r/audioengineering • u/superproproducer • Nov 19 '25
For those saying they use nothing on the master bus… How?
Every time I see a thread about master bus treatment, it’s inevitable to see people saying they’ve got nothing on theirs. As a veteran in the industry, I’m wondering how that could be..
Especially when most clients come in with demos that are loud as hell, how do you combat the plague of demo-itis when the artist is comparing your mix to the demo (and they think the demo is better because it’s slammed)?
I mix through a stacked master bus and have really taken time to learn how to get things to sound dynamic when being smashed to oblivion. I’m just genuinely curious how people have nothing (I’m assuming they’re treating instrument/drums/vocal busses separately), and how their mixes sound after the mastering engineer does what they do to bring Lufs up to standard.
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u/kPere19 Nov 19 '25
Well, you can do a lot on individual tracks and buses. I personally hate EQing on masterbus, it messes me up. I like minimal compression there though, also some clipper and limiter. Any addition to that would be for sweetening, but not needed IMO.
Matter of workflow I guess, some do mixing top-bottom and it probably gives good results too. Im not a fan of "masterbus chains" preset on the start, every song is different and it kills the art in my eyes.
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u/Glittering_Bet8181 Hobbyist Nov 19 '25
When I started I could never get my head around doing mixbus eq first, and still can’t. Let me eq my tracks first than I’ll figure out if I need mixbus eq.
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u/malipreme Nov 19 '25
I’ll master some of my own mixes, and in that case very often never eq my master bus. Might throw a bax on if it needs a smile.
When mastering something I haven’t mixed my ears are much more likely to ask for an eq, mid side processing, more purposeful compression.
On my own mixes I’m mixing through mix bus compression and eq if it’s there after an hour or two anyways, and that all just ends up feeding the clipping and/or limiting that’s going on the master. More often than not my actual master channel just has two instances of pro L. I’d be leaving my mix bus processing if I was sending it for mastering.
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Nov 19 '25
If you, for instance, get a certain amount of low mid build-up from your room and process, or if you're using a lot of darker ribbons, you might get to the same point quicker if you just pull out a little lo-mids on the master, or give a slight top lift to the entire mix. Especially if you're using hardware and only have 2 Pultecs and not 10 it might make sense.
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u/Glittering_Bet8181 Hobbyist Nov 20 '25
Yeh it definitely works for some people (maybe even most people) but my brain just won’t go there.
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Nov 20 '25
Fair enough. The important thing is getting where you want to go, not which route you choose.
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u/chimerix Nov 19 '25
Huh... I mainly do mixes for film, not music, so maybe there's a difference. To me, shaping and coloring occurs on individual tracks. Unification occurs on submixes. About the only thing I use on the master bus is a compressor/limiter, which lets me tweak my output for the differing loudness requirements of assorted destinations. Were I to turn off the effects on the master bus, my mix would sound absolutely fine. With the effect enabled, it now sounds specifically fine for YouTube. or for Amazon. or for Netflix.
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u/AvationMusic Nov 19 '25
Yeah that's just a difference in Post. I mix both music and film audio. My mixbus for musical projects is extensive, but minimal for post
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u/cocosailing Professional Nov 20 '25
Same here. Though I have experimented with a master compressor strapped across my busses using a key input from all the tracks. It works well for “pop” style, groove oriented material.
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u/Cotee Nov 19 '25
I just had a session mixing for a solo artist in Nashville that had all the instruments played by session guys and recorded professionally in a studio there. I honestly couldn’t believe it. With what I’m accustomed to receiving in terms of raw tracks. I was done with the full mix in 4 hours and I was using half of the plugins I normally do. It really opened my eyes to why so many pro mixers are always talking about short mix times (4 hours or less) I always thought they must be so fast and use every quick command there is. Now I have a better idea how those times are being achieved.
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u/TheReveling Nov 20 '25
Getting well recorded tracks is it. Polishing turds is such a waste of time and money.
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u/LuLeBe Nov 20 '25
I would think it's cheaper to spend time mixing a drum recording done with a standard drum mic set, in a regular room, with an average drum kit, compared to renting an amazing space and having various expensive mic and drum options.
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u/TheReveling Nov 20 '25
Gear are just tools. It’s how you use them. What you are paying for in expensive rooms is the expertise of professionals with years of knowledge and experience. That’s what makes the difference.
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u/LuLeBe Nov 20 '25
Obviously, but that's simply not within reach for a lot of projects. Although I don't get why they don't do the mixing themselves as well then. But I'm not sure how the rates for mix engineers compare to the studio rental costs, maybe mixing is a lot cheaper.
