Whats on your Master Buss

[Sebastien Richard]

Tell us whats on your master buss, if anything?

[len branville]

Usually an EQ, then a compressor, and then a limiter followed by a dither if needed. Sometimes when the mix is sounding alright, I'll just put on that Izotope Ozone plug-in on the master fader followed by another limiter for a cherry on top (that Massey limiter I seem to like..amongst others).
Enjoy!

Len

[JFreak]

many times, the Sony Oxford Inflator

[mindnoise]

many times, the Sony Oxford Inflator

me too!

[phanatik]

UAD-1 Precision Eq and Limiter(maybe)
Waves SSL Bus Comp
dither

... but make sure ur mix is good. Thats most important.

[pinosmuse]

While mixing I mostly use Inspector XL.
When it's all reasonably set up I'll swap in a URS compressor, 1970 or 1980 model, depening on the song/style.
Then the Sony Inflator and Massey 2007. The latter to check what'll happen in mastering.

[b mcgibney]

massey tape head (not always but more often than not)
Q-10 (hopefully a little or none at all
A verb (Masterverb/Trueverb or Waves IR light) Just a little bit to glue things together
L1 Ultramaximzer with dithering enabled
Inspector (to make sure ther are no overs)

Kind of pedestrian but works for me

Brian

[gonzo99]

I always use either an unlinked Multimono AC1 w one of the Console presets tweaked to suit the material or unlinked multimono Antares Tube w blue tube and maybe 1.5db of drive. Followed by Inspector to make sure I'm not totally overdoing the bottom end.

I generally try to get the EQ and verb right in the mix rather than EQ or verb the whole mix. I prefer to leave this for mastering. On very rare occasions I will throw a URS compressor over the master buss, but again, I prefer to leave this for mastering.

For cheap and nasty 16-bit bounces: If I want to see what limiting does I'll use one of the waves limiters - normally L3 but sometimes L2 depending how my CPU is going. Just started playing with the Massey L2007 - I think this is my favourite, but still getting used to it. Dither is normally POWr type 2 or 3.

I tend to think less is more at the mix stage

[albee1952]

Just to throw in a different viewpoint(as I am sure all the previous posters get good results), I don't use a master fader at all. I mix for the best mix I can do and bounce at the same samplerate and bit depth as the session. If I am mastering, then I open my mastering session(same samplerate/bit depth) and import the bounced file. Here is where I will add any extras the track might need. First I trim the head and tail. This is also where I add a fadeout if needed. Then I insert Waves L2 in the last insert slot, set for no more than 2db of reduction and select dither for 16bit. L2 output is set to -.02 to avoid overloading. I might add a Pultec EQ to put a little sparkle on the high end. I might insert the PAZ frequency analyzer to look at spectral balance and I might add Waves Q3 if I really need some EQ, but honestly, if I need more than a little, I go back and remix. If it still isn't loud enough, I will add a second instance of L2 in the next-to-last slot and squash a little more(never going more than 2db of reduction). Of course, if I am sending the project to be mastered by someone else, I stop at the first step and give them the raw file so they don't have to try to undo something I did. This works well for me. As always, YMMV

[NickH]

When I am self mastering:-

SSL Master Bus Comp
Massey 2007
Waves Dither

Or

SSL Master Bus Comp
Waves L3

If it’s being mastered elsewhere, nothing… & they go out at 24 – 48 and I try and keep it all at -6

Cheers



N