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Old 06-12-2019, 10:58 AM   #17
ashcat_lt
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Dec 2012
Posts: 7,271
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I always say “Leave the mastering engineer nothing to do.” Mix it it til it sounds the way you want it to and don’t send it down the line until it’s what you want on the record. Doesn’t matter who’s doing the final assembly. Whether that’s me or ME, the point is the same.

I usually do turn off any master bus stuff on the individual song projects and render the mix to 32bit floating point. I’m kind of a whackjob, so sometimes when I turn off that master txt chain itll be peaking way over 0dbFS. I don’t care. Sometimes I’ve turned down the master fader 12db to get a different perspective and give my ears a little break. I still don’t care. Floating point doesn’t clip and doesn’t add noise. At this point, actual levels are arbitrary.

Then import the individual mixes into a mastering project. Sometimes you might want individual tracks so you can process each slightly differently. Take FX do the same thing, but if it needs a lot of that, it probably means your mix isn’t done. The benefit of doing it yourself is that you can easily just pull up the song’s project and make the changes. This might be a spot where subprojects come in handy, but that’s above my pay grade.

Normalize them all. Add whatever little bit of overall eq/comp/limit routine you want for the overall album feel. Lay the mixes out on the timeline to get the order and spacing that you prefer. Bounce around listening to short pieces of each song and adjust item volumes until everything feels about right and proportionate and appropriate. If certain tracks do need a little EQ or dynamic control or whatever, add it. Trim your heads and tails and fades. Double check your pacing. Create regions. Render. Rock.
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