If my previous article was too long for you (here) then this one should be pretty short and sweet. The mastering engineer is responsible for making the final mix sound as sonically impactful as possible, ensure there are no audio errors, add album information, and prepare the file for final pressing. However they can only do the best job if the mix they have is good to begin with. If you throw them a mix of say, a rock band recorded in a garage with 4 mics and clipped files, they can’t do much with it.

I think a good analogy would be an article you might read in a magazine. An author can write an article about mastering and deliver it to the publisher via a text document. Then the editor physically arranges the text on the page, applies the proper fonts, maybe adds some inline quote boxes, and dresses it with photos and such. Could you imagine if the author delivered the article filled with grammatical mistakes and spelling errors? That’s how mixing and mastering works.

TagsMixing, Mastering, Mixing vs. Mastering