Hi...
 
I've used for my own mixes a limiter on the master bus. Having read and watched a few youtube videos and noted that limiting is an important part of the mastering process I'm slightly confused if its good practise to use a limit on the master bus of a mix.
 
Any thoughts, guidance or tips will be very much appreciated! 

I have always thought that mixing and mastering are two very different processes and limiting usually forms part of the mastering process. You should also leave a week between these two stages as well so you can master with fresh ears.
 
There should be no reason to use a limiter when printing a mix. A mix is usually being printed at a much lower rms levels than in the final mastering phases so it is basically not necessary. With good gain staging and use of the K system it is possible to print a mix at either K -14 or K-20 without any clip lights coming on anywhere.
 
The only thing that you can mix into sometimes is some light compression on the masterbuss. For some genres it works well later in mastering too. But this compressor is not raising rms levels, it is just acting as some slight conditioning on your premastered mix that is all.
 
In mastering you raise your rms level in various areas:
 
1 Putting your mix into an editor, limiting the peaks of all transients to say -3 dB and add 2 dB of rms level to the whole track
2 The EQ can often add some extra gain without issues.
3 The mastering compressor while it may only be dropping the GR by 2 or 3 dB you can add this back in the form of makeup gain.
4 Final limiting in mastering should only be adding 3 to 4 dB or rms level overall.
 
Small amounts of gain from each stage will result in quite a dramatic lift in mastered rms levels. But we don't want to go too high now due to Loudness Wars concepts are pushing mastered levels back down a little. (Great!) So it is not hard to change a K-20 or K-14 track up to -10 rms levels or even slightly higher.
 
Treat mastering as a separate event either by yourself or a mastering engineer. Mixing is not the time to make mastering decisions. Your ears are already shot from mixing, making good mastering choices is very difficult under these conditions.

First of all - thanks for taking your time to explain your methods in so much detail. Really appreciate this.

Iv'e fallen into the temptation of using a limiter on my mixes to give me an idea of how things sound. But then I'm not really a master of mixing.

Ive heard similar to your suggestion that placing a compressor on the mix buss to help 'glue' a mix.. so I assume a low ratio?

Do some people use a limiter while mixing to 'protect' their monitors/headphones.. if so what settings?

i routinely use limiters on individual tracks, and even busses, but never on the master during mixing.
 
IF...... you just want to get a feel for what happens to your mix (when using a limiter on the master bus) if you master it later for VOLUME, you can put a limiter across it and see what gets smashed, what pops out or covers up, and FAVOR that during mixing without the limiter on the master bus.
 
or, another approach, would be to mix into a limiter across the master buss, not too heavy, and then turn it off when rendering your final mix, knowing that when you then go to master that 24 bit file, when you DO put a limiter on during the mastering process, you will sort of know what it is going to do to your mix.
 
 
 
but after doing a lot of mixing, you will develop a FEEL for what you KNOW will work, and you will not have to jump thru these hoops to get there......
 
 

Danny and myself have had this discussion and both agree on this too.  Adding compressors or limiters actually wont effect a fantastic sounding mix that much, if at all.  If they do ( a lot that is)  you are doing something wrong in your mixing.  Subtle changes yes but not much more than that though.
 
Agree that limiters can be used on tracks and buses to great effect but should not really be necessary on the mixbuss.

I spend most of my time mixing drums and I often have a limiter as the last plug on an individual track.
 
If I have two mic's on one drum, for example the top/bottom snare combination or inside/outside bass drum combination, I will send the two mic's to a buss for that drum (i.e., a snare buss or bass drum buss).  When I use this type of mic'ing combination I will put a limiter on the buss not on the individual tracks ... works for me.

I always use a limitter on the MB? But I also use it on other stems as well, typically when I need to do some gain staging? I use FabFilter's Pro-L, you can push the incoming signal and I like the control it provides. Good stuff, but I love me some FF... I have almost all of their shiz. Fab rawks pretty darn hard.
 
I'm working on a project now which uses Pro-C, Pro-L, Pro-G and Twin-2 and Timeless-2... Fab's stuff is awesome and I recommend it very highly.

The Band19
I always use a limitter on the MB? But I also use it on other stems as well, typically when I need to do some gain staging? I use FabFilter's Pro-L, you can push the incoming signal and I like the control it provides. Good stuff, but I love me some FF... I have almost all of their shiz. Fab rawks pretty darn hard.
 
I'm working on a project now which uses Pro-C, Pro-L, Pro-G and Twin-2 and Timeless-2... Fab's stuff is awesome and I recommend it very highly.

but aren't you a little worried about what that is doing to your dynamics? Maybe I am all wrong but, I guess I would be concerned....

My method is a compromise between those two approaches: I add the limiter halfway through the mix process. 
 
If mastering was just about raising volume, this wouldn't be necessary. But if you don't mix into a limiter, when you do add it later (or an ME does) it's going to change your mix in unexpected ways.
 
Get the mix sounding as good as possible without limiting and then dial it in with the limiter in place. You'll have fewer post-mastering surprises, and if you want to send it out for mastering all you have to do is take the limiter off before exporting.

I do something similar to Bit's approach.  I start mixing into a Limiter as I am getting closer to the end of a project.  I set the Limiter to be very light in what it is actually Limiting.  I may increase the Limiting occasionally to see what it is sounding like, but I do most of the mixing with it barely inguaged.