Beat Tape question for all of you

[marcus]

i know a lot of you guys release beat tapes, and i had a question regarding mixing and mastering. how much time do you put in to the mixing and mastering process? is the idea to just put out music pretty much directly from the SP (or mpc in some cases), or do you guys take the time to mix/master before you release them? just curious.

[vingthorthehurler]

I always take my time to mix the best that I can do my tracks... sometimes the mixing process it is longer than the production it self... I'm the kind of person who listen the tracks several times after mixing before send it to master... I learned that the best way to get a good master is letting somebody else do the master for you... in my case I have my DJ who has a good knowledge about mastering so he is like my right hand in all my works... but if you can't afford a mastering or you don't know who can help you with that then you can do your own mastering of course... but mixing and mastering are very important... just as the sample selection and production process.

[marcus]

no doubt. its just that sometimes the beat tapes one here (which i almost always enjoy) seem to vary. some sound grimey & un-mixed and some sound very lean and crisp.
thanks for the response

[cartesia]

I like the lofi.. although in the context of a mix/beat tape, i'd spend at least a little time balancing each track so that it had a vaguely similar frequency spread... even just like a 3band dj mixer eq on each track