Q&A
Are mixing and mastering the same thing?
Dec 5, 2025
No, mixing and mastering are two distinct stages in music production. Mixing focuses on balancing and refining individual tracks within your song, adjusting levels, EQ, compression, and effects for each instrument to create a cohesive composition. Mastering comes after mixing and works on the final stereo mix as a whole, ensuring it sounds polished, consistent, and ready for distribution across all playback systems. Think of mixing as sculpting each element of your track, while mastering is the final polish that makes your song sound professional and competitive with commercial releases.
Understanding the difference between mixing and mastering is crucial, but applying those skills takes practice and feedback. At Futureproof Music School, you can upload your mixes to Kadence (Futureproof's AI music coach) for instant analysis of balance, EQ, compression, and arrangement, plus get personalized guidance from Futureproof Mentors to refine both your mixing and mastering techniques.
Should I mix my track into a limiter or leave headroom for mastering?
Leave around 3-6 dB of headroom when mixing, which means your peaks should hit around -6 dB to -3 dB maximum. This gives your mastering engineer (or yourself during mastering) enough dynamic range to work with compression and limiting effectively without causing distortion.
Can I use mastering plugins like Ozone while I'm still mixing?
You can use mastering plugins on a reference track for A/B comparison, but keep them off your master channel during the actual mixing process. Mixing into mastering processing will mask problems in your mix and make it harder to make accurate decisions about balance and EQ.
What's the minimum gap I should take between finishing my mix and starting to master?
Take at least 24 hours away from your mix before mastering, though 2-3 days is even better. Fresh ears help you catch mix issues you might have missed and prevent you from trying to fix mixing problems during the mastering stage, which rarely works well.