Set up your master bus before you hit play

Yesterday’s post was about the idea that it’s a best practice to work first with channel volumes before you start adding other mix elements — plugins, effects, etc.

And today I want to share a huge level-up for that process:

Before you hit play for the first time on a new mix, or start working on a new song, set up your master bus.

Here’s what I have on my master bus, in order:

• Slate VCC (analog summing bus emulation)

• bx_townhouse (SSL-style bus compressor)

• Millennia NSEQ-2 (EQ; this starts with all knobs at 0)

• FabFilter Pro-L 2 (limiter)

When I’m starting a new mix, I load this template onto the master bus before I listen to a single note. And then I start to work first with the channel volume faders, as I talked about yesterday.

So, why is this such a crucial part of the process? Because as you’re using your volume faders to push your channels into the master bus, they’re hitting that summing amp, that bus compressor, and that limiter … and they are interacting in there.

Each of those three processes introduces a form of compression: saturation, compression, and limiting. And in each of those processes, as the overall incoming density increases, the sounds in your mix subtly (or overtly!) compete for space.

That dynamic “no, me first!” competition in the mix bus will make your mix pulse and breathe to the groove of the song. This is what makes a mix come alive. And, crucially, this dynamic self-sorting-out also makes it so that you have to do a whole lot less subsequent processing on the individual channels.

All that just with volume faders and a couple master bus inserts. How cool!

Simple but smart — jamie