t Drastically Different Than Final Mixes
Despite what some people on the internet might lead you to believe, mastering engineers aren’t magicians. They don’t take OK mixes and turn them into chart topping masters. Rather they finalize a great set of mixes to work well together as a cohesive album or EP, make any EQ balance decisions needed, and get the volume up to commercial levels. Translation, the goal of mastering isn’t to change the sound of the mix, it’s to put the final coat of polish on and ship it out the door.
No offense to the great mastering engineers of the world, but when you hear a great track that you like, you’re not “hearing” the mastering. Rather you’re hearing the performance, the recording, and the mixing. Those three things account for 95% of the sound (in my very technical opinion). This is important for you to understand, because when using a mastered track as a reference, you’re really just hearing a great mix. No need to worry that somehow you’ll never compete with it because it has been mastered. That’s silly.
How To Do This Practically
OK, so you need to do a couple of things practically when referencing mastered tracks. Why? For one, if you are doing your job right as a mixer, these mastered tracks should be a whole heck of a lot louder than your mix. Since your goal in mixing isn’t to make the loudest track possible, simply import your reference master(s) into your DAW on a stereo track and turn the fader down till it’s output matches that of your mix. Be careful to route the master directly to your speakers and not through the same mix buss as your mix, with all of your plugins.
With your reference at the same volume as your mix, you’ll no longer be thrown for a loop by loudness. Rather you’ll be able to listen to the EQ balance, the volume of kick drum to snare drum, to vocal, etc. You’ll really be able to compare apples to apples, your mix to theirs. This is where you can really get some help for your mix. The goal here is to “trust” the mastered reference and train your ears.
Make The Best Mix Possible
In the end, your goal really should be to make the absolute best mix possible. If you just mix in isolation you’ll have no standard but your own. If you set a professionally mastered track as your standard you’ll force yourself to rise to the challenge and deliver a mix that sound as good or better than a mastered track. Only difference? It won’t be as loud. Which is totally fine since that’s what mastering is partly for anyway.
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My name is Graham Cochrane and I'm the founder of The Recording Revolution, one of the world's most loved audio recording and mixing blogs with over 200,000 readers each month. 
While I agree that one should reference mastered mixes, there must be at least one thing pointed out that wasn’t mentioned. You can compare a lot of things, but you can’t compare compression as it relates to the crest factor. The crest factor of a mastered mix (the difference between the peak level and RMS level) is much lower than what your mix should be.
In other words, if you have as much compression/limiting going on in your mix as there is on the master, so that the crest factors are the same, then when the ME goes to raise the level of your mix, one of three things will happen: Your mix won’t be as loud as the reference because it couldn’t be pushed as far, or if it is pushed as far, your mix will have a lower crest factor than the reference, risking inversion, or the ME will give the mix back and tell you to correct it.
Hey graham, me again, I had some other question about this. I think I only had in mind that there might be a problem in the first place because of the Craig Anderson video you posted a few weeks back.
About a minute and 15 second in, he talks about how a mastering engineed is like an alchemist, turning lead into gold, and he talk in relation to someone ‘faux’ mastering a mix, and how it’s the worst kind of mastering he has to do, fixing it and the like.
So how would you, or rath, what would you want to AVOID so you have just a good mix, and not an alright mix with pseudo-mastering done on it? I think the poster above touched on this a bit with crest factors and the like.
When I think of pseudo-mastering, I think of people who put a limiter on the master bus and mix and “master” all at the same time (which doesn’t take into account the myriad of other things that should actually happen during the mastering stage that won’t because of this). What I’m saying you can’t do is compare compression in the mastered reference to the compression in your mix…to make your entire mix sound as if it’s been mastered, but just at the lower level of a mix, then when you use a limiter to raise the level, you risk crushing it to death.