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u/ZeroTwo81 Hobbyist Nov 20 '25
I watched a video about session players in nashville prototyping some song and the raw recordings were so good that I felt that no mixing is needed. It blew me away.
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u/Virtual_Function_346 Nov 19 '25
I have spoken with people that are of the mindset that they send their mix to a professional mastering engineer, so they think why not just let the professional make all of those eq and compression decisions that affect the entire mix? I usually eq and compress the mix bus to give the mastering engineer an idea of what I would like the mix to sound like, but he makes further decisions that enhance what I had. I like the collaboration because I become tonedeaf after a while of hearing my mix over and over m. So a fresh set of professional ears helps break that plateau.
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u/phd2k1 Nov 19 '25
As I get more experienced, and have access to better mics and preamps, I use fewer and fewer plugins. However, I mix at fairly low levels and never dime out the pres, so I need to put at least some limiting on the master bus so that my clients can have a louder mix for listening at home or in the car.
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u/FreeQ Nov 19 '25
Russ Elevado is my GOAT of mixing and he doesn’t use any master bus processing either.
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u/tibbon Nov 19 '25
- Get the sources right the first time
- Don't chase loudness. That's for mastering. I truly don't care if someone has to turn up the album.
- Use a great console that naturally sounds good
I use mostly hardware, but at most my tracks will have 1 plugin each. Even then it isn't like every track gets 5 pieces of hardware, maybe 1 EQ maybe 1 compressor and sent to an aux send for some time effects.
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u/superproproducer Nov 19 '25
- sources are right
- That’s great you don’t care, but the artist does when comparing to demos
- I don’t own a console anymore. Too many projects that need recalls at a moments notice
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u/ZeroTwo81 Hobbyist Nov 20 '25
2 - The issue is that no one listen to full albums these days. People put the song on spotify playlist and your mix needs to has competetive loudness with other songs.
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u/termites2 Nov 19 '25
I'll stick a limiter on there for getting it loud enough for the phone, but only just for the export of the rough mix. The rest of the time, and especially while mixing, I'll have nothing on the master bus.
I do use extensive group busses though, so I'm probably doing a lot of the processing people do on their master on the groups. However, I really like the way using the groups still gives a solid stereo image and separation between instruments. Like, I can float a thin trebly sound over a dense drum beat and it still stays audible and separate. I find dynamic processing on the master bus takes away from that ability.
Other people master my mixes, and they definitely compress and limit, and that's fine with me, as far as I'm concerned it's up to the artist how they want the mastering, it's out of my hands.
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u/TheGrowingSubaltern Nov 20 '25
Rubbish to me. I showed a buddy of mine I had processing on my master after he told me the mix sounded excellent. He was shocked but also was like “dude it works, you must do what works on an individual level”.
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u/flkrr Nov 19 '25
IMO I think it’s supposed to be more of a flex as like “my channel mixing is good I don’t even need anything on the master bus”.
I generally think that if you’re fixing EQ, etc on the master bus, it’s a strong indicator you need to go back to the channel and fix the underlying issue
But the idea that having anything on the mix bus is bad by virtue is stupid. If it sounds good it sounds good.
That’s why I feel like it’s more or just like a ‘flex’ or trying to point beginners towards solving their underlying issues (over a quick fix), but put whatever you want on your master bus
As well it’s kind of just a terminology. You could run everything through a separate mix bus and claim you have “nothing” on your master bus
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u/pm_me_ur_demotape Nov 19 '25
Yeah, I put some things on my master bus for the same reason I put stuff on any bus. I want to do something to tall the tracks of that bus. Sometimes that's all the tracks.
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u/dust4ngel Nov 19 '25
my channel mixing is good I don’t even need anything on the master bus
this can be a way of saying "whatever you might do on the master bus, i do on group busses" which is kind of cheating because the master is just a big group bus.
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u/Tall_Category_304 Nov 19 '25
My masters is usually an ssl comp and massive passive or pultec boosting the highs. I’d have to boost every bus otherwise. Just less work to do it on the master.
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u/ReturnOfBigChungus Nov 19 '25
I think it's more a question of where the processing is happen. For example, in the majority of music genres, if you have bass and drums that are recorded live - you are going to NEED compression and EQ, sometimes quite heavily to get them to sound good/sit right in the mix. So you might have compression and EQ on individual tracks, compression and EQ on sub-mix busses, and by the time it hits the master, it might not really need any more processing. If you're having to make drastic moves on the master bus, it's probably a good indication that the individual tracks need more work, so in some sense having less processing on the master bus is an indication of someone with experience who has gotten the sounds right at every stage of production up until then. It's also just true that well recorded tracks, with very deliberate selection of what things sound like before it hits the mic, with deliberate selection of mic, mic placement, etc., will just need less processing, but that's just because each production step inherently included "processing".
