submitting a mix to a label?

[brianhood]

I'm mixing an album, but not mastering it. When i send the mix in for the label to approve, should i put a limiter on the master bus or not? I plan on it unless everyone suggests otherwise.

And does anyone have any examples of mastered vs. non mastered tracks that were mastered at legit mastering houses? West West Side Music is mastering it, so I'm really curious how my mix will sound with legit vs ghetto mastering.

 

[JeffTD]

Unless you mixed through a master bus comp or something similar, the general rule is to not have anything on the master channel.

 

[brianhood]

Unless you mixed through a master bus comp or something similar, the general rule is to not have anything on the master channel.

i'm not sending it in to be mastered like that. Just sending it in for the label to approve the levels of everything or whatever they do

 

[Torniojaws]

Why not send both? Mark one as "non-masterlimited" and the other as "example-masterlimited", or something.

 

[crillemannen]

Unless you mixed through a master bus comp or something similar, the general rule is to not have anything on the master channel.

I Dont agree with you at all mate. You can do what you want on the master bus, just leave some headroom if its suppose to be mastered later on.

 

[James Murphy]

I Dont agree with you at all mate. You can do what you want on the master bus, just leave some headroom if its suppose to be mastered later on.

and i'd have to disagree with you crillemannen . as both a mixer and a ME, in my experience it's ok to send your mixes to the label for review with a limiter or whatever just to allow them to hear it at closer to "mastered" level, but you should also be prepared to send a totally unmastered mix for them to review as well, and for that mix to sound well balanced without any heavy compression or limiting. some buss compression is fine as part of your final mix... but if you send in a limited (or heavily compressed) mix you may as well be prepared to be asked to send an un-"mastered" version.

earlier in my career i had exactly that happen to me, and in more recent times i've lost a mix job because i had only saved limited versions of a mix on my own drives, leaving the un-limited versions only on the client's primary and back-up drives... both of which were destroyed when that same client, against my advice, worked on his computer during a lightning storm... with both drives connected. i did remix the album, but the damage had been done by the time i had the time to do it, and a new mixer was hired.

also, i have just 2 weeks ago contacted a label to ask them to have a mix engineer send me un-limited mixes so that i could master an album properly... and it's not the first time i have had to do that... and i'll do it again, i'm sure.

but yeah, some labels and mastering engineers don't care what they get... i've definitely gotten away with sending in limited, or "mastered" mixes (years ago), that were then sent on to a ME who did his thing despite my dabbling in the ME's side of things with my mix... but that won't always work out for you, and after just this week having had the pleasure to master a Randy Staub mix, i can tell you that he didn't apply limiting.. his mix was hot, but in no way limited.




ps. take the above for what it is; a contrary opinion based only on my own personal experience, nothing more. do not take it as personal attack please... i'm weary with that tendency around this place... and always having to make sure i've put in enough "smileys" and soft wording just weakens me .

 

[kev]

Murphy is back! Nice post dude.

 

[digitaldeath]

Murphy is back! Nice post dude.

+1.

 

[crillemannen]

Ok, Murphy cant disagree with you, after all you got pro experience in that matter.

But when i was an intern in Studio Fredman. Fredrik sent the finall mix with master bus compression + some limiting, The mastering studio wasnt to happy with him leaving only about 3db of headroom but he just laughed and said that, when i send mixes that hot they cant screw it up. But then again with Fredriks well known reputation (legend) i guess he can pretty much do as he pleases.

But when you just do a mix you apply master bus compression right?? I can understand why you dont want to limit the mix but some compression should be alright??

Cheers and great to see you here again

 

[Fox Mulder]

I Dont agree with you at all mate. You can do what you want on the master bus, just leave some headroom if its suppose to be mastered later on.

Lol

 

[James Murphy]

Ok, Murphy cant disagree with you, after all you got pro experience in that matter.

But when i was an intern in Studio Fredman. Fredrik sent the finall mix with master bus compression + some limiting, The mastering studio wasnt to happy with him leaving only about 3db of headroom but he just laughed and said that, when i send mixes that hot they cant screw it up. But then again with Fredriks well known reputation (legend) i guess he can pretty much do as he pleases.

But when you just do a mix you apply master bus compression right?? I can understand why you dont want to limit the mix but some compression should be alright??

Cheers and great to see you here again

thx, glad to be back now that there's some more active moderating going on.

in answer to your question about buss compression, i'll quote my previous post: "buss compression is fine as part of your final mix". so yeah, it's perfectly fine. it's like "mix glue"...but having said that, your mix shouldn't completely fall apart without it.

and yeah, you hit the nail on the head... what Fred can get away with, as oppossed to what most all of the young and/or unestablished guys on this forum could get away are two different things.

some labels won't care though... but some will. best to be prepared, and be able to mix and have your mixes sound good without any "mastering" processing.

