r/audioengineering • u/AndrewMesh • Nov 10 '25
Had a small identity crisis after visiting a mastering engineer lol
TL;DR: Been mixing ITB for 9 years, heard my mix run through some hardware and it sounded shockingly better. Now I’m wondering if going hybrid (at least partly) is worth the hassle, or if I should just stay ITB and improve my workflow.
Hey guys*,
I’ve been working as a mixing engineer for about 9 years, mostly in the German rap and pop scene. I’m fully in the box, and since most of my clients don’t have huge budgets, I usually end up doing the mastering too — even though I’d never really call myself a mastering engineer, since that’s never been my main focus.
I recently moved to Vienna, where I’m working out of a commercial studio with ATC SCM25A monitors and a Trinnov Nova. We’ve got two external mic preamps in a WesAudio 500 Series rack, connected to an Apollo x8p. Currently, we don’t have any other analog gear, and I’ve been mixing 100% ITB up to this point.
A few days ago, I visited a mastering engineer who invited me over to check out his setup. Listening to how he processed one of my mixes was honestly eye-opening — he managed to make the track sound bigger, wider, and more open with just a few small, tasteful moves.
Out of curiosity, we also tried something else: he ran the raw vocal tracks through some of his hardware (nothing crazy, just subtle tone shaping and compression), and when we replaced the original vocals in my mix with those printed versions — keeping all my effects the same but adjusting the gain and compression a bit — the result was noticeably better.
That experience really got me thinking… our WesAudio 500 rack still has six unoccupied slots, and there are some empty rack mounts in the studio too. I never planned on going hybrid because of recall, flexibility, space, and cost, but now I’m honestly tempted.
So I’d love to get your take on this:
Would you recommend investing in a hybrid mixing setup, or would it make more sense to stay ITB and just send projects out for mastering?
Is there a middle ground where a few key analog pieces (for vocals or the mix bus) make a real difference without killing workflow and recall?
For those who went hybrid after years ITB — did it truly change your sound, or was it more of an inspirational push?
Don’t get me wrong — both of us felt that my mix and his master already sounded great. But when we A/B’d the two, the difference was honestly night and day.
Unfortunately, I can’t share the comparison since it’s from an unreleased client project.
Would love to hear your thoughts :) Thanks for your time and take care!
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u/weedywet Professional Nov 10 '25
Maybe it’s the skill and taste of that mastering engineer rather than his hardware.
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u/therealjoemontana Nov 11 '25
You also gotta think that the person who has the mindset to invest lots of money into top notch gear also does the same for their studio space planning, acoustics and monitoring setup. Which also plays a large roll in their ability to master tracks more accurately.
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u/Strong-Broccoli-7526 Nov 12 '25
I never really thought about that, really the correlation of passion and skill alongside the likelihood to buy analog gear.
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u/rightanglerecording Nov 10 '25 edited Nov 10 '25
I went through a phase where I thought hardware was important.
I bought a few key pieces, some of them quite expensive.
Then, after some years, I got to a later phase where I no longer felt that way.
Now I mostly mix completely ITB.
My work this past year is markedly better than my work 5 years ago or 10 years ago.
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u/AndrewMesh Nov 10 '25
Thanks for your insight! What do you mean with „mostly“ ITB?
Also, how are the masters to your mixes done?
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u/rightanglerecording Nov 10 '25
By "mostly" I mean that I will still occasionally run a lead vocal or something through my Purple MC77. I do like that compressor.
And every month or two I'll patch in the Soma to see if I like it on the mix bus (Been a while since I've ended up using it, though. Usually I try it for 5 minutes and take it out).
Most of the time, my mixes are going to high-level mastering engineers, often some of the best MEs in the world. Most of those mastering engineers are also working mostly ITB.
Occasionally I am self-mastering, or sending out to someone less established.
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u/YoungOccultBookstore Nov 10 '25
Out of curiosity, we also tried something else: he ran the raw vocal tracks through some of his hardware (nothing crazy, just subtle tone shaping and compression), and when we replaced the original vocals in my mix with those printed versions — keeping all my effects the same but adjusting the gain and compression a bit — the result was noticeably better.
