Pushback About Master Bus Processing

[Anderton]

I mix without master bus processors, which confounds people ("Well what's the difference between adding processors to the mix or adding it to a master?"). I did a blog post on relative vs. absolute mixing, and in it, mentioned that I separate the mixing and mastering processes. So I'll add a dynamics processor to a master bus for a quick preview, but overall, wait on adding EQ and dynamics to the master bus until the mastering process. Someone questioned why that made sense, and I finally came up with an example that gets my point across.

 

On a recent song, the snare hits in an acoustic drum loop were too hot. When I previewed with a dynamics processor in the master bus, the processor tamed them. But it also affected the other tracks. The overall mix turned out better when I added a little bit of soft clipping on the drum tracks themselves. That tamed the peaks without affecting any other tracks.

 

Same goes for a EQ - if a master sounds muddy and you fix it by adding a slight dip at 300 Hz, you're better off finding the instruments that contribute the mud, and fix them individually rather than apply EQ to the entire mix.

 

I think that makes sense...

 

  

[KuruPrionz]

I agree with your technique. 

If all of the tracks provide good sounds then the final mix is more done than not. 

I can't think of a single plugin that I have put in the master bus that solved a problem that every track generated. 

Snare drum does not sound like bass guitar, just for one. If it does, they get in each other's way. 

So I stopped using master bus plugins a long time ago. 

[David Emm]

Yes, it does. I put Master Plan at the end of my chains in Logic now, but I often include a dusting of reverb for orchestral dabbling or space music. It makes it all a bit more cohesive and sets the bar for the often-defining built-in effects of various synths. I pull back on those a bit as I go, because I listen in almost Ableton-like clips. I exhibit a taste for some odd sub-groups, but it works for me. Sometimes you need 3 violas in front and sometimes, its a resonant Moog blat-bass.

 

More to Craig's point. when I can't pin down a discordant problem, a few passes through the Channel EQ Analyzer tends to reveal the bottleneck. Sometimes the main EQ window is revealing enough. All I had to do recently was to pull back on Strum's onboard distortion & EQ to bring things into line. Group analyses don't work properly until all the horses are pulling in the same direction.      

[Sundown]

Hi Craig,

 

I’m in between. I typically mix with a bus compressor set to a very light setting (2:1 with maybe a dB or two on peaks), because it fundamentally shapes the tone of the song. If I use an SSL recreation or a Vari Mu, the choices I make with channel EQ and levels will change depending on which bus compressor is present. Most often I use the SSL G (UAD or Waves) and I use it primarily to glue a mix together.

 

The only time I’ll use a bus EQ is for momentary checking (and it’s always the Manley Massive Passive from UAD). I won’t render with it, but it gives me an approximation of what the mix will sound like later. It really glues a mix together, but i prefer to make overall EQ adjustments during mastering.

 

My general adage is, if I have to use an EQ on the master bus to fix a mix, there’s probably something wrong at the channel level I need to address.

 

Occasionally I will check the mix with a limiter as well, as it sometimes influences my level setting. But it’s a momentary check, never rendered.

 

Todd

 

 

 

[Anderton]

2 hours ago, KuruPrionz said:

I can't think of a single plugin that I have put in the master bus that solved a problem that every track generated. 

 

Bingo!

 

1 hour ago, Sundown said:

My general adage is, if I have to use an EQ on the master bus to fix a mix, there’s probably something wrong at the channel level I need to address.

 

Bingo x 2!

[KenElevenShadows]

I generally agree with the premise. But I'm going to tell you that, more recently, I contradict it.

 

For most of the time that I've been mixing, I've mixed without anything on the Master Bus.

 

However, since it seems like, at least for our musical project, we are no longer using a mastering engineer and are doing everything ourselves, I have begun using things on the Master Bus. However, I don't use them to "fix" EQ or solve problems. I use it to generally shape or glue. For instance, I use tape saturation or compression, not to fix anything, but to just affect the overall mix. Then I add a limiter at the end. That has worked for us really well. Our mastering process is pretty streamlined because I am rather consistent with doing this.

