Mix bus EQ/processing best practices

[Lost to the Void]

I've literally never heard of anyone doing it, and I can't understand why you would.

Ok. You realize that kinda makes me want to do it even more hahahahaha. Seriously though seems to work for me, probably my ears like the bumps there, personal thing, mix still sounds good with out it too.

It`s just odd from a technical standpoint, it means every single sound is going through that EQ, so every single sound gets boosted in the same place, gets phase distorted in the same place, and then you also are pre-compensating for that at the channel level with whatever you do to each channel to make it not sound too toppy or whatever.

It`s such a strange inexplicable thing to do on the master channel.

I get some people might get to the end of their mix, realise it needs a tilt or whatever, and rather than dealing with the channels, slap an EQ over the master and adjust.. But to set an EQ curve and then mix into it.... It makes no sense at all.

[Amøbe]

I get some people might get to the end of their mix, realise it needs a tilt or whatever, and rather than dealing with the channels, slap an EQ over the master and adjust..

very guilty of this laziness

[msl]

very guilty of this laziness

Its not lazy its common practice really.

[msl]

But to set an EQ curve and then mix into it.... It makes no sense at all.

It works well for me. 99% of mixes benefit from air band, and a bump in the subs at 61-62hz. I would always be adding it at the end anyhow, so I'm just doing the other way round. Obvs we're not talking about some over fried shit mix you might get in for mastering, that's been processed to death. Also at the end of the day we're taking about electronic music and techno here, often breaking the rules can and does sound good. Generally mixing into a chain works wonders for electronic music imo.

Note this is not to "fix" some problematic mix, maybe the original post was about that. If so sorry.

Generally I agree with "the less amount of processing the better" as every stage / plugin / process degrades the sound obvs. However ! Plugins have gotten so dame good over the last decade that whereas 10-15 years ago I'd have nothing on my master but a limiter, now I have up to 8 plugins , 5 of which are permanently engaged, all with light settings. And it sounds fucking great.

[Lost to the Void]

very guilty of this laziness

Its not lazy its common practice really.

Common practice can still be lazy. which it is.

[Lost to the Void]

But to set an EQ curve and then mix into it.... It makes no sense at all.

It works well for me. 99% of mixes benefit from air band, and a bump in the subs at 61-62hz.

Not saying it doesn`t work, saying it`s bad practice.
Not all mixes benefit from air band or a bump at 61-62 hz at all.
Good balanced mixes don`t require that at all, and of all the common things I do in mastering, I wouldn`t say band is common at all. If anything I roll the tops down more commonly than I boost them in the air band.
Again, 60hz, not an issue in a well produced track, I tend to be cleaning up the subs from 60 down somewhere, or tightening them up with compression, but rarely boosting at 60.
I would suggest if you are needing these things on your mixes commonly, then you have a consistent issue either with your room or your monitors.

But to set an EQ curve and then mix into it.... It makes no sense at all.

I would always be adding it at the end anyhow, so I'm just doing the other way round.

Again, if your mixes were balanced they wouldn't need this every single time.

But to set an EQ curve and then mix into it.... It makes no sense at all.

now I have up to 8 plugins , 5 of which are permanently engaged, all with light settings. And it sounds fucking great.

You are just compensating for the mix tho. If you didn`t use some of this corrective stuff, you would be doing it more cleanly on the channel level AND, more importantly, not every single sound would be boosted in exactly the same area getting exactly the same phase distortion (leading to potential resonance issues and the need for accel limiting at the master).

I`m not suggesting it doesn`t work for you, I`m saying it`s generally bad advice for people to mix in to a pre-set EQ, apart from what it is doing to the sound and the potential problems, if it is there from the get go, you are undercompensating for what it adds, at the channel level, so by taking it away and mixing without it, you will get the same results WITHOUT the addition of phase distortion to every single sound in the mix.
If it were being added post mix for finalisation, that makes sense, but to mix into a preset EQ is the same as to not have it there, but more destructive.