The game audio industry has significantly grown in popularity along with the advances in technology and with the Xbox and PSP generation. The games creators and developers are in constant search of the perfect mix for their games in order to provide a complete and unabridged experience for the fans of video games, which is quite the target audience. Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between great online mixing engineers, since the Internet sector of this industry is clearly the future of it, and not so great ones. The difficulty comes from the fact that there aren’t many companies that offer a great deal of information on the actual mix engineers who are working on your Game audio. And if you think about it, is very important for the online mixing professional, hopefully he is an experienced professional, to have an open communication channel towards you, in order to agree on the vision and direction of the mix. Only then will you have high chances of getting a close to perfect mix for your game.
Furthermore, there seems to be a great deal of confusion between the terms mixing and mastering, which are often used with the same meaning. But professional studios, such as Audioshapers for example, will make a clear distinction between the two processes. They both work as an enhancer on the quality of audio pieces, but they are successive to one another. Mixing must always be done before mastering. Online mixing is made up of a series of actions that have the goal of balancing the constitutive parts of a song or musical piece, such as instruments or vocals, which are recorded separately. The final version should harmoniously encompass all the fragments and sounds into a somewhat perfect mix. This is the stage of effects, such as panning, equalization, saturation, delays, reverbs, auto tuners and many others. Experienced sound engineers and studios, like the Audioshapers mentioned above, will have the proper equipment and skills to deliver a natural, equalized end product to fit any game audio system.
The mastering process takes place after the musical piece has been mixed. It is the polishing phase of the entire course of action. Mastering is aimed to add a certain vitality and personality to the audio. This is where the experience of the engineers is put to use, as they are required to equalize the musical notes and produce a clear outcome. They also need to master specific techniques, such as equalization, limiting, stereo separation, compression and so on. While mixing is about attributing specific frequencies to certain elements in the audio, mastering is about leveling all those frequencies.
In conclusion, a good online editing studio, such as Audioshapers, must be able to provide high quality of both services in order to ensure a commercial success for your game audio. Mixing and mastering go hand in hand and you can’t enjoy the benefits of one without the other. Therefore, make sure you choose he right studio, with professional engineers and experience in working with music for video games.