Commitment
A funny thing happens at the end of an album project.
After months of listening to individual tracks, checking out rough mixes, and obsessing over a thousand musical details, there comes a time for the “c” word: Commitment!
With album production, this means two things: mixing and mastering.
Mixing is the process by which all the individual instrument and vocal tracks are merged (and thereby committed) into a single stereo audio file. Prior to mixing, we typically have 25-50 (or more) individual audio tracks in a completed session, and each song holds infinite potential. Each track has its own charm, and in our minds anything is possible for the end result. Once mixing starts, however, every part needs to be weighed against the song’s ”big picture” and its desired impact. As you can imagine, many discussions ensue! For example:
“That cool guitar riff on the second verse is amazing, but it gets in the way of the vocal so maybe we should mute it…” or,
“Those richly layered third-chorus backing vocals might not have the right emotion in the final mix — so maybe we should only use half of those tracks…” or,
“That tasty drum fill we want to make louder could cause the following section of the song to feel small by comparison...”
And so on.
Perspective, objectivity, and judgment reign supreme in the creation of a good mix, and my co-producer Thom is a master at focusing on the big picture! Although each song took several iterations to go from first draft to final mix, Thom’s wisdom carried the day and my inputs were just minor balance requests and clean-ups. Once all the songs were mixed, Thom and I lived with them for a couple of weeks, listening on different playback systems in the studio, at home, on the hiking trail, and of course in the car!
With mixing complete, it’s time for mastering — the final step in the creative process, and first step in the production process. Mastering involves final sonic adjustments (EQ, compression, limiting, etc) to make each song sound its best, and creation of production masters for each release format. For An Ape’s Progress, this meant standard and “Apple Digital Master” files for online distribution (downloads and streaming), plus a special “DDP” file set for manufacturing of a Compact Disc glass master at the pressing plant. We completed mastering with Adam Ayan at Gateway Mastering in Portland, Maine back in April — four months before our planned album release. Normally, Thom and I would have attended the mastering session in person, but that wasn’t an option due to the pandemic. So we delivered our mixes to Adam via internet, and received his reference master files for review the next day. After a few weeks of sweating all the technical details and sonic commitments involved — the masters were finalized, and we were ready to prepare for release!
With mixing and mastering complete, an album is fully committed. Since that final master goes out worldwide for distribution on iTunes, streaming, and physical releases (like our deluxe-edition CD), you’ve gotta make sure it’s right! Commitment has been made. Time to finally let go.
In the words of the late, great Neil Peart, “A work of art is never truly completed — merely abandoned!”
Thanx for reading.
-Pawlie.
Proud American — Stereo Waveform of Final Mastered Audio File