Mixing through your mastering chain?

[AdamWathan]

Why is this such a huge no-no? Do you guys get your mix done, then master afterwards and never touch the mix settings again? I personally don't understand the reason for compromising the potential of the recording this way... I usually get the mix as close to finished as I can, throw together a mastering chain just to get my volume up and then leave that on while I go back and tweak the mix to fix things that the mastering process changed too much, then tweak the mastering a bit, tweak the mix a bit, etc... For some reason I get the idea that this is frowned upon and I'm not sure why?

 

[006]

I usually get the mix as close to finished as I can, throw together a mastering chain just to get my volume up and then leave that on while I go back and tweak the mix to fix things that the mastering process changed too much, then tweak the mastering a bit, tweak the mix a bit, etc...

This is exactly how I work as well. Something Mr. Murphy has told me is that the "mastering chain" you use on the master bus should not break your mix if you bypass all of it. The way James put it makes a lot of sense to me and since then I have tried to not rely on a whole lot from my 2bus chain. I think that is really what people are trying to get at when they say it's not a good idea.

 

[rcg]

I am mixing in to compressor and gentle limiter. After finishing mix for best sounding put complete mastering chain.

 

[::XeS::]

Because if you push the volume up in the mastering chain, you compress more or less the general dynamics of the song.
A compressor (4:1 ratio etc...), a saturator, etc... are good in the master bus, but that's all.
Near the end of my mixing process I usually listen to the mix with and without a maximizer in the mastering chain, but I do the main mix without it.

 

[smy1]

I don't do it because the sound of squashed, loud audio annoys me. If the band wants it loud, they can have it loud later in the mastering process.

Also, if you mix properly in the first place, getting it loud later shouldn't be much of a problem. At least my newer mixes are quite loud in the first place, without limiter etc. on them ...

 

[AStacy2]

Just make you mix as good as you can regardless of how loud it is. What happens when your client requests the songs unmastered so they can take it somewhere else to get mastered? What happens if the label wants their guy to master the track instead?

 

[AdamWathan]

If it's going to a different mastering engineer then I would know that in advance, and like 006 said, the minimal changes I'm making are going to leave the mix still sounding solid even when I disable to mastering chain. I'm mixing the whole project with no mastering chain, then tweaking the mix through the mastering chain later to maintain the best possible sound, not mixing the whole project through 6 GClips and L2 set to "KILL"...

 

[AStacy2]

Yeah man, I mean whatever works for you obviously works. I was just throwing some scenerios at you and telling you why that method doesn't work for me.

 

[Rockchops]

Doesn't Andy "end up" the mix through the finalizer?

 

[nwright]

I've started setting up my mastering chain in the mix on the 2 bus and I think my mixes are coming out better for it (with or without actually USING the mastering chain).

I build the mix to my taste, and then set up the mastering chain. If there are little things that need tweaked, I can do it right then and I can be done with projects much faster.

I wouldn't do this on projects that would be leaving me to be mastered elsewhere, but I've never done a project that was sent out (because usually I'm either mixing and mastering, or I'm hired to do the mastering of other studios mixes, so "being sent out" means they come to me, lol).

 

[Black neon bob]

Slight compression on the master bus is all i use when mixing..

 

[MetalJonesy]

i always mix through a master buss comp

then ill always have my gclips and maximizer which i turn on and off thru the mix stage just to see if its affecting the tonality/balance of my mixes

 

[Aaron Smith]

Something Mr. Murphy has told me is that the "mastering chain" you use on the master bus should not break your mix if you bypass all of it.

This is very good advice. I usually get a mix up and going, and patch in the Finalizer and tweak some EQs again based on how the mix sounds through it. To date, I've always found turning the Finalizer off after doing this, results in the mix sounding even better than it did before. I don't have any experience with mixing through significant amounts of bus compression, but at least with the Finalizer it somehow helps me separate things a bit better.

 

[Sean in Silence]

I typically set up the exact same mastering chain on my mix bus, although the thresholds on my clippers generally change in the final master, and just refer to it periodically
I'll get the mix sounding the way I want it, and then turn the mix bus fx on to see if it still sounds good
If it does I keep going
If not, then I'll go back and find out why it sounds weird or whatever

 

[462studio]

To call what a lot of us do "mastering" is kind of laughable in some ways, but I always have a compressor, limiter and mastering EQ on the output bus while I mix.

I prefer it. Turning it all off makes the mix sound the same, save being more quiet, less EQ'd, and less compressed.

 

[Gomez]

I prefer to get mixes that have nothing on the master and I always request clients to so. What I DO get sometimes is people who send me their attempt to mastering it and a reference track for me to get an idea of what they want to sound like. This usually works really well.

In any case, I still think that the important thing about mastering is the opportunity of having your mixes played back through an accurate system in a properly treated room and the second opinion from a different pair of ears. Nice analog gear is a bonus.

When I make records I send my mixes to be mastered by someone else (despite owning a dedicated mastering suite) because it saves me a lot of time. Otherwise I just sit there "tweak, tweak,tweak..."