In, out and shake it all about

R

robbysaudio

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Open to endless argument and debate; mastering and the age of mastering plug-ins have changed the way we work as home recordists. When I had a stand-alone software package you had to get a stereo mix before you could use it. These days, probably because it’s an easy fix, I find I pop one on the insert of the stereo outs fairly early and even though I bypass it when I feel I should ‘get the mix right first’, I still find myself jumping between the two and tailoring both general mix and mastering elements as I go. What are your thoughts?
 
Previewing 'mastering' stages before the mix is finished.

A lot of people do it.
It's no different to the go back and redo it vs fix it in the mix debate in some ways.
If you're neglecting to do things properly at the mixing stage because your mastering plugin can/will 'fix' it, then I don't think that's good at all.

If, on the other hand, you want to throw on a safe/predictable master comp or limiter to see how your mix is holds up under it at various stages, I don't see the problem.
It's probably a good idea if commercial radio volume is a concern.

I generally do it at the landmarks where I want to share the mix with someone.
I'll pop on a conservative limiter, do a few quick reference-track checks and maybe make some subtle master eq changes, then bounce.
That said, I take something away from it. If I felt eq was needed at that stage, I remove it from the master and return to the mix with that in mind.
I suppose it's like a bit of a mid-way reality check.
 
I will do that with compression and limiting, but I won't put EQ on the mix bus. I mostly have it turned off while I mix, and then just turn it on to make sure it doesn't fall apart. I always mix the song out with it turned off.
 
I guess only having worked with modern DAWs, I was unaware how the older ones worked.
 
DM60 said:
I guess only having worked with modern DAWs, I was unaware how the older ones worked.
Click to expand...

It isn't the DAWs, it's the mastering programs (that he is referring to) that were different. They were stand alone and didn't work in the DAW environment. It forced you to render a mix and then run it though the mastering program. Most of the all-in-one mastering solutions were kind of half assed, but back when mastering was more of a black art, people bought into it.
 
Didn't we just talk about this on another thread? I'll slap my master chain on at some point later in the mix and kind of finish things up pushing into it. There's a couple EQs in there, but they are basically pre-emphasis and de-emphasis around the compressor.

If I'm doing an album. I tear all of this off when I'm done and render to 32 bit fp so I don't have to worry where the peaks actually land. Then I bring it up in a new project with all the other pieces it need to live with and add individual EQ to each and sometimes some "color" EQ on the master bus, which has something close to my same default chain.

Otherwise I just render it and go.
 
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