Due to the high volume of questions on this and other audio forums, I've come across lately, I thought I would take the time to editorialize for a moment on what I’m calling the lie of the new millennium, which is the phrase “we’ll fix that during mastering”. Over the last few decades, before your average musician even knew what the mastering process was all about (and many still don’t), the most common lie we heard from the mouths of engineers and producers was “we’ll fix that during the mix”. Well, we all know that although this statement can be true, it’s often used as an excuse to keep the talent moving along or for the engineer to avoid recording yet another take. Of course with the invention of digital editing “we’ll fix that during the mix” took on a whole new life, being as that one could easily chop, slice, dice and mutilate a "less than stellar" performance until it became usable, thus making the statement somewhat true. However this was only after much effort that could have simply gone into recording another round of takes.

But, I digress. This editorial is not about yesterday’s misguided catch phrase, but about the plague that is upon us today, FDM syndrome (fix during mastering syndrome).

Let’s start off with a brief description of what mastering is, courtesy of ablyproductions.com:

Mastering is where the final dimension of sound quality is brought to a recording. Experienced mastering engineers with specialized audio tools work at bringing each project to its maximum sonic potential.

Mastering is the step between mixdown and manufacturing. In the mastering studio each project is critically evaluated on a high resolution monitoring system. Any deficiency in the sound is then addressed and careful processing is applied to make the project sound bigger, warmer, clearer, punchier, louder, more 3-dimensional, more natural - or whatever may be appropriate to that particular recording. Some processes that might be applied at the mastering stage include:

Dynamic enhancement
Transparent limiting
Equalization Stereo width expansion
Multi-band compression
Dynamic EQ "Tube" warmth
Harmonic enhancement
Track level adjustment
Click, clip, hiss & noise reduction and/or removal

Additionally, mastering is where the final assembly of the album occurs. In this process the project may be edited, songs placed in their proper order, gaps between songs adjusted, fades performed, noises & glitches removed, and so forth. Most importantly, all changes and enhancements in the mastering process are done in close consultation with you, the client, to make sure that the end result that fits your vision of the project.


I will attempt to lay out what I have continually seen as common misconceptions of what mastering is, and how I feel we can put and end to FDM syndrome once and for all.

Misconception #1 - Many mix problems can be fixed during the mastering process.

This is the BIGGEST lie being spoken these days in regards to mastering. Although certain overall mix issues can be helped or controlled during mastering, the only way to truly fix a bad mix is to re-mix or re-record the problematic track. A bad mix is a bad mix, PERIOD. You can’t expect your house painter to fix foundation and framing problems. You can, however, expect him to make your house more presentable.