# In what order do you apply your mastering plugins?



## h202 (Mar 7, 2009)

Very curious to see what everyone else does and would appreciate anyone's opinion and expertise. Also if you could state the brand name of the plugin that would be much appreciated also.

Thanks!


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## Mike Greene (Mar 7, 2009)

I use multiband EQ into multiband compressor into Limiter. Usually I don't actually have the EQ in the chain unless there's something about the mix that bothered me.

I use Waves for all these steps. I can't remember the plug names except I now the limiter is the L2.


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## Peter Emanuel Roos (Mar 8, 2009)

Exactly the same here, although I also use Voxengo Elephant and Sonnox Inflator for limiting. In 32 bit fp, then I dither to 16 or 24 with moderate dithering settings and trunc the bit depth.


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## Farkle (Apr 1, 2009)

I'm a Wave Arts dude... love the Trackplug, think the Finalplug is comparable to the L1, and the Masterverb is pretty cool, too!

I run a really light mastering chain, but it looks something like this.

10-band parametric EQ (DDMF has great EQ's that are cheap), into:
Multiband Compressor, Into:
Stereo Widener, Into:
Stereo Imaging, Into:
Mastering Reverb (optional), Into:
Limiter (Finalplug), Into:
Frequency Analyst (for monitoring).

I'm poor and cheap, so I use a lot of freeware. Blue Cat has a great, free 31-band analyzer.

Often, if I'm feeling really lazy, I'll just run an EQ into the limiter, and be done with it. That's for cheap indie projects that don't pay well... :twisted: 

Oh, and I use the Wave Arts stuff for the multiband, stereo widener, mastering verb, and limiter. Getting my money's worth out of that suite!

Mike


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## roon (Apr 11, 2009)

have a look at that bxdigital for imaging - and ex as well
great plug


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## MaraschinoMusic (Apr 26, 2009)

Mike Greene @ Sun Mar 08 said:


> I use multiband EQ into multiband compressor into Limiter. .



If I'm mastering myself, I usually do it the other way round. I get the EQ right in the mix first, and then put a Compressor (Waves Renaissance) over the mix, and then into a multiband EQ (Waves Renaissance again) to put back the sparkle  The compressor performs it's own brickwall limiting.

For a really important project though I would try to build the services of a trusted professional mastering engineer into the budget


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## david robinson (Apr 26, 2009)

hi,
normally i don't use processing on the master bus as i compress/eq individual tracks and/or sub groups (stems).
the pre-masters are then treated on a case by case basis.
depends on the style and delivery medium.

Sonnox and Zenon limiters, PSP comp/eq. Elios AirEq.
and a lot of Flux plugs. (plus some of LP8's plugs, occasionally.)

i'm demo'ing the Redline Reverb and "the Glue" buss comp/lim, atm.
both are cheap(er) plugs but i'm getting some very good results.

DR9.


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## artsoundz (Apr 26, 2009)

"Elios AirEq"- HUGE.

I wonder if many know of this. It's really nice to put that subtle sheen to tracks or entire mixes.


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## Rob Elliott (Apr 27, 2009)

Vienna suite master EQ (case by case basis - not always used)
Vienna suite MB
Elephant


--Happy with the above.


Rob


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## ceemusic (May 1, 2009)

It depends on the material & what's needed but brickwall limiter always last in chain.


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## Hakan Yurdakul (Jun 21, 2009)

Hi, 
My usual line is:
1.Spectrum Analyzer (PAF)
2.EQ (not multichannel--try cutting off instead of boosting)
3.Filter
4.Reverb (optional)
5.Multichannel Compressor (be careful, using unexperiencedly destroys the dynamic range)
6.Stereo imager (do not try to wide the stereo field so much, take care of it on the mix process)
7.Multichannel Maximizer Limiter (L3--Always put limiter on -0.2db level, dithering is so important..)
8.Declicker (optional to clean clicks)

Best wishes,
Hakan
www.hakanyurdakul.com


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