[DrFord]

Something else I have heard mentioned in this forum is bit bottlenecking, which if I understand correctly is when too many of your tracks are too hot and you are summing too much at the top most bits, and well it gets bad. So for what that's worth you may find it better to mix not quite hitting the unity gain line. Also, headroom for a mastering guy isn't a bad thing.

Also, if I may touch for a moment, I am not necessarily fond of crazy loud mixes... I like hearing transients from good players... especially good drummers, and the louder your mix is, the less transients you get. There can only be so much water in the glass, so to speak.

So just remember that depending on your product, peak loudness is not as important as perceived loudness also known as RMS. And that can be obtained by gentle compression like the example of the 1.5:1 slow attack compressor or the fairchild.

And, reference mixes are very important. When you are mastering and (like me) you aren't the best... (I always do this) I pull up a mix from someone like Dr. Dre (if hop hop) or Maroon 5 (if pop rock) or of course Christina Aguilera (cause she is not only sexy and immensly talented but her music has enormous budgets and the best people) and I check my levels and sound against the tracks that make sense.

Another good reason to have a mastering session. You can apply your mastering on a track with the stereo file instead of having to put it on the master fader. So that way you can check your loudness (gain plug in can check for RMS I believe) on the reference track, as well as an analyzer to see how they are shaping the EQ curve, and apply similar enhancements to your own track. You also then have the ability to match the volume of the reference mix with the fader, because remember that unless you are listening to Metalica's latest album... louder by 1db will sound "better." So make sure you match the volume.


Albee-
What do you do differently from what I do? I could always use new methods pointers too!

Thanks