If you are more less recording and mixing in the dark ages on computers.

[nonreversebird]

Well after coming to this forum and reading and taking what people say and try to fix my mixes I have made a lot of progress. Number one I found that to mix to a computer with a Creative labs Sound Blaster live Platinum is an abslolute no go. I was really doing this for convenience. So I recently lowered a bunch of levels in my songs and remixed to a computer with a Digital Audio Labs CardDeluxe. Now I feel like I am in the game. I mixed at low levels through some low cost powered speakers connected to the computer with the CardDeluxe. Fortunately the speakers had a headphone jack on them which I found excellent. So now after many hours I am getting almost happy about my mixes. I Normalized them to -6db loudness in SoundForge and enhanced the brightness and converted them to 256kb mp3z on my site in my sig. If anyone is curious check it out and tell me if I am getting close to being able to master the music. I have seperate files at or below -6db for mastering incidentely. Should I go ahead and add the enhance process to these mixes before mastering or will the ME take care of brightening it up, among what everelse I am hoping to hear?

 

[masteringhouse]

Should I go ahead and add the enhance process to these mixes before mastering or will the ME take care of brightening it up, among what everelse I am hoping to hear?

Try to process the audio the least amount possible. Nearly every processing stage adds artifiacts and various forms of non-linear distortion that cannot be reversed. Also, you may be adding something that the ME feels he may need to re-do or change, so it will require twice the amount of processing. Just make the best "naked" mix possible and leave the rest for the mastering stage.

 

[giraffe]

here's what is possibly a stupid question:

i mix in a daw, is it better to remove the plug-ins i have over the stereo bus
then to bypass them? (when sending to a master)

L2 n some eq for when i spit roughs

 

[masteringhouse]

here's what is possibly a stupid question:

i mix in a daw, is it better to remove the plug-ins i have over the stereo bus
then to bypass them? (when sending to a master)

L2 n some eq for when i spit roughs

Not a stupid question at all. The answer depends on how the software was engineered. There may be some bus processing being done while the plug-in is inserted even if it is bypassed, though it probably isn't very audible. For the sake of any doubt, I would remove any plugs to be sure.