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I put all my mastering plugs, eqs, compression on the mix bus, and the only plugs on the master fader are things like SPAN, or loudness meters.
That way, you can have a reference outside the mix bus, and compare EQ and loudness.
I love Reaper for its versatility.
Dan Worrell does a good vid on how to set up SPAN to show MS levels, good stuff.
I'm still fairly new at all this, but it's kinda how that Lord Algae fella does it, he sub mixes everything in buckets of eight on the faders including the instrument tracks, and he records the automation. It makes sense approaching it like a conductor would, as opposed to isolating every task.
I'm definately sticking with the Master/Submaster bus concept, but I haven't yet finalized how best to utilize them in my workflow. I certainly want to include reference tracks in the process, but I also want my stereo mixes to be in a condition where other people can have a go at mastering them.
Currently my master bus only contains a meter plugin, and Ozone which is offline by default, and it's only there to randomly check the mix. Good tip about the free Voxengo Span plugin, I normally use it for EQ-ing or messing around with synth patches.
As individuals we have to wear a lot of different hats nowadays
I have a drum bus, with 3 drum VSTs, MTpower, Slate and Labs,
Bass bus with Kontakt and Eurobass2,
Keys bus, with 5 instances of Labs,
Strings bus with another 5 instances of Labs,
these all go to a mix bus, with reacomp, TDR Nova, Kotelnikov, and Slate Air EQ,
Master fader has SPAN,
then I import a MIDI file, which has say 7 instruments, drums go to each of the 3 drum tracks, for variety,
bass goes to---er bass track,
guitars and everything else gets spread across the 10 Labs tracks, and sometimes duplicated for effect.
That gets a bit heavy on my system, so then I bounce out stems of everything, and put them in a folder under the Mix bus, then I mute all the instruments and work on the stems.
I put an FX bus under mix bus, with reverb x 2, and delay, and mix in sends from the stems.
I have tried bouncing out an FX track, but usually just use the stems and bounce out a mastered stereo file.
For mastering, I use all the stuff on my mix bus, plus Fabfilter eqs on the stem folders, and finally Slates FGx, which has constant gain monitoring, so that gets turned off when I bounce out a final mix.
Mixes get saved in a folder above the mix bus, so I can A-B stuff with the mix bus settings, and then I check my mixes with the loudness penalty website, aiming to get a reading of about 0 db on youtube.
I highly recommend the Spitfire Labs plugin, amazing stuff for free content, and the Fabfilter suite is well worth the money. Slate is not too shabby either.
Band Stuff: https://navigationofficial.bandcamp.com/album/silhouette-ep
Mac Mini
Avid HD I/O 8x8x8
Avid D/A expansion. (16 analogue outs)
Dangerous Music D-Box
Solid State Logic SiX
Genelec 8240a’s
Genelec GLM
Micro Korg
Kemper
UA Ox
M-Audio BX5a’s
GIK room treatment.
Slate Digital, Toontrack, Fab Filter, Soundtoys, Lexicon, Waves, SPL, Kush, (and loads of other instruments and whatnot and other brands I’ve forgotten) plugins.
Pretty modest, but the audio quality is top notch and it does exactly what I need it to.
So Im thinking maybe I want a separate vocal FX track int he vocals Bus running the same plugiins and settings as the master one and hope that using the same settings provides a bit of that glue you get with everythign going through the 1 reverb track.
This effectively gives you bussing without needing to use folders, meaning you can re-arrange the track order without affecting your signal flow.
You can hide tracks from the track control panel separately to the mixer control panel; meaning you can just have buss tracks showing in the mixer and not in the arrange view if you wish.
Typically I just use folders though. Coz it allows you to fold away the tracks you don't want to mess with.
This may be a redundant move, as I plan to render submixes to .wav files before the final mixdown, but the show/hide scenario could be useful. I've still got my L-plates on regarding sends, returns & busses, but I'm slowly getting there.
Note: I unchecked the parent send option on the instrument track, which now gives the correct volume levels.
View my feedback at www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/comment/1201922