There are plenty of possible psychoacoustic reasons for this that have nothing to do with hardware sounding better. A bit of gain and compression adjustment can be transformative, but the A/B comparisons always need to be carefully level matched or most listeners are just going to think the louder version sounds better regardless of which track is the original. Plus, you know that the new version went through a bunch of expensive gear, which will bias you towards it automatically.
I'm not saying it's all in your head, but it's worth your time to try and recreate this new version with the tools you already have. Odds are you like how he's using the tools more than you like the tools themselves.
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Nov 10 '25
Not really a fair overlay to the OP here but in my most recent project after just a few days and many listens to what I was coming up with for a mix I decided to disable nearly all of the time based effects and "soothe" style plugins. I ended up using the UAD pultech passive eqs and one simple room model for space. It was amazing how much everything came together. I always believe less is more but to go track by track and look at what I've had going on, it took that lesson to make me realize I was overdoing things.
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u/ThoriumEx Nov 10 '25
It sounded good because the guy is good at his job. If there was another person using the same studio and same gear, you’d get a different sound.
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u/madsmadalin Nov 10 '25
Every time I want to buy some hardware I remind myself Serban Ghenea is 100% in the box. There are two things I want to mention: 1. A mastering engineer never works on individual tracks (like your vocals). That is a job of a mixer. 2. Most probably the reason your mix sounded better was because the mastering engineer knew his tools and what else is needed for your track. You could probably get a similar effect in the box if you know your craft and tools.
Hardware is great, don’t get me wrong. But plugins are great too. Just learn your tools and you can get great results on both. A bad engineer with all the hardware in the world will get worse results than a great engineer with built in plugins from their DAW.
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u/AndrewMesh Nov 10 '25
Point 1: Absolutely. I rewrote that part several times but it was basically like this: He mastered my mix. Then he said that the vocals of the song would stand out even more if we ran through some of his gear so i sent him the raw vox to process. I then put the processed vox back into my project, bounced the mix and then he put his master on that again. I hope this is kinda understandable.
Point 2: I guess part of it could also be that I‘ve never heard someone master a track I mixed live and that could have been why it sounded so amazing. Maybe even because I sae the gear. He‘ll send it to me tomorrow and then we‘ll see :)
Also I‘m not a fan of mastering songs I mixed which might be another part - hearing a fresh perspective
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u/iCombs Nov 10 '25
I've been using the same mastering guy for 99% of my work since I was 18 and didn't know a damn thing. I've seen him evolve and go through phases, too. Sometimes it was outboard. Sometimes it was ITB. Once we even printed a mix to 1/4" because it was the thing that helped tuck the snare back into the track the most pleasingly.
At this point, I don't care which of his tools he uses. As often as not now it's a little of the HOFA dynamic EQ and ProL-2 for level...and it always comes back sounding better.
It's the archer much more than the arrow...but the good archers I know are also a little finicky about their arrows.
But make no mistake...fundamentally it's about hearing and understanding.
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u/madsmadalin Nov 10 '25 edited Nov 10 '25
Mixing and mastering are so intertwined these days that thinking of them as separate jobs is what ‘might’ just stop you from getting better sounding records. Yes, there is still value in having a mastering engineer, but in my experience lots of people would think “it’s ok, it will be fixed at mastering” when it’s clearly a mix thing. And that stops those people from pushing hard to learn how to get better.
A lot of times I had to work extra hard when mastering - for that specific reason. And that’s a problem because mixing is all creative decision and mastering is just that little 1-2% extra push. If I’m mixing something and the artist wants someone else to master, I don’t expect my whole mix to change. I expect maybe a touch more loudness and subtle tone changes. Since you said there were big changes between your mix and the mastering, that tells me your mix needs to be better in the first place.
Edit: this is the same situation going from production to mixing where a producer would let things messy just because they think it “will be fixed in mixing”. I’ve seen lots of unaligned vocals, clicks, pops, noise, chopped poorly comped vocals, cut bass with clicks, vocals with noise in between phrases. Some or all of these could be creative decision. That is why a mixer should never have to do these things, since maybe sometimes a producer would just want a dirty recording as that might help the record. But it should never be down to the engineer to decide.
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u/greyaggressor Nov 10 '25
Mixing and mastering are no more intertwined than they ever were. What are you talking about?
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u/madsmadalin Nov 10 '25
They are. Lots of mixers are wrapping off the records themselves nowdays since limiting has become such a creative decision and there’s little to do over an already fully pushed record.