 

[slashvanyoung]

Care to tell us which band that Randy Staub mix is, James?

 

[James Murphy]

^ AM Conspiracy... Staub only mixed the single, "Picture". The rest of the album was mixed by Chris Djuricic, aka Chris Wisco, aka "Butters"

.

the album will be coming out on Burnhill Union Records, distributed by Koch/E1, soon.

 

[brianhood]

My biggest issue is that i can make a mix sound great without anything on the master bus, but then when i add limiting, it kills the snare among other weird things. If i mix with the limiter on, i can make a great sounding mix, but when i take the limiter off, the snare is usually too loud/clipping.

i guess i'll just try to get a good balance between everything and see where that goes

 

[Soundlurker]

^ It shouldn't be clipping. Turn everything down.

 

[digitaldeath]

My biggest issue is that i can make a mix sound great without anything on the master bus, but then when i add limiting, it kills the snare among other weird things. If i mix with the limiter on, i can make a great sounding mix, but when i take the limiter off, the snare is usually too loud/clipping.

i guess i'll just try to get a good balance between everything and see where that goes

Great point Brian. I'm wondering if it'd be best to just forget putting anything on the master bus and just focus on getting the best mix I can while leaving the ME to do his magic. But as stated above, I'd be worried that the ME would return a product I'd be dissatisfied with!

 

[James Murphy]

if you are hired to mix only, worrying about what the ME is going to do will often just get you in trouble... leave it to the band and label to make sure a good mastering session goes down... forcing the issue about mastering or being pushy about your mixing levels and use of a limiter, when you are a young mixer without the weight behind your choices that someone like Fred N. has, can get you fired... and/or just not hired again.

bottom line is, if your mixes fall apart without a limiter on them, then the bad news is that you suck at mixing. BUT, the good news is it's a fixable problem: mix without a limiter on and make sure it sounds good, and leave the mastering to the ME. do this until you are good at mixing without a limiter... this will get you hired.

there are exceptions... usually the smaller the band/label, the less they care about how hot or "pre"-limited your mixes are... but you should be looking at the long-view.

also, you may discover you are just fine at mixing without a limiter.... but that you have to make your mix sound unbalanced in order to have it sound good with your "mastering" chain in-line... and that just means you suck at mastering. all the more reason to leave it to the ME.





again, the above are just example scenarios, based only on my own first-hand experiences, and not in any way intended to single out anyone as doing anything wrong. FSM forbid i should do that. if you resemble any of my remarks though, you might strongly consider trying my advice... or not.

 

[Zombietakeover]

I have the same issues
took the words right out of my mouth

My biggest issue is that i can make a mix sound great without anything on the master bus, but then when i add limiting, it kills the snare among other weird things. If i mix with the limiter on, i can make a great sounding mix, but when i take the limiter off, the snare is usually too loud/clipping.

i guess i'll just try to get a good balance between everything and see where that goes

Welcome back James.....I just don't think ppl know how to take you sometimes...

 

[Ermz]

I'm a bit at odds with some of the advice in this thread as it seems to be in direct contradiction with other advice I've seen and been told in the past.

Certainly when Andy's last mix video regarding the latest Megadeth was around, he mentioned mixing into a limiter to approximate the effect that mastering would have on his mix.

Likewise when I spoke to Plec regarding the last project I sent him, he mentioned that he also smashes his mixes into a semi-mastering chain to approximate the effect. Apparently from his POV it's 'normal' that a mix sounds a bit out of whack without the limiter on the back end. The mix that I sent him to master was being 'glued' by a GSSL and then smashed by a limiter. It gave me the perspective to hear how the track would come up later on down the track. Consequently when I removed this chain, as Plec mentioned, the levels became a bit out of whack with the drums really popping out and the guitars getting sunk into the back. However, after he did his thing on the master it came back resembling a lot what it sounded like as I mixed it with the pseudo mastering chain. So to me it seemed to be an effective method of getting a glimpse into the final product and gaining extra perspective.

This thread is sort of putting me at odds with methods that have worked for me and my ME in the past, so I'm not really sure how to absorb the information in a useful way. Confused, hmm.

 

[lolzgreg]

I'm a bit confused as well.

I think that not putting a limiter on your 2bus seems strange in this day an age, with the whole loudness war going on. I always mix with a limiter, but I never EVER raise the threshold. I think ultimately you would end up putting a brickwall limiter on every GROUP bus you have, having every track bussed to one of them, to get loudness maximization without going past -.01dB.

Any ideas on this?