Mixing vs. Mastering questions

[DeeJay1657]

Im a noobie so please excuse my ignorance.

Whats the difference between mixing and mastering?

Can you mix a song without mastering it?

What is the purpose of mixing and mastering?

Do you always have to master if your mix is good?

[yur2die4]

I'm probably not the most qualified to answer this but,

I think that mixing is probably making sure that all the ideal elements sound in place at the right times and are eq'ed/panned properly individually to meet the whole. Also that they all play well together. Also making sure nothing stands out in a horrible way.

The mastering is taking that final mix idea and then bringing it closer to a standard based on what it's intended for. If an album, kinda minding the context and making it friendly with the accompanying tracks. If it's for a top 40 hit, making sure it's very loud and clear.

It's probably like cleaning your room.

You'll arrange it first. (Arranging)
Then you'll declutter and make it nice to come home to. (Mixing)
When you have a cute visitor, you'll go through and spot-clean to impress them. (Mastering)

[Tarekith]

To me mixing is about making sure all of the elements of the song work together, there's no sonic issues (as opposed to arranging for instance), and that it's sounding well balanced overall. Mastering is when you get someone else with more experience to double-check the overall all sound of the song and tweak anything that you might have missed.

If you're not going to have someone else master your song, then no, you absolutely do not need to worry about this. Focus on the mixdown and just use a limiter or normalizing to boost the volume at the end.

Just my $.02 though, I admit I'm biased