What does everyone have in the mastering section?

[Heigen5]

Do you have a huge amount of devices in there or maybe you have only a Maximizer or what?

[Reminiscence]

....and yourself?

[Heigen5]

....and yourself?

I have the 'default mastering chain' in the nowdays. After switching my monitors to KRK Rokit 5's the natural sound is a way to go.

[Reminiscence]

So you tune your setup according to your monitors? And your headphones?

Oh wait, you shouldn't master with headphones? Gotcha - now I know why my neighbours hate me.

[Heigen5]

So you tune your setup according to your monitors? And your headphones?

Oh wait, you shouldn't master with headphones? Gotcha - now I know why my neighbours hate me.

My new monitors didn't sound good with my past custom mastering patch anymore - it seems like almost zero sound altering in the mastering chain is the best deal now.

[Reminiscence]

Thanks for the tip.

[Heigen5]

Thanks for the tip.

It's a good thing really, that you do your sound alterings in the mixing channels and not in the mastering channel. So far people have told that my mixes sound better than they used to.

[moneykube]

I have the 'default mastering chain' in the nowdays. After switching my monitors to KRK Rokit 5's the natural sound is a way to go.

It's a good thing really, that you do your sound alterings in the mixing channels and not in the mastering channel.

also my approach

[spacepluk]

Screenshot 2024-05-13 at 19.59.11.png (589.35 KiB) Viewed 382 times

That's my master/fx/monitoring setup

[joeyluck]

Fiedler Audio's Dolby Atmos Composer and Spacelab Interstellar.

Otherwise I'm pretty minimal with effects aside from something like Ozone Maximizer.

[huggermugger]

The only thing missing is a maximizer, because I'm not afraid of dynamic range.

[robussc]

Depends on if I’m mixing or mastering.

Mixing I just use the bus compressor, a mastering EQ, the stereo imager and Fresh Air for a bit of sparkle.

Mastering is just a touch of mastering EQ, tape saturation for warmth, and maximizer, with the LUFs monitor at the end to make sure the levels are good, and SPAN as a sanity check that the mix is pretty even and the low end is tamed.

[deeplink]

Typically just a limiter, an oscilloscope and SPAN.

I have other things like the Synapse EQ, but those are generally used for filtering/ isolating specific frequencies when mixing/listening. They are bypassed when I bounce the mix down.

[Bes]

https://www.reasonstudios.com/shop/rack ... equalizer/

[jam-s]

Imho any of these answers are pretty useless unless you also state for what kind of music/genre you're using the said FX chain as that's a pretty big factor in how much processing is needed during mixing/mastering.

[selig]

What is in my mastering section? Surprisingly not my mastering. The only thing currently in there is the HP filter for the Master Compressor.
Beyond that is my mastering Combinator (between the Master Out and the Hardware Interface), which has Ozone 10 in it, plus Youlean Metering. In Ozone, I use the widener on some projects, and a few dB limiting on most.
My approach is the mix like there's no mastering, so my mastering is typically not needing to do much. That comes from years of having mixes mastered by some pretty decent guys and getting feedback and making adjustments.
Genres include pop/rock/ambient/orchestral/film soundtrack/groovey stuff and lately AfroBeat. But I'm more of a jack of all trades guy than a specialist, fwiw…

[robussc]

What is in my mastering section? Surprisingly not my mastering. The only thing currently in there is the HP filter for the Master Compressor.
Beyond that is my mastering Combinator (between the Master Out and the Hardware Interface), which has Ozone 10 in it, plus Youlean Metering. In Ozone, I use the widener on some projects, and a few dB limiting on most.
My approach is the mix like there's no mastering, so my mastering is typically not needing to do much. That comes from years of having mixes mastered by some pretty decent guys and getting feedback and making adjustments.
Genres include pop/rock/ambient/orchestral/film soundtrack/groovey stuff and lately AfroBeat. But I'm more of a jack of all trades guy than a specialist, fwiw…

Right, that is the biggest lesson I've learned. If the mix isn't as perfect as it can be then its not ready to master. (and of course, learning when to draw that line comes with experience, so I'm still learning ) But you can't fix a bad mix when mastering, and to even think of mastering while mixing is a big mistake. Regardless of genre, IMHO. Just like we'd never bother to mix a bad arrangement.

Write -> Arrange -> Mix -> Master.

[motuscott]

For bouncing to 2 track, Softube FET, bypassed typically. Then onto actual mastering w/ that 2 track.

[robussc]

For bouncing to 2 track, Softube FET, bypassed typically. Then onto actual mastering w/ that 2 track.

Agreed, that export is definitely a good step to mark the end of mixing!

[miyaru]

Sometimes when producing, writing and working on a loud boomy song, I have a brickwall limiter in the masterpath to protect my tweeters/ cones (from both monitors and cans) and my ears. But once mixed and not so loud and boomy anymore, I remove the limiter again. You can also use a compressor with the threshold set at -1 dB and a high ratio, whilst the attack and release times are short. No rule, or wisdom, just my way of working……