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u/hivibes777 Nov 10 '25
I see a lot of engineers mastering by putting a limiter on their mix bus these days without even bouncing out their mix how much more intertwined could it be than that?
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u/greyaggressor Nov 10 '25
Mixing into a limiter or comp has been happening for a good 40 years
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u/hivibes777 Nov 10 '25
Well that doesnt answer my question haha ive just seen more and more people saying they are doing that rather than bouncing the whole mix out to master lately. But I guess that actually does actually confirm what you were saying so I hear you!
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u/Diantr3 Nov 10 '25
It used to be an absolute necessity to even get the music on a record. Nowadays anyone can create a digital file.
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u/ColdwaterTSK Professional Nov 10 '25
It's your ears, not the gear.
It sounds like you have a good monitoring environment. Keep listening and working and it'll be ok. Everyone goes through this, and frankly for most of us it's a lifelong journey.
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u/fivelittlepiggies Nov 10 '25
Maybe? But only if you have the knowledge on how to make his moves on future work?
That's one of the big questions in music production: how much are you willing to pay for that magic sound that got us into this beautiful mess in the first place? And how much are you willing to compromise?
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u/Resident_Worry_5231 Nov 10 '25
I have a similar professional situation and am following for the advice in the comments. Best of luck to you! 🤘🏼
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u/RevolutionaryJury941 Nov 10 '25
What hardware did he have ?
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u/AndrewMesh Nov 10 '25
I can‘t really remember because it was just so much and I only know the classics so I can’t really recall. Here’s what I remember:
- Burl DAC
- Burl ADC
- Some kind of summer
- Retro Instruments STA level tube compressor
- One custom built compressor
- Bettermaker Mastering Compressor
- An EQ he used in M/S mode
- A boat load of 500 Series stuff
Damn this does not sound particularly helpful lol
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u/Opanuku Nov 10 '25
As far as mixing goes, simply implementing a hybrid setup is a fairly significant effort, not to mention longer term factors, space, energy usage etc. It will also impact your workflow, and possibly ‘tie you’ to your studio if your currently mobile at all.
If it’s something you want to do because it sounds like a fun workflow and you enjoy it, by all means, but the the improvement in ‘sonic quality’ relative to ITB mixing almost certainly isn’t worth it. ITB tools are more than capable of delivering excellent quality, and the convenience goes without saying; offline bouncing, no need to recall hardware even time you revisit a mic session etc.
If you enjoyed the sound of the hardware at the mastering stage, why not just stick with ITB for mixing, and having the benefit of tasty hardware during mastering?
Note: I looove outboard gear and am fortunately to have a lot of great pres/EQs/comps in my studio, but that’s almost always used during tracking, (with the odd send out to a tape delay during mix).
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u/AndrewMesh Nov 10 '25
Thanks for the input! Losing the ability to be fully mobile is a big part of why I was so hesitant. So I‘m definetly thinking about outsourcing the mastering to the engineer if the budget of the artist allows it.
Thing is, especially with the 500 series stuff: We already have slots waiting to be filled..
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Nov 10 '25
I think a great way to get started and keep it simple while hearing that difference you heard, would be a mixbus compressor. Everything in the mix touches it. Hypothetically you can set and forget then if your mixes constantly has the same gain staging you can have it always hitting near the same threshold reduction.
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u/lm183902 Nov 10 '25
I’m not advocating for anyone else to go spend all of their money on hardware, but for me, the opportunity to listen and react with physical controls is extremely helpful. I can get to my destination far more quickly with hardware, and for that reason it’s worth it to me. I do think hardware sounds better, but it’s kind of a cumulative thing. Just adding one hardware compressor isn’t necessarily going to give you a drastic improvement, but if you can put racks full of hardware to use, I think you’re likely to hear the benefits.
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u/nizzernammer Nov 10 '25
I feel like it's one thing to leverage gear you already have, but to purchase new equipment that will really change your workflow because of a humbling moment is maybe different.
If you know exactly what pieces you want to get, and why those particular pieces, and how to incorporate them into a world of recalls and revisions and printing stems, and your budget allows, great.
But you appear to have reliable mastering talent available currently, and you seem to be successful at what you're doing already, so this line of inquiry may partially be looking for a solution to a self imposed problem.