A great way to learn to avoid this is to a) read Bob Katz’s Mastering Audio (and read it as many times as it takes for you to actually understand it), b) read Zen and the Art of Mixing by Mixerman, especially the section on mix bus compression, and c) learn how to throw a limiter on your mix to check what it would sound like with the limiter on (so long as you know how to properly set your limiter’s settings, especially the release setting) and get your mix sounding great with it both on and off…just don’t leave it on. Lastly, if you can find an ME who is willing to work with you to help you understand how to best do this, that’s also extremely helpful.
Agreed.
Yeah, like the Ryan said, the big idea is that you don’t want to mix with a limiter on. Wrote about that here: http://therecordingrevolution.com/2011/09/12/should-you-mix-with-a-limiter/
Only thing I’ll add is obvious to most, but should still be said….
Make sure the track you are comparing your mix to is in the same ball-park genre-wise.
Not much point using Megadeath as a reference if you’re mixing Miles Davis.
I always ask clients to bring a ref CD with them.
Hey Graham,
Since the mix wont be as loud until mastering, what volume should my output be peaking at when mixing?
I usually have it peaking around -10db or so. Check out this video for how I do this process: http://therecordingrevolution.com/2011/05/01/5-minutes-to-a-better-mix-proper-gain-staging-part-1-of-31/
Hi Graham, I’m from Peru and glad to know about your website where I can send my doubts and questions about mixing and mastering.
I’m found in a little trouble about final mastering by burning my wave file onto CD. The first impress I’ve got was my audio CD is still too low. let me to tell you what I did on mastering process.
1. I’m mixing in Logic Pro 9 and My final mix gets a RMS level about -15dbFS , according a professional engineers’s book as a proper level for a mastering session. it’s worth saying, I used a proper Mix bus compression in my mixing session (API 2500 with this setting:
Threshold: -2.0
Attack: 10 or 30 ms
ratio: 1.5
Release: 0.11
Tone-Knee: Med
Thrust: Normal
Type: old
Link-LR link: 50
Output: according gain reduction about -2.0
That’s is in my Mix-bus compression not exceeding a gain reduction about -2dBFS, in order to get a natural sound and not a squashed final mix.
2. In this point, I wanted to know when exporting final mix to disk (or bounce to disk) it must be done without normalization, dithering off and high bits resolution, in my case 24bits.
3. now, when i start mastering, the plugins i get use to use is: Brainworx Hibrid 2.0 Stereo (if needed), Slate Digital FX, a waves limiter L1, and here it come first question, should i use a dither plugin?
I tell you this, because I’ve burned an audio Cd recently and what i got was a too low audio level, in spite to take into consideration (reference a mastered track) RMS level such as: -7dBFS as a final master without dither plugin.
Besides, in Logic pro 9 when I finish mastering process (without dithering), I know it’s necessary to export to disk (or bounce) again, right? so, when exporting I see and option “bits” I mean, 24,16 bits resolution…. My next question is: Should I export (or bounce to disk) on 24 bits or 16 bits resolution by finishing mastering?
summing up everything.
1. should i use a dither plugin on mastering as a final insert?
2. If I use a dither plugin, Should I export (or bounce to disk) on 24 bits or 16 bits resolution by finishing mastering?
3. how should I burn my mastered file into CD? MP3 16 bits resolution, MP3 24 bits resolution, or wave 16 bits resolution?
Thanks so much for your quick reply, wishing you the best of the best and God Bless you.
Hi Isai, glad to have you on the site. Here are my thoughts:
1 and 2. If you plan on rendering your master to an audio file in Logic and THEN exporting that file with dither (Pro Tools does this automatically) then DON’T dither on the master fader insert since it will get dithered on the export. If however you can simply render the master OUT of Logic to say your desktop, then YES put a dither plugin on the end of your chain. Just make sure it only dithers once, and does it at 16bit since that’s the format you are exporting to.
3. Redbook CD standard is a 16 bit WAVE file. That is the final resolution you want for CD.
Also, in my mind -15db RMS is a pretty quiet master. It depends on the genre of course but I like to master closer to -8db RMS. Might be why you track sounds low compared to others.
