Michael Romanowski (America, Third Eye Blind)

Michael Romanowski is a Grammy-nominated mastering engineer and the owner of Coast Mastering. He is also co-founder of the tape-based label, The Tape Project. In addition to his extensive mastering credits, Romanowski is also a pioneer in the work of immersive audio, and Immersive Mastering. He is a current Trustee for the Recording Academy, a member of the P&E Advisory Council, and a member of the AES Technical committee.

What advice do you have for aspiring mixers and producers working on the mix of a song?

One of the suggestions I would make is for when engineers want to compare their mix to something the client likes, or some other bar of reference for them, turn down the volume of the compared track to match that of the reference mix instead of compressing the mix to turn it up to match the released and mastered song.

This puts unneeded compression on the track that then restricts the ability of the mastering engineer to achieve the best results.

Many times the artist then approves the mix with the compression and limiting that is only there for loudness and not artistic reasons. And then the mastering engineer is limited in their ability to take the song further.

A related suggestion is to use very little processing, or even none, on the master buss. One should have their sounds well in place before hitting the master output. Never start a mix through a preset master buss chain.