What's in your Master Bus Effects Bin?

As as junior apprentice audio mixing engineer, I've been experimenting lately with adding effects, such as a touch of ProChannel Tube and/or reverb, to the Master Bus Effects Bin, and am generally pleased with the results.
 
Do you seasoned pros have thoughts about this?  What's in your Master Bus Effects Bin?
 
 

A Boost 11 to stop anything nasty getting to my monitors.
Grum.

As each song will need different things, the master bus will have different plugins on it. I generally never use reverb on the master bus, as that's an effect that i use on a bus and ill have sends on the tracks going to it.  

But usually its EQ, compressor, EQ(mid/side), limiter and an analyzer/meter and 3 of the 5 are usually hardware effects and sometimes its just 2 of the 5. It all depends on the song at hand.

Cj

If its mastering its Ozone, If its mixing it can be a number of things, some of them could include LP-64, LP-mlutiband, VC-64 Vintage Channel, Channel tools, and third party plugs. I don't always use the same plugins for mixing. One of these days I am going to see what R-mix can do. Not sure about that one.

If I use the Pro channel on the master bus then I may use pc4k-s type bus compressor, console emulator bus, PC2a leveling amplifier, and the concrete limiter. I have even used the PC4k exp / Gate a few times.

Voxengo plugins, GlissEq-Polyquasher-Elephant from the very start of composition then adjusted at the mastering stage.

For anything bass/kick centric I have TP basslane - works wonders! Also I pretty nearly always have Native Instruments Solid Bus Comp on there, I love it. I also have Vonexgo Span for the occasional look at my frequencies. 

The basic on master bus is Prochannel, with PC4K Bus Compressor (ratio 2, GR 2 to 4 dB max), Quadcurve Eq (only HP, to cut off the excess of bass material), and Concrete Limiter.
Occasionally, a very light touch of reverb.
And sometimes, to check things, the Flux Stereo Tools and/or the CW analyst.

Ozone 4 if I'm finishing a track.

Grum.

Thanks to everyone - there's such an awesome amount of sharing on this board, and so much great feedback to explore.

Hi George, there are two schools of thought on this issue. Some say it is OK to apply mastering effects while mixing and others say add no processing to the master buss while mixing and apply the mastering effects later in a separate session which you call the mastering session. And wait some time too before doing it.

The advantages with this is that if you apply no mastering type processing for say a week you get to hear your mix etc and you will often end up wanting to change things later and perhaps remix stuff. I can guarantee you will want to alter things after listening for a week or so. 

Also it is well known fact that after mixing for say 8 hours or so is rather fatiguing to the ears and this is not the best time to be applying any sort of mastering processes. You are just not in a position to make decisions regarding important things such as overall EQ for example or even compression. When you leave it for a week and then get into applying the final mastering processes you are in a much better place to make judgements about overall EQ and compression etc. It is like you are hearing the music fresh and for the first time and that is something that is very valuable to me for example. 

But in saying all that as well I am quite partital to applying some very slight compression to the overall mix but only in a very subtle sense. I am talking slow attacks, low ratios and low amounts of gain reduction. This can help in certain situations.  

Think about this. Usually in the most professional of situations a separate mastering engineer is usually involved and they will usually ask for the mix with NO processing what so over being applied. Doesn't that tell you something? And if you are not into using a separate mastering engineer that is fine too, the next best thing you can do is apply no mastering processes during the mix, wait a period of time and then master it yourself. It will still work out better than attempting to master stuff while you are mixing. The problem with the guys who do all the mastering while they mix is that they have never tried it the other way. If they did they would change their minds big time. They are in too much of a hurry. 

Usually just Ozone 5. I always toggle Ozone on and off during the tracking and mixing stage. I never leave it on all the time. I have used the Sonitus Multiband comp or Concrete in combo with the usual ProChannel plugs from time to time. Ozone is just easier because everything is in that one plug rather than having to load a bunch of separate plugs that are really eating more CPU or RAM.

I've grown into the idea of having your mastering plugs in on the master bus in the same session that you mix.  The are just all turned off during the mixing phase.  You have to have the horse power though to do this.

My master bus will have PC so that all of the basic PC Eq and Compressors are there.  My template for the master bus effects bin has a copy of LP64 in it, along with the ToneBoosters Tape Sim.  Last in the chain is the Concrete Limiter and Span.  Again, every thing is off while mixing except just a slight bit of Concrete Limiter.   I usually take a couple days off during the final mix and the home brew mastering to let the ears settle.

For me, I like having everything contained in one session and not having to open another just for the mastering. 

As the OP didn't indicate if he was traking, mixing, or mastering, I'll also let him know I'm not a Pro! :) Nothing while tracking; 99% of the time nothing while mixing; Vintage Channel mastering. I have experimented with other things that have become new with the X series of Sonar, but I still just like what the VC can do!

I'm pretty much with Jeff on this one, with a slight variation. As there's almost always some degree of limiting during the mastering process, I mix with a light amount of limiting in the master bus. Then, I remove the limiter and export as a clean stereo file. That's the file that I master.

Mastering is more than just getting the track to "sound good" if something's going to be part of an album or collection of songs; there needs to be level-matching, assembly, etc. I also run analysis on tracks, like a goniometer and such, to check for consistency. That's another reason why a separate mastering session is usually a good idea.

A goniometer like this one http://www.uk-music.de/index.php?page=gonio