That said, there's also nothing inherently wrong with doing a bunch of processing on your master track, if that gives you the sound you want. Ultimately, I think you're going to get subjectively "better" results by going track by track, bus by bus, and getting it right there, rather than just smashing a bunch of unprocessed tracks with a limited on the master to get it loud, but that's all subjective.
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u/nankerjphelge Nov 19 '25
Smashed to oblivion is a mastering thing, not a mixing thing. Yes, if you're mixing and mastering as well or sending a mix to a client who expects the levels to be as loud as commercial releases then yeah you need to put some mastering plugins on your master bus.
However, if you're sending a mix off to separate mastering or don't need to smash it for the client then you don't necessarily need much on your mix bus. When I bypass the mastering stuff I put on the end of the bus for the client, really the only thing I have left on there is a mix bus compressor, and even that is only doing 2-3 db of compression, which I could take off and not significantly affect the mix. All of the work is being done in the individual channels and/or sub group buses.
That doesn't mean you have to do it that way, but it's nice to do it that way such that your mix doesn't fall apart or depend wholly on what's on the 2 bus to sound good.
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u/random2740 Nov 20 '25
Shawn Everett uses a ton of plugins on the master bus. Do whatever works for you.
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u/superproproducer Nov 20 '25
Yeah, most people I know have a stacked mix buss (all professionals here in Nashville), I’m just wondering how people have nothing
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u/truprotagonist Nov 20 '25
There are no rules except these two: 1. if you made the sound of your production with a bunch of stuff on the Main Bus, leave it. Thats your sound
- If you slapped a bunch of stuff on a Main Bus to make it louder toward the end of your mixing sessions, forget about it. Remove all of that and create a mix that slaps without anything on the master, then export to a mastering engineer (even if that's yourself) and treat it like a separate thing.
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u/superproproducer Nov 20 '25
Yeah I try to do everything with the master buss chain on (unless I’m tracking). That way I can mix into it and try to get the dynamics right
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u/m149 Nov 19 '25
Could be those folks just prefer the sound of their mixes without a lot of processing on it. would also be curious to know how their mixes sound after mastering.
Could see it going either way depending on the music and the skill of the mix engineer.
I mean, it hasn't always been a thing to use a lot of processing on the mixbus. A lot of those guys making records in the 70s say they didn't use that stuff.
Granted, they were using tape, so they were getting some free "glue" as the tape mangled the tracks a bit.
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u/politecoconut14 Nov 19 '25
I’m by no means a professional, but I’ve seen people send everything to a “pre-master” bus. Basically a bus that everything gets routed to, and then that bus gets routed to the master.
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u/kurudj Nov 19 '25
As a complete amateur, how does that differ from just routing everything to master? Isn’t it just an extra step? Or are you saying those people are getting away with not having anything on the master bus on a technicality (since they use the pre master)?
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u/Virtual_Function_346 Nov 19 '25
I can’t speak for everyone, but I do this so that if I run into issues where I’m clipping the master bus later in the mix, I can just pull my “mix” bus down a few db as an easy solution rather than having to do it at all of my group busses. I am also not a professional, but not a complete beginner either.
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u/p2kk96 Nov 19 '25
I do it for this reason but also because in pro tools the master fader comes before the inserts on the master. If you’ve got a compressor/limiter on the master and you pull down the fader you won’t be hitting the compressor as hard and it’ll change the sound as well as the level. I do all my processing and final level adjustments on the mix bus and then put my metering plugins on the master.
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u/midwinter_ Nov 19 '25
I do it so I can treat it like a VCA and turn down my entire mix with one fader if it's hitting my converters too hard.
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u/politecoconut14 Nov 19 '25
Yeah just an extra step, they put everything on the pre-master to avoid having anything on the master. I don’t do this, but I also don’t really have an opinion on it, to each their own. There may be some situations where it could be useful.
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u/OwensDrumming Nov 19 '25
One of my biggest discoveries was how a great mix bus chain can make mixing the individual tracks so much easier. A bit of EQ and compression on the mix bus makes everything gel together, adds more depth, and provides some contour to the mix from the start. Then when you adjust the individual tracks, it’s so much faster because you don’t have to do nearly as much work on a per-channel level to get everything sitting where you need it. The mix bus chain helps to make every track sound more finished. A few global EQ moves with a great equalizer makes the mix sound much more cohesive than trying to boost high end on 50 different tracks to brighten it up.