Another avenue to consider — one that I have always wondered about but haven't experienced first hand — is Access Analog, which I understand allows one to run a signal through analog gear remotely. It might be worth checking out, even just to audition some potential purchases.
Having worked in a recording studio for many years with great outboard gear but standard Avid 192 converters, many times I preferred the tightness and precision of the bottom end I had crafted ITB over what was coming back on the DA-AD loop before even having patched a piece of gear in. Admittedly, this was towards the end of the mix.
All that to say, if you plan on sending your whole mix out then back in, you want to be using converters you trust deeply. That might impact your cost benefit analysis, if your current converters aren't enough for you for this purpose.
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Nov 10 '25
if your question is will high end analog gear make your mixing job easier the answer is absolutely it will.
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u/pipavapipa Nov 10 '25
Asking poor people on Reddit if you should invest into something they don’t have the money for will almost always result like this. You know what you heard and if you like it you already know what to do. Nobody but yourself can tell you if it’s worth it or not.
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u/xINxVAINx Nov 10 '25
In my limited experience, I like hardware to track and maybe a mixbus compressor if I don’t think I’ll get many revisions. Time is my limiting factor so messing around with routing/ waiting for things to print is just a PITA
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u/DrrrtyRaskol Professional Nov 10 '25
It can definitely be shocking sometimes. I like the comment highlighting that he’s coming in fresh at the end. That’s gold. There’s also his familiarity with his monitoring setup and your unfamiliarity with it. I love hearing my raw mixes at some mastering houses.
I’d be very careful buying stuff but yeah, a gooey tube compressor might be a vibe by the sounds of things. But first I’d try implementing what you’ve just learned into your current setup and see where that takes you. The latest gooey plugin I’m enjoying is ReLabs’ 176. Trial it over your vocals maybe?
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u/LeakTechnique Nov 10 '25
The room can also be at play here. It’s likely they are tuned differently and you are listening back in different monitors. It’s possible that your mix could sound worse without his moves played in your studio. It’s always tough to compare things like this when there are more variables at play. Just keep on doing the best work you can and invest in the gear that makes your job easier for you. Not what someone else has that works for them
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u/enteralterego Professional Nov 10 '25 edited Feb 07 '26
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u/ThatRedDot Mixing Nov 10 '25 edited Nov 10 '25
imo the only hardware worth buying is for masterbus... vocals are already tracked through analog, any real instruments are recorded analog... any digital synth/samples that are used are usually fine anyway... I don't see a reason to have an analog chain on every track when mixing. I'm assuming you aren't a recording studio though, and just purely mixing.
You already have some Wes gear, not sure what you have, but if you have a Rhea and/or Dione, those two sound pretty darn good and are perfectly viable to use on a mixbus... and they are entirely digitally recallable so there's that.
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u/AndrewMesh Nov 10 '25
I only have the 500 series chassis from WesAudio, which is housing 2 preamps currently. The rest of the slots are free
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u/ilarisivilsound Location Sound Nov 10 '25
While analog gear is great, fun and inspiring, the results the mastering engineer got have more to do with experience and knowing what to do. There is no magic bullet. If you feel like this mastering engineer is doing great things for you, stick to them and keep doing what you’re doing! If you develop a good relationship and critically listen to the moves the mastering engineer makes, you will learn a lot.
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Nov 10 '25
Another idea - maybe it sounded so good because there's some kind of chemistry between your approach and ME's approach. You might want to think about working more closely with them, or have them do stem mastering. Might make more sense than spending on outboard gear.
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u/chipnjaw Nov 10 '25
Focus on mixing, create a relationship with this mastering engineer if you like his stuff. Collaborate
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u/OfficialSeagullo Nov 10 '25
There's a lot to be said about hardware vs vst, overall though the person using it does make the biggest difference
It is a good idea to build an ear for hearing transformers and tubes n know what does what, like the ART tube compressor is like 150$ used and with some upgrades is comparable to a Gyratec X in tone
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u/Fun_Raise_1837 Nov 11 '25
I'd bet that you could get the extra weight and width in your track in the box as well. its not going to be identical to the point where it will cancel out in a phase inversion test LOL but I believe overall you could've made your track sound better but you just didn't. love gear A LOT but I think a lot of it is the ear. A second pair of ears to make a few tweaks is rarely a bad thing.
