What you got on ya Mix Bus?

[RWise]

Whats your usual mix bus chain look like - give or take?

Interested to see the variations from person to person.

[dubdub]

Right now:

Satson Bus -> Wavesfactory Spectre -> Wavesarts Tubesaturator2 -> Sknote AnyTesla -> TDR SlickEQ -> DDMF MDE or Sknote A25 -> Soundtoys Radiator -> u-He Satin - TDR Nova

I guess that's quite a bit. But I once saw a video with Tchad Blake and the dude had like four (!) different tape emulations, two compressors, three EQs, limiting and saturation on the mixbus. That was my "you can really do anything" moment I've found I like my mixes better if I mix into a lot of stuff on the busses. And most plugins don't sound great when slammed on the 2bus so I tend to do more little moves. I can mix into all of that and still get a super clean mix (if I want to) most of the time.

The Nova is pretty new. I saw a video with Blawan and apparently he really abuses a Maselec multiband comp on the mixbus. I'm doing some vaguely similar and using it for de-essing / high frequency limiting and slight mid expansion. It's a cool sound.

[Lost to the Void]

I don't have a usual chain.
I'll keep it consistent for an EP or an album.
But I'm always trying different things.
Been doing all kinds of crazy on the master buss recently.

For ages it was just standard setup. Compression, metering, tape.

Most music doesn't need more than that.

[2latuile]

Usually a compressor (which one depending on the track), a bit of EQ (mostly to kill remaining useless subs under 25Hz), and sometimes a bit of tape simulation when I feel the mix could use a bit of smoothing. Everything else are "utility" kind of plugins - a stereo to mono plugin with automatic level adjustment (to avoid the partial boost effect of mono summing), various metering thingies etc...

[Thomachine]

In hardware i often run mix bus through Analog Heat and Warm Audio Bus Comp. After mixdown i usually "master" the track in Cubase using stock plugins. Chain is usually something like the Frequency eq, Multi band imager, Tube or vintage comp, Magneto then a brick wall limiter. Sounds good enough for my 3 friends that listen to my music. hehe.

[Divjak]

Satson buss, compressor (usually MJUC) and meter (I check the level compressor is being hit with and after a lot), then sonarworks if I work on monitors. If I work on something more experimental I add some saturation before compressor prior to starting a track or I use compressor with ballz.

[borg]

Satson buss, MJUC, bx meter, bx limiter. Sometimes I'll put either Eventide EQ or SPL Passive EQ after MJUC, but I try to fix things in the channels.
This is for techno, for my more eclectic stuff there's usually nothing on the master unless the track reaches a finished state, but whoever finishes tracks?

[Ben Kohonays]

DFX Monomaker.

[illit_]

H-comp parallel, sometimes I wonder if it's even necessary and I should just go straight to the master buss ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Belka]

Satson Buss, bx_Control, Q2, maybe Comp or Reel (C2, SDC, MJUC, tbReel) Limitless, bx_Meter, Span, Sonarworks

Pre-Post EQ to the Comp depends on Material.

[speen]

usually not a lot
satson buss, eq8, mjuc compressor and a limiter (since live11 i like the color limiter.

sometimes i open a new instance of live and push everything through that celestial VST that dubdub pointed out a while ago, that seems to really add a nice bit of character.

[over9000]

Satson Bus, MJUC, EQ8, fabfilter pro L

The satson/mjuc combo seems to be a subsekt thingy ey?

[Lost to the Void]

Something I have been doing a lot is severe tonal shaping on the 2buss.
It`s generally quite destructive, and generally a bad idea, but I`m constantly trying to find new sounds and tones and shit.

Anyway often I end up with a sound that needs correction, it`s just a direct consequence of piling stuff onto the mastering buss.
Usually the transients suffer so I`ve been getting into multiband transient shaping to post correct my crunched up mixes.
I`ve found WA Productions Imprint and Joey Sturgess Jones Transify invaluable tools in this respect.

I`m not saying I recommend doing what I am doing, it can cause all kinds of problems that might cause your mastering engineer to reject your stuff if you don`t know what you are doing. But those two plugins are very useful... for all kinds of things, but tightening up a broken up mix if you have been breaking up your mix, they work very well.

For example on one track I had released last year, cut to vinyl, I ran a bitcrushing sample reducing dirty grimey filter on the master bus which cuts in for a section of the tune and fully transforms the entire mix into a bit crushed weird tonal groove. I held the mix together during that section with multiband transient shaping, it worked perfectly, no difficulty at the cut (I did have to increase the accel limiting during that section as it would have sent the cutting needle into meltdown otherwise).

Do anything, just understand the consequences.

[mindstuff]

Basic: 1 Fabfilter EQ, 2 Fabfilter compressors, 1 Fabfilter Limiter, End of chain analysis (Utility for checking mono, Voxengo Span, bx_meter)
Sometimes other things make it in there like Ozone Imager.
The 2 comp strategy I forget where I picked that up from but one is giving more punch while the other is for body.

