Alright, I have a huge project (about 50 tracks and 10 buses) that has been fully mixed. I have the plugins assigned that I want on the master bus as well. So, for all intents and purposes this track is actually mastered, for better or worse. What confuses me is the lack of a separate mastering area. On my first try I was able to encode the track and upload it to soundcloud; however, while the song is only about 3 minutes in length, the file was 8 minutes in length due to a lot of data left on the tale end. So, I deleted it; cleaned up the tail ends as best as I could; yet, since then I’ve been unable to successfully encode or upload the newer track, which is a whole other discussion I’ll tackle in another thread.
 
Anyway, how do you guys recommend approaching the mastering process? Do you simply open up a new project to capture the master outs of the main mix, or do you mix and master all in the same project?
 
As always, your time and assistance are greatly appreciated.
 
 Chris

I use the AAMS mastering system, there is none better out there, besides paying for someone to do it.....

I export the mix as a stereo file and then bring it back in for mastering using my mastering template. All this is is a bunch of useful plugins in the FX bin that I may or may not apply to the song. It includes Ozone and now T Racks.  I don't try to " fix it" I try to make it sound better. Other then that I should not have to do too much. If I do I go back and remix it. 

John
I export the mix as a stereo file and then bring it back in for mastering using my mastering template. All this is is a bunch of useful plugins in the FX bin that I may or may not apply to the song. It includes Ozone and now T Racks.  I don't try to " fix it" I try to make it sound better. Other then that I should not have to do too much. If I do I go back and remix it. 

+1
And also this is when its much easier to trim the file the the length you want and do your fades.

Yes, in my opinion it is too much to send the song (mix) out mastered. I would export the mix and then open up the wav in Sond Forge or the equivalent or even back into Sonar, take a long break and come back and deal with a stereo track and fresh ears. To avoid a lot of extra material at the end make sure you only select the part of the song that you want. Sometimes there will be a cymbal or some practice or something going on at the end of the file further down the timeline so Sonar will include all that if you don't set enter and outer points.
I do however send my songs to be mastered. Try G and J audio in New Jersey. It's Gene Paul, son of Les Paul doing the mastering with an amazing track record. He has gone freelance after many years at Atlantic. $50 a song or if a whole CD prices drop.

Dude Ivey

John
I export the mix as a stereo file and then bring it back in for mastering using my mastering template. All this is is a bunch of useful plugins in the FX bin that I may or may not apply to the song. It includes Ozone and now T Racks.  I don't try to " fix it" I try to make it sound better. Other then that I should not have to do too much. If I do I go back and remix it. 

+1
And also this is when its much easier to trim the file the the length you want and do your fades.

+2
 
This is the exact same method I use (minus Ozone)
If you're compiling an album, you can import each song on to a different track in your mastering project and nudge them along the timeline to get the gaps between songs "correct"
If they were all mixed in a similar way and with similar levels your mastering chain shouldn't need much tweaking between songs. A little bit of automation here & there (or adjust fader levels with reference to the loudest track) to keep levels consistent and you're good to go.

"I use the AAMS mastering system, there is none better out there, besides paying for someone to do it....." Ive just tried that app, Im kind of impressed with it, i loaded a 32 bit mix into it, used the house genre reference file to master my track with, and it didn't do too bad at all, I dont think i will use it to master full stop, but it could well be used in the analysis of what you want to master, I like the word doc report it gives you at the end of its process, im gonna delve a bit deeper into its anaysis functions, maybe manually master a track with it, see how it measures up to ozone, cheers for the heads up on it

when done mixing I add 2 busses after master bus, 1 with multiband compr / EQ.
This I route to last bus with just limiter usually.
this way I can easily go back tweak something in the mix, while mastering.
 

I mix and master in the same project, if I was doing an album though I would do as others have stated here and import all the finished mixes into one project to master.

I should mention that if going to disk I have found Pyro Audio Creator quite good. With it you have VST support and you can adjust levels.