Setting Up Your Master Bus In Your Daw Options

[Todd Simpson]

The “Two Bus” or “Master Bus” is that slider on your daw that controls the overall level of your mix. You can add effects to this channel just as you would add effects to any single track that you are working with in your DAW. The big difference is that any effects added to the Master Channel/Bus, will have an impact on all of the sound in your entire mix. It’s a good idea to mix with the effects in the master bus TURNED OFF. Otherwise, you end up fighting against the effects in the master bus. So once you are done with your mix, then it’s time to go in to your master bus and start doing a before and after with each effects you’ve added to the master bus, then a before and after with all of the effects in your master bus turned on. If things sound better, great! You can save this as a “channel strip” in your daw and pull it up in one click each time you need to apply it to a master bus, or just do a “SAVE AS” and save the project as a template. That way your mix buss is ready to go for you next session. So, what should you put on your master bus and why? Let’s discuss. First, take a look at this parametric E.Q. It’s doing several things in our bus that can help a mix. We will talk about each element below.

HIGH PASS FILTER:
A “High Pass Filter” lets the high pitched sounds pass through. You can use a dedicated high pass filter plugin, or you can just pull up your favorite parametric eq plugin and get similar results, and have full control over the entire audio spectrum. So add your favorite parametric to your master bus. In today’s example, our engineer slopes down everything below 25hz. This is a good plan for several reasons. First of all, human hearing stops right about that area. Also, it’s unlikely that your studio monitors (typical home recording setups don’t go much below 35hz, most don’t even go below 50hz, you can check your monitors stats to find out) will reach that low to begin with and also, leaving low frequency information in your mix can impact frequencies around it that you can actually hear. This can be problematic and result in a “muddy” sounding mix.

GENTLE BASS BOOST:
Our engineer gave a slight boost around 50hz to help bring out the kick drum and give the lower range of our mix a bit more oomph. Be careful not to push this to far or your mix will get very bassy very quickly. Adding a touch of bass is great, adding to much will ruin your mix.

REMOVE THE WONK:
Our engineer then made a slight reduction around 350 Hz which helps to reduce the “wonky/honky” mid range bits of a mix. Many mixes will start to pile up on mid range sounds and this can result in a sort of mid range honk that is not pleasing to the ears. Taking a bit of it away softens the mix a bit.

ADD SOME AIR:
A slight boost at 8kz is then added to bring out some clarity or “air” in the Vocals in the mix. It’s a very slight boost. Again, too much boost of any frequency can wreck your mix. With every change, try it before and after. If it doesn’t sound better, undo it.

SQUASH TO TASTE:
Then our engineer adds a compressor to the mix bus. This is a somewhat controversial choice. Some folks say you should never add compression to the main bus. However, most of the music made in the past several decades that managed to reach a lot of people did feature a bus compressor. It’s the “talk back” compressor made by SSL which was originally designed as a compressor for the talk back microphone. It sounded so good, people started using on the master bus and now it’s a common practice and plugins have taken over the job of the talk back compressor and it’s called the “mix bus compressor” and SSL makes great plugin version of it. However, any compressor will work here. He’s using a 10 MS attack, fastest release time possible, and a 2 to 1 compression ratio and just a pinch of gain reduction.

TAPE SATURATION:
In the old days, folks would run the mix to a 2 track reel to reel tape deck. This was it’s last stop, often, before it left the studio. Fast forward and big studios started adding 2 track decks to their pro tools rooms to put some tape magic back into their mixes. They are going for a bit of saturation and harmonic enhancement. This may seem like mambo jumbo but it often sounds like magic. The good news is that, yup, there’s a plugin for that!! There are tons of Tape Saturation plugins now and many are free. Adding one to your master bus can give your mixes a bit of subtle magic.



These are subtle but important things to add to any mix. Of course, the sky is the limit and you can add anything you want to your master bus. Some folks add IZOTOPE OZONE or one of a slew of mastering plugins. No matter what you use, remember, turn it all off until you are done with your main mix. Then, trust your ears!!!

WHATS ON YOUR MASTER BUS?


Todd

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[Kristofer Dahl]

Cool mastering topics! I am probably missing something here but what do you mean with "Our engineer"?

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[Gabriel Leopardi]

Cool thread Todd! Thanks for this useful info! This is what I have had in my master bus recently:

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[Mertay]

Actually this is more like mastering rather than master-bus process.

When reading master bus the reflex thought is mixing through fx. This info is more like mastering without getting out of the project.

