Mixing Into The Mastering Chain? Pros & Cons

[@bicameralmind32]

Great video as always

[@PocketbeatHard]

Like Alice I fell into the (YT) rabbit hole and arrived here. Lucky me. Great music

[@Tazmanian_Ninja]

I agree with your take on this. And learned a few new things too. Thanks! Personally, I think there's a middle road: use SOME processing on the mix bus, like f.e. the first half of the mastering chain, but leave the rest for later. I myself have some compression (but not all of it) + saturation and EQ on the mix bus, but leave limiting/maximizing and some other stuff, for the mastering stage. The EQ on my mix bus is not corrective, but more like spectral stuff. Think Gullfoss and such (although I don't use Gullfoss) to increase clarity, and make EQ'ing at the mastering stage easier, because the mix bus export is more even, spectrally.

[@johnquintinbruce7783]

i agree it doesn't make to mix into the master chain it will most definitely fuck your shit up, i use to do it and it doesnt work

[@IEMedia]

I’ve recently been getting some good results “or what I think is good in comparison to my old mixes” by mixing into Ozone 10 and a couple of other plugins on my master but when I disable my mastering plugins I always notice my kick/snares are way too loud but when master stuff is on they sound ok? What’s happening here? When I pull them down and re-engage the master plugs kick/snare is too quiet. So confusing, its like the mastering wants the main transients to be clipping to sound good, I know this can’t be right 😆 #dnb

[@fjjarales1670]

I think the smart choice is mixing into a bus compressor and a limiter. When I mix without a limiter, bounce the audio to mastering and throw the limiter, it breaks the equilibrium, some sounds and frequences just get too loud in the mix.

[@generalguyble]

Again, it might be smart for YOU, because it works much better for you and you get a better sound, then doing it otherwise. For all the reasons mentioned in the video, it's smarter not to do it, unless this method gives you the absolut best possible sound that you can achieve. I might got your comment wrong, but it sounds to me that your master processing in the mixdown is either fixing mixing mistakes or minimizing mastering mistakes. Usually, if the mix is done at it's best and the mastering guy knows his shit. The master should sound exatly like the mix, but much louder.

[@fjjarales1670]

@@generalguyble 😌 my point is when you turn your mix into a sausage with the limiter your mix is gonna sound different, maybe mastering engenieers use black magic idk 😂. I don't mix into a masterchain, I mix into a limiter (maybe a bus compressor too) and sometimes I turn my "masterchain" on and off just to preview the final sound. Im going to go a step further (You might think Im out of my mind 😂), if you have a powerfull PC make the mastering in the box, I mean don't make the mixing and mastering in two different projects.

[@generalguyble]

@@fjjarales1670 No black magic. It is only expirience and in most cases also a good listening environment. About doing Mastering in the same Project: I think if your PC allows it you should definitely do it. I do it myself on own tracks and on tracks I only Mix & Master. But like I said...I mix it first. Afterwards I apply some compression compression and limiting on the master. In most cases that's all I do. Now, People might ask who am I to say something like that and if I got something to back it up: here's an excerpt of mixing and/or mastering work I've done generalguyble.com/completed-work/

[@Tazmanian_Ninja]

New subscriber here. I like your content. I get some Sons of Anarchy vibes, tho! 😄

[@generalguyble]

Always great to see new Subscribers! More content is coming soon 😊