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Sonya Glaessner
I was fortunate enough to watch Mark Christensen mastering an album for the artist Maxim in the mastering room of Engine Room Audio. From a mastering stand point, I really gained a crucial understanding of the importance of a well done mix. It is true that mastering isn't meant to fix something that is broken. For example, if a woman were to enter a mall to go and get her make up done, she would see a make up artist. It would be up to the make up artist to highlight the woman's features with special effects, products, etc. However, if this woman asked the make up artist to make her nose smaller, or the wrinkles on her forehead disappear, there is really only so much the make up artist could do. Make up artists aren't plastic surgeons and it isn't within their job description to physically alter this woman's face, but rather to enhance the features she already has. Mixing and mastering work in a very similar capacity. It is up to the mixing engineer to provide the mastering engineer with a solid, well formed mix so the mastering engineer can enhance the effects and overall sound they've already been given. In the case of Maxim, the mixes were done well so Mark was able to simply pull up some references of other material Maxim had done in order to get his mastering as close to Maxim's other music as he could. However, in comparison to some of the other mastering sessions I've witnessed, this one was a breeze. As one of the leading mastering engineers, Mark gets a variety of projects every day. Unfortunately, not all of the mixes he receives are in the condition they should be. This makes the mastering engineer's job far more difficult! If a mix is have phase problems, the mastering engineer is not able to fix those. He can merely disguise the phasing issue as best as he can. This is a real shame considering the mastering engineer has to put his name on this song as well, regardless of whether or not the mix sucks.