I remembered Presonus Studio one is most advanced for this workflow (though still renders) but never tried it; https://www.presonus.com/products/Studio-On...group-Mastering

Studio One® Professional is the only DAW that links Songs and stems with finished, mixed projects. Transfer Studio One mixes to the Project Page for mastering, and if you hear anything you need to change, simply jump back into the ong, make your tweaks, and then mix the revised version back automatically into the Project Page to continue mastering...

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This post has been edited by Mertay: Dec 16 2020, 06:18 PM

[Todd Simpson]

just the guy in the video doing the talking

Cool mastering topics! I am probably missing something here but what do you mean with "Our engineer"?

I don't recognize all of those, can you give us a run down ?

Cool thread Todd! Thanks for this useful info! This is what I have had in my master bus recently:

It's important NOT to mix through master bus fx imho. I agree though this is more like mastering.
Something done at the very end. Using this approach, the track is mostly ready to go after the final
output.

Actually this is more like mastering rather than master-bus process.

When reading master bus the reflex thought is mixing through fx. This info is more like mastering without getting out of the project.

I remembered Presonus Studio one is most advanced for this workflow (though still renders) but never tried it; https://www.presonus.com/products/Studio-On...group-Mastering

Studio One® Professional is the only DAW that links Songs and stems with finished, mixed projects. Transfer Studio One mixes to the Project Page for mastering, and if you hear anything you need to change, simply jump back into the ong, make your tweaks, and then mix the revised version back automatically into the Project Page to continue mastering...

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[Mertay]

It's important NOT to mix through master bus fx imho.

It's actually a well recognized technique, but I'd say rather late intermediate level approach as you imagine it has its own risks like if compression is used; You can't change a setting (or bypass) in the middle of a project, cannot send stems to mastering. Benefits are the compression will be very natural/transparent, compressor "warns" you by behaving strange if you're doing something wrongs, lots more vibe so easier to catch feel while mixing, less dependency on mastering.

EQ might be a better starting point for example, if one wants a modern metal sound instead of dropping low-mids on the mastering stage, inserting it right after pre-levels and pan is set and mix through it. It's less risky than using compression, will likely sound much smoother as you adjust everything according to that mid. dip modern sound and more fun too. Likely will use less plug-ins in the mix too.

I remember totally screwing-up with my first go on this technique but the lesson was valuable and second try went very well. It was likely the waves SSL masterbuss comp. I used (in hardware, SSL and Manley are most preferred as not all comp.s are suitable) but nowadays there are options like the TDR Kotelnikov etc. which are almost hard to make them sound bad.

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This post has been edited by Mertay: Dec 16 2020, 09:34 PM

[Phil66]

Cool mastering topics! I am probably missing something here but what do you mean with "Our engineer"?

I think it's just a generic term meaning "the engineer" buddy

Great topic and I never knew you could do so much with the master bus.

Thanks Todd, I've learnt something, a lot of the time things are confusing because we don't understand the terminology. Even things like "bus" I didn't know for a long time.

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[Todd Simpson]

It's a very tricky prospect for newbies to be sure. Even for experienced mix folks, mixing with active fx on the master bus can be frought with complications. I mean sure, turn the bux fx on to see how things are going to end up and then turn it back off, but mixing through it is sorta begging for trouble imho. But to each his own

It's actually a well recognized technique, but I'd say rather late intermediate level approach as you imagine it has its own risks like if compression is used; You can't change a setting (or bypass) in the middle of a project, cannot send stems to mastering. Benefits are the compression will be very natural/transparent, compressor "warns" you by behaving strange if you're doing .

I remember totally screwing-up with my first go on this technique but the lesson was valuable and second try went very well. It was likely the waves SSL masterbuss comp. I used (in hardware, SSL and Manley are most preferred as not all comp.s are suitable) but nowadays there are options like the TDR Kotelnikov etc. which are almost hard to make them sound bad.

Glad it helped! We throw around so much jargon that it's easy to forget that most of it is actually jargon When someone says "throw a ssl comp on the mix bus!" it's almost pure jargon. Took me quite a while to come to terms with all the vocabulary. IT's very easy to forget that these words are not part of the common lexicon.

I think it's just a generic term meaning "the engineer" buddy

Great topic and I never knew you could do so much with the master bus.

Thanks Todd, I've learnt something, a lot of the time things are confusing because we don't understand the terminology. Even things like "bus" I didn't know for a long time.

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[Gabriel Leopardi]

I don't recognize all of those, can you give us a run down ?

This is what I'm using for mastering. Not always the same plug ins but similar processes.

Fab Filter Q2
Tube Compressor (Cubase's stock plug in)
Dangerous Bax EQ
Soundpot Axis (Imaging)

L1 Ultramaximixer
Youlean loudness meter

This is the master bus of this lesson: https://www.guitarmasterclass.net/ls/Modern...ssive-Phrasing/

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