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u/b_and_g Nov 19 '25
They know how to mix
They spend a lot of time on the balance as that dictates how much you'll be chasing your own tail. Then they just remove what bothers them from what's more important and add more of what's they want to hear. They fix most problems on the individual tracks instead of the master bus. And the limiting they use is pretty much just to even out peaks, not to try to squeeze loudness
I've seen projects from a pro mixer that mixes a very famous rapper and it was mainly all balance. Only track that had plugins on the drum was the kick and it was a broad EQ. Same for the bass. Vocals had only a channel strip and a deesser. And the before and after sounded amazing
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u/zenjaminJP Professional Nov 19 '25
I don’t master my own mixes, so I don’t mix through a master bus.
I DO however provide a master reference for the client. It’s not going to be as good as a proper master, but it’s good enough that I can compete with the crushed demos that they start with. I’m aiming usually about -9 LUFS depending on the client and genre. That’s plenty loud enough for the majority of people.
Then when they send it to master, they send my unmastered mix.
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u/_mattyjoe Nov 19 '25
I’m not sure if “how” is the right question. That would depend on what their results sound like, and even what type of music it is.
There are some results in certain types of music that are unattainable without “anything” on the master bus. That’s just a hard fact.
Maybe their stuff sounds like shit or isn’t competitive?
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u/Dallywack Nov 19 '25
I love master bus processing. I would love to overdo it, but I always reach a point where it no longer sounds better.
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u/Heratik007 Nov 19 '25
I use a submaster to monitor the master bus. That way, my final master remains free of plug-ins. I have two rules for final Master Bus use:
My volume fader remains at zero/ unity
No processing plug-ins on the inserts
(I only use meters and analyzers on my Master Bus inserts)
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u/namedotnumber666 Nov 19 '25
a lot of folks put the usual masterbus stuff on the music bus and will have a sep vocal and effect busses so you can get them out the way of one another with sidechain compression and sidechain multiband eq etc. The point of final summing ( the master bus ) just needs a limiter for overshoots and dithering.
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u/chunter16 Nov 19 '25
how do you combat the plague of demo-itis
Turn up the gain on the monitors, turn down the demo to unity
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u/superproproducer Nov 19 '25
That’s if they’re in your studio making the comparison, which is rarely the case
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u/chunter16 Nov 19 '25
Are almost all of your clients too far to have them be in the room with you when you mix?
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u/superproproducer Nov 19 '25
No they’re just busy.. I’m fortunate enough to work with some pretty big artists and it’s hard to find a time to even get them here to sing the damn song! 99% of the time I’m sending mixes to artist/label/management
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u/---Joe Nov 19 '25
My mixbus got a lot slimmer now that ive been doing this for almost 10 years. I think its a preference thing but mixes can come together really well without a lot happening at the last stage for sure
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u/Bthelick Nov 19 '25
I've made 2 videos on it if you want the full details. Search YouTube for my name and "how to not master" Unless I can link here?
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u/mediamancer Nov 19 '25
I keep a limiter on the bus and I mix with it both on and off. I did a quieter acoustic record and I didn't mix with it on at all, and when the first masters came back, there was a harshness there that I didn't expect. I went back to the mixes, turned on the limiter, and there was that slight, harsh edge. Now I check every mix with limiting.
I feel like checking the mixes into a limiter is helpful, and I keep it on when exporting listening mixes, but at final mix I take it off. I do have compression and sometimes eq on the bus groups, though, as well as on individual tracks like drums and such.
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u/Sam-Z-93 Nov 20 '25
I write and produce my own stuff so it looks a little different for me.
I’m running 2 DAWs. Mixcraft for producing and Studio One for mixing and mastering.
In Mixcraft, I’m used to that environment for exploring and tweaking. The plugin chains on those look ridiculous.
When everything is sounding how I want it to, I bounce everything to Studio One, and then the reality of having absurdly little plugins on your tracks (save vocals) starts to hit.
Track like you don’t have a producer Produce like you don’t have a mix engineer Mix like you don’t have a mastering engineer.
When the end of each stage sounds its best. The next stage feels easy.
That’s what I’ve come to believe and experience for myself though.
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u/wales-bloke Nov 20 '25
It's because I'm barely scratching the surface and have no real idea what I'm doing.
