Stereo imaging is one of those aspects of mastering that contributes to the perception that mastering is some kind of “dark art.” It’s crucial - wide masters are lively and engrossing - but easy to screw up. Pushing too hard on some stereo imaging or width-enhancing plugins can hollow out a mix and mess with phase relationships, making for terrible translation, especially when mono folddown is a factor.

When you compare the record you made in your bedroom or studio to a major-label release, you’re not really comparing one mix to another mix. You’re comparing your work to an entire production system.

There’s a line of thinking among people with opinions about music production that gain staging is basically a moot concern. The reasoning goes something like this: modern DAWs use floating-point math in their internal mixers, making it really hard to clip a channel or a bus by pushing signal over 0 dBFS. Compared to overdriving a tape machine or clipping a converter, the risk of “too-hot” signal ain’t what it used to be in the days of analog recording, or even the “bronze age” of digital production.