And then using the sends to that reverb, I'll mix the song inside of it. I'll find a room reverb I like, and then fix it so I can only hear the returns from that reverb. A little trick I've been using for years. I get a similar effect, I suppose, in another way though. I have to say, though, in all my years it has never occurred to me to put a reverb on the master bus. But most compression, saturation, and other goodies I save for tracks or groups or aux buses. I usually opt for the Pro L2, sometimes the Mcdsp 4000. It gives you kind of an elastic, Michael Brauer sort of thing like mixing into a rubber sheet. I do, however, always mix into a brick wall.

But it's a preset killer so I usually save it for the very end.

I don't know how it works, but this little thing will give your mix four dimensions in addition to the other three. One of those for me is the Kush Clariphonic. I do everything with aux buses and groups.īut after all is said and done, and the mix is sounding like I want it, it is fun to throw a few things on the whole thing. And the truth is I don't really use processing on the master bus anymore. So I try to do everything up-stream so to speak. Of course you can save master bus presets too. The only problem is, if you have a lot of stuff on your master bus, then that preset isn't going to sound the same. I can just load that track preset and I have that snare. Then a year later, I pull up a project and think, you know this needs that snare I used on that other song. It really is a dream to get a good sound on something and be able to save it as a track preset. If I find a kick bass combo that sounds good in more than two cars, I'm going to use it again and again and again. I used to do top-down mixing until I discovered the glory of track presets.

Aom limiter