Mastering, Mastering Options

[Fingerspasm]

Was thinking about some of the information I received on a thread I started about drums. In it the subject of Mastering came up. I had been trying to get my mix to sound like a Mastered version of other popular groups I have heard in that type of music. So I guess when it comes to mastering you need to start by already having everything mixed properly and the levels between the tracks pretty much set. So now you are ready to start mastering the track to give it that full and alive sound. By alive I do not mean like a live recording but like it has space and not flat and dull. So would the best way to approach this be to group the drums in one group and the guitars in one group and the vocals in another and master that way in 3 groups. In other words as an example add compression and EQ etc to the drum track treating it as one track instead of 5 individual tracks. And then do the same with all the guitar tracks. EQ, Compress etc as one track instead of all the guitars tracks individually. Or is that still part of the mixing process. And should the Mastering be done to just one mixed down track? Or is it a combination? I am trying to figure out when you start to increase the volume from the mixed level up to the level you should achieve on a Mastered version..... Hope this makes sense.

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