You guys liked it? ..............................................................you have a weird taste in music. Thanks ! :)
It came out a little too repetitive this time, sorry about that....
I think the most important is to have a balanced and good sounding mix, at low speaker volume with nothing on the master.
Than.....
On my master usually i have:
- A regular EQ to cut the boxiness around 300-500Hz and boost and cut specific bands that is based on your song but usually boost the highs and the lows a bit like 1-2 db.
- A saturation plugin like Camel Crusher to add some subtle saturation and it also has a compressor built in. I use the "British clean" or "subtle master" presets.
- A soft clipper like Gclip which i don't really tweak. This is to cut the spikes before the limiter so it won't distort.
- Than i have a limiter/maximizer like Boost 11 which you want to stay below 3db of crunching.
Sometimes i also have a compressor to "glue" the mix together but i don't really think its useful. I don't use a multi band compressor on my master because i try to make adjustments at individual track level.
I mix as i go so i don't have to do much when the song is done. When I'm mixing I'm using my studio monitors otherwise i like to use my headphones to hear the fine details.