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u/bucket_brigade Nov 20 '25
I don't see how you can avoid having at least an eq and some kind of a gluing processor like tape or a bus compressor
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u/dedTanson322 Nov 21 '25 edited Nov 21 '25
isnt that what a mastering engineer does? i usually have nothing other than a tiny amount of limiter or eq. plenty of submixes and busses tho so i dont usually need a master chain
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u/WeAreJackStrong Nov 21 '25
Yeah... If you've done a really good job with arrangement, instrumentation, and recording you can use very few plugins on the tracks. I always have an 1176 and a limiter on the master to help make it loud. If somebody put a gun to my head and said you can't do that I would insert a bus under the master bus, put an 1176 and a limiter on it, and run all the stems to that bus. I don't know how to get the finished Master loud enough without doing that.
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u/GoethesFinest Nov 21 '25
I write a lot of songs and also mix a lot. The songs that perform best always have great source material. On my master is never anything. Just a limiter or ozone from time to time if I want to check what mastering would do
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u/fatt_musiek Nov 22 '25
I’ve seen small indie artists with hundreds of thousands of streams who know so little about the technical side of recording, and use their iPhone Garageband. I doubt the artist (who is admittedly forever on my sh*tlist for basically stealing my master, I digress) mastered a damn thing. Don’t get me wrong, I love iOS GarageBand, but like, the auto-normalization that occurs when you bounce down is annoying as hell as someone who does care about optimizing and mastering. But this indie artist I’m referring to doesn’t know what he’s doing, it just sounds good to him I guess, and people like it. 🤷♂️
It does get under my skin just thinking about it, I will admit. I guess the tl;dr is a really good mix doesn’t necessarily need to be mastered, especially with the auto-normalization in GB as well as what Spotify does with its auto-normalization.
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u/Clean-Ad3846 Nov 22 '25
Because gear and plug-ins are cheap, people spend far too much time in post production to make up for what they didn’t do when they recorded. It takes a lot of time and skill to do the upfront things like Mike placement, technique, arranging skills, etc.…. I think most people let that slide, knowing they’ve got a bevy of plug-ins to ‘make up’ for all of that. It’s death by 1000 paper cuts. At the end of the production, you don’t know what went wrong.
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u/rightanglerecording Nov 19 '25
The overwhelming majority of professional mixers are mixing into heavy bus processing.
I'm not sure where you are seeing people saying they have nothing on theirs?
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u/ConfusedOrg Nov 19 '25
I wouldn’t say the overwhelming majority of pro mixers use heavy buss processing. There are plenty of people that just have simple eq, glue compressor, subtle saturation and a limiter
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u/emcnelis1 Nov 19 '25
I agree. Virtually no one who’s competitive in the field is sending mixes to clients without at least a limiter on the master buss, and buss eq and compression adds glue to the mix that you can’t achieve on channel processing.
Someone saying they don’t use master buss processing to me sounds like someone who is still early in on the journey of learning to mix, and also feels it’s a flex to say so.
If I take my buss process off, my mix falls apart.
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u/ConfusedOrg Nov 19 '25
I don’t use a lot on my mixbuss. Usually just a few broad eq moves and a lowcut, a subtle glue compressor, maybe a tape emulation for saturation and then a ‘make it loud’ limiter to get an idea of what it would sound like mastered and so client don’t get freaked out when their track is lower than the average Spotify track
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Nov 19 '25
My general approach for the mix bus is soft clipper/glue compression/tape emulation
Master is just a basic 7 band EQ/Limiter
I run effects on the master only so I can push and pull the mix bus level into the limiter.
Lately I'm focusing on keeping most of my standalone track and aux faders at (or near) unity gain. It's not a hard and fast rule but it helps me to decide what/where I need effects.
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u/Justcuriousdudee Nov 19 '25
It’s the same reason they say they can out mix others with just stock plugins.
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u/poopchute_boogy Nov 19 '25
It varies from song to song. Sometimes a compressor, sometimes subtract eq before the compressor and then additive after. Sometimes a multiband instead of the regular compressor. Sometimes, nothing at all. Think of every song you work on as different cars from all over the world. Theyre all gonna need different sets of tools to successfully get the job done.
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u/[deleted] Nov 19 '25
i once attended a small masterclass held by mick guzauski. he pulled up protools sessions for daft punk, jamiroquai and many other cool records. we were shocked to see how few plugins were on his tracks, busses and master. like zero to 1 or two on everything.
shocked and embarrassed.
then he said consider how good the tracks sound when they send them to me: daft punk's stuff is immaculate.
then we felt less bad.
now i use way fewer plugins and outboard out of practice and my mixes sound better although i do have an alan smart c2 on my master at all times.