[Lost to the Void]

Basic: 1 Fabfilter EQ, 2 Fabfilter compressors, 1 Fabfilter Limiter, End of chain analysis (Utility for checking mono, Voxengo Span, bx_meter)
Sometimes other things make it in there like Ozone Imager.
The 2 comp strategy I forget where I picked that up from but one is giving more punch while the other is for body.

2 comps is common. It`s on my home mastering guide (which I need to revise)

Fast compressor for groove and punch, slower, usually opto, for overall glue and smoothing out the RMS signal.

[dubdub]

Something I have been doing a lot is severe tonal shaping on the 2buss.
It`s generally quite destructive, and generally a bad idea, but I`m constantly trying to find new sounds and tones and shit.

Anyway often I end up with a sound that needs correction, it`s just a direct consequence of piling stuff onto the mastering buss.
Usually the transients suffer so I`ve been getting into multiband transient shaping to post correct my crunched up mixes.
I`ve found WA Productions Imprint and Joey Sturgess Jones Transify invaluable tools in this respect.

I`m not saying I recommend doing what I am doing, it can cause all kinds of problems that might cause your mastering engineer to reject your stuff if you don`t know what you are doing. But those two plugins are very useful... for all kinds of things, but tightening up a broken up mix if you have been breaking up your mix, they work very well.

For example on one track I had released last year, cut to vinyl, I ran a bitcrushing sample reducing dirty grimey filter on the master bus which cuts in for a section of the tune and fully transforms the entire mix into a bit crushed weird tonal groove. I held the mix together during that section with multiband transient shaping, it worked perfectly, no difficulty at the cut (I did have to increase the accel limiting during that section as it would have sent the cutting needle into meltdown otherwise).

Do anything, just understand the consequences.

Any other crazy techniques other than bitcrushing? I'm interested, not so much for copying but rather as a kind of "if he can get away with that, I can really do anything" encouragement...

[timc3]

Usually one or two compressors (elysia alpha compressor and brainwork vertigo comes to mind), sometimes Ampex ATR-102 plugin, quite often Precision Limiter, very little EQ and which one depends on the material - usually will go back to and try and find the problem first.

But I rarely have this while producing (then I just might have meters and maybe a limiter). I generally dump out stems from Bitwig and pull everything into Logic and use that and stick the above on.

[Lost to the Void]

Something I have been doing a lot is severe tonal shaping on the 2buss.
It`s generally quite destructive, and generally a bad idea, but I`m constantly trying to find new sounds and tones and shit.

Anyway often I end up with a sound that needs correction, it`s just a direct consequence of piling stuff onto the mastering buss.
Usually the transients suffer so I`ve been getting into multiband transient shaping to post correct my crunched up mixes.
I`ve found WA Productions Imprint and Joey Sturgess Jones Transify invaluable tools in this respect.

I`m not saying I recommend doing what I am doing, it can cause all kinds of problems that might cause your mastering engineer to reject your stuff if you don`t know what you are doing. But those two plugins are very useful... for all kinds of things, but tightening up a broken up mix if you have been breaking up your mix, they work very well.

For example on one track I had released last year, cut to vinyl, I ran a bitcrushing sample reducing dirty grimey filter on the master bus which cuts in for a section of the tune and fully transforms the entire mix into a bit crushed weird tonal groove. I held the mix together during that section with multiband transient shaping, it worked perfectly, no difficulty at the cut (I did have to increase the accel limiting during that section as it would have sent the cutting needle into meltdown otherwise).

Do anything, just understand the consequences.

Any other crazy techniques other than bitcrushing? I'm interested, not so much for copying but rather as a kind of "if he can get away with that, I can really do anything" encouragement...

Bit crushing, layers of distortion, sidechaining (via a gate) the entire mix to a part that comes in at the end and takes over the whole mix by slowly cutting in to it and eventually as the length of the parts notes get longer, the time the whole mix is cut out by this sound extends until there is only the new sound. That took a fucking long time to get right.
You can here that on the track "We will find each other again" from about 5:30 https://singularityrecordings.bandcamp. ... in-to-come

Granular reverb to add texture.
Multiband waveshaping and ring modulation.

My Heretic project basically I absolutely destroy the master buss and mix it in only slightly on wet. And then the masters are also put through the wringer.
It's going to be interesting cutting that this year as hopefully I won't be doing the mastering.
But that whole project is about no sound being pure. Everything is a residue of an effect that has been resampled from 100% wet whatever. Kicks are the resampled tails of kicks that have gone through a chain of FX ending in delay, for example. I'm trying to get sounds away from sounding "synthy" and more acousmatic.
Mushing the master bus also has a way of aging something and making the sources less distinctly locatable to a source.

I think you have the skill level and ear where you can do this kind of stuff and have the presence where you can make it work and not be an issue.

[dubdub]

Thx for the encouragement, I'll do some experimentation...