I am finishing a simple 8-Track student demo, mostly live instruments, but want to spiff it up the best I can. Regarding the pre-master FX . . .

What should be included?
What should be removed?
What should be added?
What order?

1. Intelligent EQ
2. Special EQ, like the Maag Audio EQ4 for overall upper sparkle
3. Fairchild 670 compressor
4. Inflator
5. Finalizer Plugin, like Kilohearts Grand Finale, Softube Drawmer S73, or intelligent options like iZotope Ozone.
6. Analogue Vibe Warming FX, like Kiive Audio Tape Face and XLN Audio RC-20 Retro Color
7. Hard Limiter

 

Last edited: Aug 20, 2023

It totally depends on the mix as well as where the music wants to go. Maybe it will sound amazing with a little clipping, corrective EQ, compression, coloring EQ and a limiter. Do you feel it needs (more) color/saturation (first and last in the chain)? Does it need de-essing and/or dynamic EQ? Etc?

"Mixdown" is the actual (computational) process of doing a rendering/consolidation of a mix. Generally people just say "mix/mixing" and "master/mastering". If you mean gentle 2-bus processing before sending it to be mastered, it's usually called "premaster".

A great book (the "bible" so to speak) on mastering is Bob Katz "Mastering: The Art and the Science"
https://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Audio-Third-Art-Science/dp/0240818962

 

Last edited: Aug 20, 2023

experiment and try your own chain bro.
ALso mix into it and dont just slap it on at the end

 

It depends, but not a lot of the stuff you mention. You can always reimport your file (and I almost always will anyway). I generally keep a safety limiter there (which gets removed), a compressor, a nice EQ. I keep MSED, Izotope Insight or Logic Multimeter, Span plus, a Logic Gain utility plugin because it can 1 click mono it, and Sonarworks Reference. If it needs something I will add it because it's not "against the rules" and some people do that; but I'd rather have almost everything done on Logic Summing Stacks (groups) before it is hitting the master. As little as possible.

 

If you're sending it to mastering, and that you're gonna attend the session, I think it's a good idea to not put anything at all. It will give the mastering engineer the most control. I worked alongside top tier mastering engineers, and most of them prefer it like that, unless there's something absolutely crucial that has to put on the mix bus.

I don't like the idea of mixing into effects, unless you know 100% that you'll be doing heavy compression to achieve the sound you're after. Mixing into an EQ preset or transparent compression makes no sense to me.

 

I am so torn between to mix or not to mix . . . I change my mind daily. Lately, I'm missing playing my guitar and writing lyrics on a piece of paper.

 

You should view mixing as a way of expanding your possibilities in your art. It can be a bit technical, but in the end, it's always to serve the artistic intent.

 

Perhaps mixing, but nothing on master? Send it out?

 

Nearly every plugin I put on the master bus is a measuring/metering tool. They do not make or alter any sound, they just do analysis of the audio coming in to the master. They are for checking for problems before the audio actually gets there. To do anything with/fix what you see presented; you have to backtrack into your mix at the channel/group/send level. You can do the same thing loading such tools on your channels or groups, but you end up with way more plugin instances loaded and it makes it harder to keep track of what you are doing.

 

My 2buss is set and forget. I can see myself tweaking it between the mixing process, but mostly to keep my gain staging intact. And i always use the same combination of plugins for every genre i mix and for me is a good thing, because if something is going wrong under the hood i know the tools and which of them can be the cause of that artifact/strange sound i'm listening.

And i also agree with the fact of not using eq presets or trying to apply corrective eq on the 2buss (if you're mixing). You have a ton of channels where you can crap the shit out of EQ, i just don't think the 2buss is the right place to do it if you're not mastering. You mostly want compression, tone and vibe when it comes to a mixing/pre master stereo buss.

 

For quick demo purpose, personally, I mix into The God Particle than hit Ozone AI Assistant, find best genre preset and tweak parameters to better fit the thing.