Hi Graham, I’m Glad to have a quick reply from you.
Now I’m going to put into practice your advice, and I’m gonna master my files into Protools as well, taking into consideration all what you’ wrote to me.
But just one thing is what i want to let you to know;
first: My final mix gets a -15 or -14dB RMS level; and
Second:my final mastered file gets a -8 or even -7dB RMS level.
But as I told you before, maybe I made a mistake about dithering and burning into CD, because the last time I’ve burned into CD, it was done in MP3 file (16 bits) and not in WAVE file (16 bits); that’s why the reason I wrote asking your advice and expertise.
Even so, I’m still learning and willing to receive all the advice, suggestion possible coming from you.
Thanks so much again and God continue blessing your life.
Makes sense. I misunderstood you that it was your final MIX that was so quiet, not the master. Good luck!
Great article, here’s a few things I do:
Have quite a few different references in the same type of genre.
Cut the reference to 2/4 bars and loop it, this saves space and focuses on one part of the ref without having to seek through it.
Try to get a .wav of the ref and not trying to compare against something of less quality but I do use some mp3 but only if its the highest quality.
Try and make it switch quickly between mix and ref in my DAW and save as a template.
Compare mix to ref on other monitoring, like headphones, laptop speakers, desktop pc speakers, mono speaker, ipod ect…
Compare on spectrum analysers (not all genres require a spirit level and ruler) & on phase (stereo meter). I try to avoid oscilloscope type for referencing as the mix wont look as squashed.
Great way to get used to monitors you’ve never mixed on or if you need some new ones and you can test them out first.
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Hi Graham,
Hope you won’t mind offering your advice on this issue. I followed the instructions to your article, imported the mastered reference track to my DAW, lowered the volume approx. to -5/-6 dB so it matches the peak volume of my own mix. I managed to get close to the clarity, but my mix isn’t as loud as the mastered reference and it isn’t quite as punchy with low end warmth. I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong or how I can further match the volume so that my mix will sound as loud as the mastered reference at -6 dB. I also noticed that on parts of the reference where there is only a single rock gtr playing with nothing else, it hits the max -6 dB level, but on the single guitar playing parts on my mix, they play at a much lower level. If I raise the volume of those parts, my entire mix goes over the -6 db limit. Could you please explain if the volume difference is due to some compression/limiter that was applied during the mastering process?
Thank you for the help! It is much appreciated!
Hi JT – it will never match perfectly. The mastered track has a reduced dynamic range due to limiting/compression – The idea is to get them to a close average volume (use our ears as best you can) and then compare tonal issues there.
Sample Magic AB is a very nifty tool that can help — and periodically goes on sale.
Russ @ ProToolsExpert has a good overview vid:
Graham, sorry about the youtube embed. I just had the link in text and didn’t realize it would auto embed.
Hi Graham and thank you so much for the reply!
Hope you won’t mind answering one more brief question. How would I be able to boost the volume of a snare or kick track a lot without causing the over all mix to spike. I have a lot of snare samples and drum vsts that almost peak at 0 db, yet are very low in sound and volume. I tried using a limiter but it reduces the quality of the sound of the snare. I was going to try multiple layers of gradual compression but am worried that it might squash the sound and further compression in the mixbus would ruin it further.
Thank you very much for your help!
You can put a light compressor on the master fader to catch any loud peaks from kick and snare hits. But it’s generally those two things that make the mix peak the most. Kind of unavoidable.
Since this guy is over-generalizing so hard with his gain staging to a degree that it’s making me sick, especially because he created such a big following with misleading information like this, I feel obliged to post some other perspective here:
http://modernmixing.com/blog/2014/06/07/why-you-shouldnt-care-digital-clipping/
Also, this:
Gregor – love this video (seen it before) so thanks for sharing. But the infinite headroom in the DAW is irrelevant when you actually come out of your converters. So yes, you would need to pull the master fader down and get rid of the distortion at some point. That’s what I mean when I say don’t clip.