hey guys,

When mastering a single song, do you apply you plugins to the master output of the projet mix or render a WAV and then apply the effects?
I find it more productive to apply them to the master out, but industry renders first. is there a reason for this?

thanks in advance.

 

It's on the dice that if you create a mixdown first, you'll have this clean mixdown in the future.
In addition, the mixing engineer is not the mastering engineer in a professional environment.

Br,
Olaf

 

There are a few reasons to export your project as a WAV file first.

1) Mastering a single final project file allows to focus on polishing the mix as a whole without getting lost in the details. What tends to happen is that if you are mastering on the master channel of the full project is that you will start adding effects, and then start tweaking your mix. The problem here is that you will be tweaking your mix through those effects on the master channel and you can find yourself getting lost in all the little tweaks and changes.

2) Save tons of CPU power - mastering a single file means you're starting on a fresh slate of CPU power. Less lag, better accuracy.

3) Dithering - When you export a single wav file in 24-bit (mastering standard), you can then apply dithering to it so that when you convert it to mp3 or 16-bit wav (CD standard) you can apply the correct dither.

4) Comparing pre and post mastering - when you master a single file..you can apply mastering effects on the channel for that track and then make another channel with the unprocessed track and a/b your changes. This makes for a much more effective mastering strategy and you can be more certain that you're making positive changes in mastering.

If I think of any more I'll let you know

 

For my songs & projects i prefer it to apply the effcts & plugins to the master output.
WHY? Because doing so you can save the whole project with its settings in one folder,
in order to keep things organized.

Doing it after you'll have to do double work and have more files to store,
causing confusion and probably disorder.

 

I agree with all your points, i just think that with current technological advancements in computing power, exporting first has just become one of those outdated rules hard rules that the experienced engineers still swear by.

for example,
1) sure you can focus on just mastering, but doesnt every one say a perfect mix just needs a compressor and a limiter to master? So why not tweak the mix more before you start mastering?

2) CPU is power is plenty now a days, I run about 20 of the big Waves plug ins (CLA vocals, renaissance, Maserati, SSL) on my project for mixing and mastering and it only takes my dual core i5 processor to about 50% (and i think we can all agree Waves are some of the biggest CPU whores haha)

3) The process of dithering still reduces the quality of the file a bit (though no where near just plain exporting 16-bit), so wouldn't you get better results mastering 24-bit files and then dithering the mastered?

4) There's no avoiding this reason, it's quite tedious bypassing specific mastering plug ins to compare before and after.


I apologize if it appears as though I'm attacking your beliefs. I'm trying to start a bit of a debate haha.

 

interesting - i learned a couple new tricks

thanks