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Originally Posted by jamsmith  I am a little hazing on the "don't compare your mix to a mastered one?" If that is supposed to mean don't try to replicate the mastering processes during the mix, I hear that. To me that is almost like saying make your mixes suck so we can fix it. I have heard testimony of legendary MEs tell of great engineers who required very little tweaking during mastering. As an engineer, I have been proud of some stuff I have had released with no mastering at all (yes, and vice versa!) which indicates that much of the required result CAN be done with a mix. And how do we recording engineer achieve that result? Those of us not blessed with magic ears generally have a CD of similar material commercially released for comparison.
Now I fully agree that a mix engineer should be creating a mix that is proper for the mastering stage. But delivering a mix with proper dynamics and eq to a matering engineer is a crime?
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OK, for all those who missed the in-joke, this was only meant as a reference to the ever growing trend of sending in for mastering mixes that are as loud or louder than the loudest current loud big seller release. In other words: in the context of the Loudness War!
This wouldn't be a problem if those mixes were great and didn't need anything else done to them. Unfortunately, these would also be the mixes that would need quite a lot of help, but due to the excessive squashing and distortion would totally tie the hands of the mastering engineer...
Obviously comparing mixes to similar material commercially released can be a good thing and a useful learning tool the same way as using reference CDs for mastering can be useful. Great mastering always starts from great mixes. Squashed mixes just for levels sake is not a good start in the right direction...