bit confused about mastering bus.

[Williamn]

Hey, sorry for the bit nooby question.

But I was wondering when people say master bus in cubase.. is that the stereo output (the last track in the mix with the overall volume) ?.. and is there any difference from doing my mastering on the master bus or doing a mixdown of the mix and then importing the wave into a new project (thats how I do it atm.. cubase got a template called mastering) ?

I tryed to do my best searching for the answer.. but could not really find it, so please bear with me.

thanks

 

[beyond dead]

you got er ace

 

[Williamn]

you got er ace

?

 

[Pxz]

Nothing wrong with doing the master that way ,but you lose the possibilty of fixing stuff on the individual channels that are impossible to do on only the exported wav file.

 

[Williamn]

Nothing wrong with doing the master that way ,but you lose the possibilty of fixing stuff on the individual channels that are impossible to do on only the exported wav file.

ah k thanks, thats also what I thought.. but im kinda tired of have to do a new export everytime I need to change something in the mix, so might start doing it on the stereo output/master bus instead (if im correct in that is the same )

 

[nwright]

I think the way you are doing it is fine...After all, if you were to send the final mixes to a mastering house, they would be doing the same thing (i.e. mastering only the final 2 track mix).

Running a mastering chain on your mix serves to allow quick fixes, though, but if CPU usage is a concern, it can be come a headache IMHO. On demos and things I usually run a mastering chain on the mix, but I find I sometimes will run out of processing power. Also, I worry that by doing this, I'm not properly learning how to get my mix "right" prior to mastering, because the mastering chain can be masking problems within the mix (again, IMO).

I think the way you are doing it now is probably best in learning to seperate the 2 functions (mixing and mastering) to best assess what is the idea and intent of both.

 

[darthjujuu]

Another factor worth mentioning is that when you have a complex mix going and you're scrubbing through in the project, you're not going to hear it at QUITE the same resolution/clarity as when you bounce it and play back a rendered .wav. so for mastering purposes, a discerning ear may want a pre-rendered .wav so that you can master while hearing maximum resolution/detail/clarity. i'm not sure what the proper term is in this context, but i can definitely hear a difference between pushing "play" in my mix from what is then offline rendered and bounced.

 

[John_C]

Pressing play usually uses a less accurate sampling method in order to be able to work in real time