 

When I mix other bands or musical projects, I have carried over some of these practices such as the tape saturation or very light compression, just acting like a glue. No limiter, though, and if I add EQ, it's to shape the overall mix slightly, not to "fix" anything. 

 

[Anderton]

16 minutes ago, KenElevenShadows said:

However, I don't use them to "fix" EQ or solve problems. I use it to generally shape or glue.

 

Do you apply the glue as you go along, or after finishing the mix and then apply the glue? To be clear, when I refer to inserting processors in the master bus, I mean while you're doing the process of mixing. I don't mean finishing the mix, then adding the processing and rendering from the DAW. If I didn't have a separate mastering program I'd render from the DAW, too. I'd just wait until the mix was done.

[KenElevenShadows]

10 hours ago, Anderton said:

 

Do you apply the glue as you go along, or after finishing the mix and then apply the glue? To be clear, when I refer to inserting processors in the master bus, I mean while you're doing the process of mixing. I don't mean finishing the mix, then adding the processing and rendering from the DAW. If I didn't have a separate mastering program I'd render from the DAW, too. I'd just wait until the mix was done.

Lately, I've been mixing with tape saturation in the Master Buss, and not even bothering to take it off.

 

I initially did it because I forgot to take it off, and found it pleasing, so kept going.

 

I used to NEVER have anything on the Master Buss, and I've slowly over time switched to where I just go ahead and mix with tape saturation on. I do toggle it on and off to hear what it's doing, of course.

[Anderton]

1 hour ago, KenElevenShadows said:

I initially did it because I forgot to take it off, and found it pleasing, so kept going.

 

Interesting...so you're basically using it like a console emulation plugin, where you decide "this is the sound of the console" and mix through it. That makes sense. If you try to insert a console emuator in the middle of doing a mix, it will change the sound around. This is particularly true with the Studio One console emulator, because it has a crosstalk option. You need to mix through that from the gitgo.

[KenElevenShadows]

11 hours ago, Anderton said:

 

Interesting...so you're basically using it like a console emulation plugin, where you decide "this is the sound of the console" and mix through it. That makes sense. If you try to insert a console emuator in the middle of doing a mix, it will change the sound around. This is particularly true with the Studio One console emulator, because it has a crosstalk option. You need to mix through that from the gitgo.

 

Yes, that's what I've found. If I put it on in the middle, well, I might like it, sure, but it changes the sound regardless, so it's better just to mix "into" it instead. It works for me. I don't know if this is considered unorthodox or what. There's probably plenty of other people doing it, and maybe they'll pipe up. 

 

Regardless, I generally agree with your approach.

[Anderton]

1 hour ago, KenElevenShadows said:

Yes, that's what I've found. If I put it on in the middle, well, I might like it, sure, but it changes the sound regardless, so it's better just to mix "into" it instead. It works for me. I don't know if this is considered unorthodox or what. There's probably plenty of other people doing it, and maybe they'll pipe up. 

 

Almost by definition, anyone who uses console emulation does what you're doing, as do most people who use tape emulation if they want that "tape sound" on every track. If they're not doing it your way, well, they should be    

 

I think many (most?) people these days master through the master bus, and no longer consider mixing and mastering as different processes that require different mindsets. But, I do think they're missing out on a more detailed mix if they don't think exclusively about mixing during the mixing process, and exclusively about mastering during the mastering process. At least that's true in my case. On almost all my music these days, "mastering" involves using a Waves L3-16 to  hit an LUFS level of around -12.5 (that seems to be the dynamics sweet spot for the kind of music I do). There are no other processors, because everything is dealt with at the track level during the mix.

 

The one exception, which only happened recently, is when doing both Atmos Binaural and stereo mixes of the same music. As mentioned in this post, I apply a compensation curve to the stereo version to make it more like the Atmos version.

