What are everyones PlugIns used on the Master Fader?

[PRS4LIFE]

I KNOW I KNOW I KNOW....good question. I dont know why I use Maxim and L1....I really didnt know they were the same Idea. I never really thought anything of it. But now that you guys brought it to my attention....Maxim(izer) ...oh! [img]images/icons/wink.gif[/img] now I get it, thanks guys! Wow I feel dumb now, lol. Anyway, thanks for pointing that out. Also another quesiton. Does it matter what order you put your plugins in? and when you put a dither on the master fader when your recording at 24bit/44.1k what do you set it to?

[Stone Knife]

Dither.

Everything else happens on the channels that may need it... I do love Maxim but use it on an individual channel basis; I like having some dynamics in the final mix, and this gets it!

[finalcut]

I like the L2 and the Linier Stereo Multi Band ( much like the C4 ). But as Stone points out – plugs like these can kill a songs dynamics real fast.

I like to think of the use of effects and eq much like using spices on good food. A little here and a little there – to enhance or slightly modify a track – if it’s even needed. The original track has to be good enough to stand on its own, or it gets dumped.

Same goes for an overall mix. The plugs are there for the final steps of the mix, not to make or break the mix.
It can be real tempting to just slap these amazingly powerful plugs on to the master fader before ever investing any real time mixing and working with the individual tracks, because they work so great, but in the end, the mix is not as great as it should have been.

All that said – I must say that I like the Waves plugs. I’m an avid Waves user – but it’s time to branch out. I’d love to hear any thoughts on plugs that are as good or better than Waves!!

My two cents…
[img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img] [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[Phil O'Keefe]

I can think of a reason to run two limiters - you don't need to hit each one as hard. It can oftentimes sound better to do two passes through a software mastering limiter (save the dither for the last pass) with light to moderate limiting than to "hit it hard" on a single pass.

Normally I don't run anything on my stereo bus. I save that for mastering. [img]images/icons/wink.gif[/img] Besides, I tend to send things out of 4-8 stereo pairs and into my digital mixer, then use the S/PDIF out of the mixer to my computer (Sound Forge 5), which I essentially use as a 2 track mixdown deck.

[Okion]

I'm with Stone, just dither, well, and the occasional 4 band.

(save the dither for the last pass)

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">There is no other way to do it. The dither HAS to be last. otherwise you are dithering to 16, or whatever, then you add another effect and your back to 24 (or 32 with SX).

If you didn't dither last the dither is just frelling your SNR.