What a Mastering Engineer Wishes You Knew About Mixing
After hearing thousands of mix submissions, patterns emerge.
Certain things make mastering easy and the result great. Certain things make mastering difficult and limit how good the final product can be. This is the honest list — from the mastering engineer’s perspective.
No limiter on the master bus. Ever.
This is the single most important thing. A limiter on the mix bus permanently removes dynamic headroom from the file. What arrives at mastering is a compressed, limited signal with nowhere to go. The mastering engineer cannot add back what was removed. Send the mix without limiting, with peak levels between -3 and -6dBFS.
Let the mix breathe
A mix that has been over-compressed — on individual tracks, on buses, on the master — arrives sounding flat and lifeless. There’s very little a mastering engineer can do with a mix that has no dynamic range. The compressors have already done all the work. Mastering then becomes about limiting volume rather than shaping sound.
A dynamic mix — where the chorus feels noticeably more energetic than the verse, where the drums have genuine impact — arrives with energy that mastering can amplify and refine.
Fix problems in the mix, not at mastering
A vocal that is too loud in the chorus. A boomy bass that dominates the low end. A harsh resonance at 3kHz. These problems can be partially addressed at mastering with broad EQ. But they cannot be surgically corrected. The EQ curve affects the entire mix, not just the problematic element.
Fix them in the mix, where individual tracks are still accessible.
Clean editing matters
A click at a punch-in point. Noise in the silence between phrases. An artifact from editing that wasn’t noticed at mix time. These cannot be removed at mastering without affecting the surrounding audio. Clean the session before you mix it.
The mono check
Before sending any mix to mastering, check it in mono. If the low end loses significant level or becomes hollow, there are phase problems in the bass frequencies. If the vocal suddenly seems louder or quieter, there are stereo inconsistencies. Fix these before bouncing the final file.
Leave notes
Tell the mastering engineer what the reference should be — another track in a similar genre, or your own description of how you want it to feel. Tell them if there’s something specific you’re not sure about. Communication makes the result better.
Jacob Korn at tailout.de is available to answer questions before you send your mix. A short email conversation before the session often saves revision time and produces a better result.
Ready to send your mix? Visit tailout.de — professional mastering with honest communication and real analog warmth.