Repair, Mix and Deliver

The last mile from recording to master — repair, mix, master, stems and loudness

The material exists; the problem is the last step: noise, balance, loudness, format. This path covers the distance between "finished" and "delivered", where judgement matters more than plug-ins.

Who this path is for

For anyone with recordings, stems or generated audio in hand; also for anyone whose work gets called "not quite a finished record". Not for unfinished songs — go back to Writing a Song.

Read these three first

• Introduction to mixing — mixing answers who is heard when, not how to make every instrument sound nice.
• The reference track method — use a finished record as the ruler instead of today's ears.
• Loudness standards and true peak — the hard numbers of delivery; know the target before you touch anything.

What comes next

• Audio restoration — noise, hum and clicks each cost something to remove.
• Mixing order — balance before processing; the right order makes every step cheaper.
• Hearing common mistakes — four symptoms, four kinds of move.
• What mastering is — the last pass after the mix.
• Master delivery formats — format, sample rate, bit depth and headroom.
• Stems delivery — splitting a mix into agreed groups.

What you can skip

Composition, arrangement and orchestration; AI generation and prompting; studio acoustics unless you are recording in one. Repair, mix and master alone will keep you busy for a season.

Common detours

1. Reaching for a mastering plug-in first. Mastering cannot fix frequencies fighting in the mix. 2. EQ and compression on every track. The more you move, the less you can hear what is wrong. 3. Judging only on headphones, or treating loudness as quality. Check on three systems before deciding.