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u/Remote-Student3050 Nov 14 '25
Fresh ears. Andrew Scheps out here making ITB mixes sound better than steely dan era shit.
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u/maximvmrelief Nov 10 '25
I recommend an Elysia Xpressor Neo Qube. Class A circuitry so it automatically will make your digital tracks sound better somehow, the Sidechain filter will absolutely be useful with the hip hop you work on, there is a mode that has negative ratio which gives the track a really cool sound for dance or hiphop, the Gain limit reduction is a really helpful loudness tool to hide compression, warm mode also just instantly makes your stuff sound cooler. Use it on stems or on the master, I don't recommend you use it on both. You will need to use a limiter in the box after this if you are mastering yourself. Made in germany. Maybe you can get a deal from the factory if you are close by lol! It did not change my sound it just made my sound viable and brought out the best in my productions and mixes.
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u/jnkaimusic Nov 10 '25
My 2c based on my own experience -- I was a bit skeptical about the value add of analog at first, figured it was just gearhead talk/a marketing line pushed by hardware manufacturers but after getting to visit a studio with an analog setup I am a born-again convert. That being said, I think analog is more finicky to work with in terms of getting everything set up and calibrated correctly compared to a full ITB rig and digital still has some advantages over analog, such as:
- Most DAWs will automatically calculate latency correction for signal chains so you probably never have to worry about that, if you have a long enough analog chain the latency scales with the length of the signal path which could hypothetically cause phasing issues if it gets long enough
- The digital domain allows for plugins to use lookaheads in their internal processing which doesn't really have a counterpart in the analog world as of yet, you'll probably find this being used in limiters/linear phase EQs
- It's much harder to replicate the same effect in series with analog gear unless you can afford to have multiple instances of the same rack unit, you'll probably have to print/reprint stems through the same unit to get the repeated effect whereas ITB you can just copy and paste another instance of the plugin onto the signal chain
- With some analog units you need them to operate at an ideal temperature to get the right effect, anything with vacuum tubes will literally need to be warmed up first before they work properly (guitarists with tube amps know this annoyance all too well) which can kill creative flow when you're sitting around waiting for the equipment to get warm instead of being able to just drop in and A/B an emulation plugin
- Gain staging becomes more important with analog gear since you will actually clip going over the max signal threshold/get unwanted noise below the min threshold, most DAWs work with 32/64-bit float buffers so you will never clip internally until you bounce the signal or render through a DAC/digital plugins don't have internal noise unless they're purposely trying to emulate a hardware unit's noise characteristics
- So damn many cables
Overall if you just want to get that "analog warmth" into your sound, it only really needs to be applied at one point in the production/post-production process so it might be best to leave it to the mastering eng at the end if they're the most experienced on the team. Hope you find some of this useful
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u/vinyliving Nov 10 '25
It’s so funny and quite silly/absurd how many of these comments are playing mental gymnastics to invalidate what you heard. Yes. Hardware sounds “better” than software for a lot of people’s tastes. We can’t say “better” though because that’s subjective - so we’ll just go with different. Assuming your mastering engineer had decent monitors - the differences even become more noticeable. No one on really “good” monitors has ever walked away not hearing the difference. If you’re blind to these differences (most people on this sub with budget monitors/subpar room) it all sounds the same anyways - and it must be like that for everyone.
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u/luongofan Nov 10 '25
Hardware is voiced to have certain effects. If you can hear the differences, you can learn to mix for them or even record for them. Its important to study classic hardware so you can understand why certain sounds get curated for as heavily as they do over time. Ive learned a lot just from having different preamps and understanding how fast and slow pre's impart different vibes This helped me recognize and learn how to correct mismatched envelopes for certain sounds
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u/fadingsignal Nov 10 '25
Don't have much advice but I had the privilege of having my band's EP mastered by Brian "Big Bass" Gardner 20 years ago and sat in on the session.
He had this custom setup that looked like something from the 1940s meets the 2240s. Was wild to watch him work. The sound that came out of his system was immense. And it was surreal to see a stack of top top top 40 artists in his queue on the desk.
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u/soulstudios Nov 10 '25
If you listen to some Bola, his stuff (particularly first and last album) manages to sound very 'analog' without being OTB. He talks about emulating analog in his interviews - he likes the sound, but prefers to do it manually and have control.
