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As Dirk indicated, the mastering technician used to be the low one on the totem pole, as they were assigned the "grunt work" of "mastering" to deal with the low frequencies on the masters, so that the rumble was eliminated and the needle would stay in the groove. With the advent of digitization, the mastering engineer is now at the top of the heap and performs the vital job of preparing and sequencing (ordering the individual mixes), so they feel as if they fit together seamlessly. While the mastering engineer may not have the final say as to what order songs are placed on an album, it is very important to make sure that transitions and the length of the silent portion between tracks "feels right" If a song ends with a bang, and the next is quiet, it is important to deal with perceived volume levels. Even though the quiet song may be well mixed, it may "feel" too quiet if silence before the second track is not long enough to let the listener's ears settle. And of course we all know that mixes done by different people and on different desks will have coloration differences. The mastering engineer would use EQ and multi band compression to adjust the final stereo mix. sometimes mastering engineers would work on 2 track stems (sub mixes) individually, and then combine them. but mostly mastering is considered to a final polishing of the 2 track.
as for the comment that mastering may not actually be necessary if your original mix was OK, there is some truth to this,. the better the mix, the less work for a mastering engineer, but most successful mixing is done under fairly rigid volume control so as to keep everything"under control", and free of digital clipping, leaving some headroom for the final mastering. this means that the primary mix is too quiet. A survey of Newbie questions will reveal that is the primary "why is this?" question from those discovering the great power of these desk upon which we work. When we monitor our tracks as we mix, the mixing engineer control how loud the monitors send us our ideas. but when all is mixed, said and done, the recording on the stereo track may be too quiet and us amateurs are very disappointed about the wimpy sound we seem to have gotten after all the hard work. the mastering processes, in today's industry, deal first and foremost with this issue. A well balanced mix will almost certainly require some digital volume boost to stand up against other commercial releases. this is the "volume war". If you google this you are probably going to find yourself reading articles or books written by or referring to Bob Katz. He is a writer who seems to be able to explain all this, more technically than I, but imparting a level of understanding.
Mastering is properly done by engineers who know the genre and so through their experience are able to deal with the mixes within a context. Mastering studios are acoustically treated to deliver flat responses, free of standing low-frequency waves. the rooms are generally free of all the recoding gear that creates combing and reflection issues. speaker choice for these rooms would be different than the near reference monitors we all use.
as to the use of the "mastering" library, you are right it does sometimes have radical effect on what you thought was a solid mix. If this happens, go to the DYN and EQ you have inserted to the stereo track's signal chain (when calling up one of the presets) and dialing things back. The presets threshold levels and EQ choices are just starting points.
The one thing the AW does not offer effectively is brickwall limiting. Depending on the genre, brickwall limiting is of the greatest importance to accomplishing a "commercial" sounding final product (Depending on what is the currently accepted "commercial"standard for that genre - ie. no limiting for orchestral to in your face all the time, loud metal mixes). for the type of work most of the people around here do, a gentle approach up to the threshold of the final "maximizing" limiter will give opportunity to get anywhere from 2 to 6 dB boost on the stereo mix, with absolutely no seeming effect (transparency) Push the wall and things seem to happen, but by today's standards this "push" is the glue that seems to hold mixes together. Depending on limiterr release times, mixes can be manipulated to "pump" and "breathe". However, such limiting might most effectively applied pre mastering during the mix, or to stems of say the bass end of the percussion mix, with the compressor on the bass being triggered by the kick drum for Eg. ( the KeyIn button on the DYN page- for the longest time I wonder who the heck is this Kevin guy!)
If you mix with DYN and EQ settings placed on the stereo track, you have to be very careful. the mix begins to sound too good, too soon, on our near field reference monitors. I am very guilty of doing this. Impatience is the culprit, as you have a strong desire to hear what it will/may/could sound like and thus steering your ship away from what it actually does sound like. If you produce mixes that, while not peaking or clipping, leave no headroom, the mastering engineer will have no room to manipulate files to make the final album sound right when listened to as a set, "together". In this age of itunes and downloading does anybody still listen to albums?? Of course they do, but for us guys who tend to produce "singles" the temptation is to have each piece stand on its own, leading to disappointment down the line when we get around to compiling.
Perhaps 60s guy will chime in, as he has compiled the multiple tracks of the Dijonstock Compilation discs on a couple of occasions. I am sure there was a lot of leveling work required to achieve those projects. He did a great job, but listening to the originals side by side would have revealed a daunting task.
Sorry for going on so long. these very questions were at the heart of my jumping upon the learning curve several years ago.
Over and out.
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Byron
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