 

 

[KenElevenShadows]

Your description of "console emulation" is also intriguing. I hadn't thought about it that way, probably because I was thinking "tape saturation" due to the name of the plug-in (Tape Head by Massey). But in essence, it's the same concept.

 

 

I also use this Tape Head on other things as well, such as bass or synthesizers sometimes. Then again, I sometimes use a mastering limiter, the Massey L2007, on vocals. Whatever works, I guess.

 

Also, I woudn't be surprised if you're correct and many people master through the Master Bus now. I will do that to be really quick with something, i.e., getting something out quick to the client without having to explain why their mix sounds so much quieter than everyone else's and that kind of thing. But otherwise, I like to separate mixing and mastering. I still try to master with the intent of creating an album even if people don't often listen to music that way. At least if they stream several of my songs in a row, they general feel and volume and vibe are consistent (unless I don't want them to be, haha!). 

[Anderton]

1 hour ago, KenElevenShadows said:

I still try to master with the intent of creating an album even if people don't often listen to music that way. At least if they stream several of my songs in a row, they general feel and volume and vibe are consistent

 

I'm the same way. The raw, unmastered dynamic range for most of my mixes is around -14 to - 18 LUFS. For whatever reason, -12.5 seems like the "magic sweet spot" for the kind of music I do to tighten the dynamic range a bit without damaging the dynamics. I've been mastering to that level for a few years, and it works. Also, when a streaming service turns it down, it only has to do so by a couple dB. 

[KenElevenShadows]

All that sounds good, Craig.

 

As an aside, I know we've had jokes for years about mastering your own material. After all, most of us are probably mixing and mastering using the same setup! 

 

But for some reason, at least with our own material, we've gotten pretty good at it, good enough that we began doing it ourselves because what we were getting was just about the same as a really great mastering engineer.

 

Again, for our own stuff.

 

I'm not going to sit here and tell you that I can master as great as a great mastering engineer overall. Maybe I'm like that person you know down the block that has a really decrepit 1973 Impala...and the owner knows that if you hit the door a certain way, the window rolls down, and if you crank the knob all the way to the right and click it three times, the A/C kicks on and it still gets him where he needs to go.  

[Anderton]

58 minutes ago, KenElevenShadows said:

But for some reason, at least with our own material, we've gotten pretty good at it, good enough that we began doing it ourselves because what we were getting was just about the same as a really great mastering engineer.

 

Really, it all depends on what you're handed. If your mixes are good, mastering won't be all that difficult.

 

I've specialized in salvage jobs, and they're not for the faint of heart. Martha Davis from the Motels had some old material that was never released for one reason or another. When she played me a two-track demo of a complete album that had been written off called I Have My Standards. It was never done "for real," but I thought that the songwriting and her vocals were exceptional, so I said I'd give it a shot. It took a LOT of work (frequency splits, crazy amounts of EQ, limiting, imaging) to salvage it without having access to the multitrack tapes, and it had to be mastered for vinyl. But if you listen to the link, I think you'd never know it was a horror show.

 

Another track had a kick drum from a Linndrum that was mixed so loud it basically rendered the song unlistenable. I loaded the two-track, found an isolated kick, created a new track, dragged the isolated kick drum to duplicate every kick in the two-track, and then flipped the phase of the isolated kick drum track. Amazingly, it worked, and I could dial in the exact amount of kick needed to save the song. 

 

Mastering classical music is also tricky...but that's another story, for another time  

[KenElevenShadows]

On 2/25/2024 at 12:15 PM, Anderton said:

 

 

Mastering classical music is also tricky...but that's another story, for another time  

 

Bah! Those are easy! Crank the brick-wall limiter and make that WAV file look like a 2x4!!!  

 

That Martha Davis thing sounds verrrry challenging. It would be fascinating to hear a before/after of that! The "after" sounds very good, and her voice does sound great.