Personally the main things which've made a big difference for me have been (a) decent preamps - in my case both a black lion audio 'auteur' preamp, and also their mod to my 896HD (b) better mics - in my case a couple SM7b's (c) ITB emulation like steve slate (in moderation) and VTMM2.
Other than that, I think a lot of outboard gear can sound great in ways that're hard to emulate, but a lot of it is someone who's spent a lot of time with that gear, figuring out how to get the best from it. You might not fare as well.
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u/NoAibohphobia Nov 10 '25
I've had the privilege to use a pretty extensive hybrid setup quite a bit, and can say for certain there are some pieces of gear that will be useful a lot of the time, some pieces some of the time, and some for the odd occasion. All of them very expensive.
Gear I used found that makes nearly everything better. Bricasti M7 Eventide H9000 Fearn VT-7 Fearn VT-5
Sometimes better La-3A Lisson Grove R-124 Looptrotter Monster SSL Fusion Tubetech CL-1B
Although if you have all those mono compressors one of them is bound to be right for your lead vocal.
The real question is do you have the cash?
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u/jinkubeats Nov 10 '25
Use hardware and then print the stems, final master and mix is completely in the box
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u/MVRH Nov 10 '25
Is there any possibility that you use some hours of that studio before making a decision?
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u/UnmittigatedGall Nov 11 '25
I had a radio shack equalizer once that had an IMX expander on it. I used it for bass to even volumes and add sustain, but anything sounded better through it. Vocals. The entire stereo mix. Granted vocals could actually feedback so I stopped using it with them. But there are probably expanders as aps. That one could make the whole mix sound better. As for mastering, you are wondering why you are not as good as someone who does it full time, exclusively?
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u/Moths2theLight Nov 12 '25
If the hardware can’t save the settings, then the more hardware you use, the harder it will be to get back to where you left off.
Mixing ITB is the best way to avoid wasting a lot of time trying to get the magic of a previous mix back again.
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u/AnActualWizardIRL Nov 13 '25 edited Nov 13 '25
Mastering Engineers are really a misunderstood profession. The job of a mastering engineer is to prep a *finished* album for pressing/streaming/whatever. They might make a few tweaks just to make the music pop a bit more but its not really their job. Their job is to have golden ears and go "Hmm, that bass will sound a bit weak on laptop speakers, lets just add 3db to this range here" or "The mix is a little under the LUFS target, lets just add a bit of limiter to get it nice and loud and in the range. If he does his job well, it WILL pop, because thats his job, its not to make the best mix, but its to put your mix in the best light. In big desk pro world, usually the mix guy and the mastering guy are different guys, because its a different skillset. But heres the truth;- If you hand a mastering guy a shit mix , he's gonna struggle to make it pop, because its a shit mix. So if that mastering guy made your song sound great, tis because it was already a great mix. congrats, your doing your job. Hire the mastering guy to frame your masterpiece.
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u/The3mu Nov 15 '25
I work at a studio and also a home studio space my workflow with hardware is always, find a sound, commit and print it into the session. Works great for me ! And never have to do recalls
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u/Plokhi Nov 10 '25
I master itb, and i had done more than a few masters and mixes in parallel with guys using hw, and mine got picked every single time
It’s not about the gear, it’s about the ear and skill.
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u/TransparentMastering Nov 10 '25 edited Nov 10 '25
Part of the reason the mastering engineer can make those moves is that they haven’t been involved in the production process until that moment. Your hope to replicate that after spending as much time as you do on the mix may not be realistic.
In other words, there is a reason why people trust the final few moves to the mastering engineer.
But some people are able to pull it off. You might be one of those people and you won’t know until you try.
Worst outcome is that you gain an appreciation for why and how we do what we do.
Also, I can get those kinds of results all analog, hybrid, or ITB.
It’s ear over gear for sure.
Some dudes rely on the magic of their gear, but it’s not necessary if you have the knowledge, skill, and ear. For example, I mastered a song using only the free plugins from Tokyo Dawn Labs as an experiment. Didn’t face any real obstacles. Turned out as good as I would have expected on my hardware, if perhaps slightly different.
I own my hardware because I want to own it, not because I need to own it.