Mix Bus Processing IS NOT MASTERING

Take a drink every time I say "process".
Today I chat about a common misconception that mix bus processing is mastering. In this video I outline the key differences and how you should actually be mastering your tracks.
Follow me on IG: josh.bartel
My name's Josh and I'm a mastering engineer at Viking Lounge Mastering and a part of the audio team at Tommirock Studios. I make videos that help you on your audio journey so you can release better quality music! Let me know if there's any topic you want to know about in regards to audio, production, recording, mixing or mastering and I'd be happy to make a video about it.

[@swsiii]

What a good perspective, the emphasis on a mindset shift. Definitely where most get hung up. 👍

[@krampellidj]

Well said and very informative. Thanks!

[@alexanderclifford7417]

If im asked to do both the mixing and the mastering on a track I just aim to make the mix my master. This therefore means I will be doing a large part of my mixing decision into the final limiter that I usually slap on the masterbus about halfway through the mixing process. This has always worked well for me if the budget does not allow for professional mastering.

[@a2bs333]

I am a purely digital engineer. I am guilty of using the mix bus to master. I used to do it all separately on the stereo file in the Ozone app but now I prefer to mix into my mastering chain. I do this mostly to guage levels but to also save time. Usually I start "mastering" after I've done the static mix. I then tweak as I go along. I find it saves me time and that I make better decisions this way. I suppose I've started to view mixing and mastering as one hat. It may be that I just feel less stressed this way and that I actually finish more music with this method. It involves alot of freezing and flattening to ensure I still have the cpu power to "mix bus master". The freezing also makes me feel more committed to a channels treatment. I will reconsider your advice.

[@MixByRek]

I have a question , what is the reason for having a aux mix bus , and a master track in the same session , the mix bus having all the mix bus( mastering ) plugins on , but the master track being empty , does this cause any kind of phase or canceling , would you have to just choose to use either , mix bus aux , or master track , and delete the other one , or does it make any sense to have both , having one with no inserts , thanks 🤙

[@Josh.Bartel]

The main reason I do this is for organisation. Sometimes I like to have multiple parallel mix buses incase I want to blend something extra in like distortion, compression etc I like to keep my processing on the ‘’Mix Bus” aux and any monitoring type plugins on the master bus. No phase issues because there’s only one stereo output playing. The master bus is the sum of everything, including the ‘mix bus’ aux.

[@Allious131]

I'm seeing people setup mix bus with 2tracks, why??? when you are mixing a 2track that's slow to me.

[@waydbloom]

"SHOULDN'T HAVE WINKED!" *BRUH* LOL!!!!!

[@ollonelycat]

Everyone knows that the best way to master is just to slap a limiter on the end and crank it up until you hear distortion and squash all dynamics :D

[@Josh.Bartel]

Hahaha

[@tomix1970pl1]

Apologise more.I recomend political correctness in UK style.

[@zabavno2112]

Why mix "bus "if everything goes to the output channel anyway, can't I put all the plugins on the output master channel and that's it

[@Josh.Bartel]

The ‘mix bus’ IS the output channel that everything runs through. The video explains that mix bus processing and mastering are different in the way it should be approached. More of a mindset difference and goal difference.