The final mastering is preceded by a musical mixing. Mix is an art that combines individual pieces of music tracks, so as to complement each other and to form one single unity, which is something more than just the sum of individual tracks. Each piece of music tracks should be shaped and sculptured using processors, to provide the best of the whole sound.
However, the common mistake is following the desire to obtain such an effect, that each of the tracks sound just as powerful as possible. When playing all the tracks such treatment leads to mutual extinction in the frequency, loss of level and the whole mix sound flat and lifeless...

Properly constructing the sound of tracks  making up the mix of a song using equalization and compression is just as important as the choice of palette of colors used by the painter while he is painting the picture. A true master never painted over contrasted  works, sometimes deliberately use the somewhat fuzzy contours, soft lines, dark shades of light. Similarly is with the sound of the song. Not necessarily all, which is very strongly contrasted or very clear is musically good-most often human ear is more likely to assimilate sounds, which are complementary to each other in sonic spectrum and dynamics than those that are competing against each other, trying to be very up front, loud and bright...

For those who want more detailed, technical knowledge on the use of equalizers in the mix here are the little secrets and terminology from the studio kitchen. After applying them your mix will be much better. At the beginning let's get familiar with the technical jargon used in equalizers. A typical parametric equalizer has the ability to choose the 3 parameters for each of its filters...

The compressor is a device used to control the spread of dynamic range of recordings. It's name suggests compression and so it is. It is like the equivalent of an automatic sound engineer, who slightly turns down the level of the recording, when it begins to overdrive the recording device, and turns it up when very quiet sounds are poorly audible. It improves the overall sound of recordings. A typical compressor has 5-knob regulators: Threshold, Ratio, Attack, Release,  Gain Make Up...

Originally recordings in studios were performed through the microphone quite remote from the sound source. The microphone, like the human ear picked up the sound waves reflected from the walls of this room, and enrolled much of the natural reverb of a studio to tape. The effect was even more pronounced, when the sound engineers began to use several microphones, respectively mixed with each other, this way of recording could produce even better results. For example, the studio of famous label Tamla Motown in Detroit, recording such great soul and funk artists as Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Jackson Five, The Supremes with Diana Ross, Wilson Pickett and many, many others has mastered the sound of rhythmic section perfectly - Drums and bass... 

The monitoring system in the studio is the same thing for sound engineer as eyes and lighting for  an artist painting a picture. It is the most important element of his equipment, because the decisions he makes are made on the basis of what he hears out of the system. If the monitors are in any way underdeveloped, faulty, dull or too bright they will not be able to faithfully present the situation in a mix or master, they will not present the sound engineer what is going on in sound, and the sound engineer will take the wrong decisions...

What is the synthesizer? Synthesizer is an electronic musical instrument, which includes various modules, such as oscillators, filters, amplifiers controlling voltage (voltage control amplifiers), which are used to produce sounds impossible to obtain by traditional instruments.
The word "synthesizer" is derived from the word "synthesis". And that word means joining various elements into one thing. Synthesizer  contains just 3 the most basic modules: a module that produces sound, that is oscillator; module that is used to control the sound in the musical way, ie keyboard; and the module that filters and processes the sound to change it's nature. An important element of synthesizer's structure is so called Envelope Amplifier, which allows you to set different characteristics for attack and decay of sound as well as the Envelope Filter, which can change the characteristics of filter actions depending on the time...

Moog remedied the problem of huge quantities of cables by the use of permanent connections between the modules and large-scale switches, through which  similarly large number of combinations could be obtained, just like using cables. This allowed the extensive use of synthesizers during live performances like concerts. The synthesizers became smaller, easier to program and portable. 
Another very important synthesizer-sampler opening new horizons in the development of music is Emu Emulator. Emu in the early Seventies, was a company that produced modular synthesizers. However, Dave Rossum, founder of Emu Systems, completely changed its approach when he first saw Fairlight CMI in 1980 (...)
Another important step in the history of synthesizer is Yamaha DX7, released in 1983 

Is the arrangement important and actually what does it mean? After all, why to care about it when we already have recorded a good composition and it sounds great? And how the arrangement looks like on famous, world-class musicians albums?

This article will answer these questions and will give you many suggestions as how to achieve a great sound by arrangement alone.