I place a protection limiter on the master- Concrete Limiter is perfect.

Yes, quite often, set VERY light.  As mentioned above, as a little "glue" to the overall mix.

I will second AT and Bit’s statement … “it depends (on the song and your plugs)”.  For me, I like PSP’s Old Timer (starting with the “glue things together” preset and tweaking from there) on the Master Buss.

BUT, being tone deaf, I use my drums as a guide and I weigh its effect on the sound of the drums.  For example, if I have a compressor on the snare track and a compressor on the drum buss (and I’m liking the sound of the drums) … then the compressor on the Master Buss may make the pop of the snare disappear completely so, I won’t use one on the master buss.

Alternatively, if I have a compressor on the snare track and tape simulation on the drum buss (I have the Waves’ Kramer Tape, Tubes and Transistors plugs) then the PSP Old Timer on the master buss may work nicely.

There's always a compressor or 2 and limiter on the master buss. Whether it's engaged or not is another question.
In other words, it's there and I turn it off and on as the need arises to hear what's going on. 

You'll get 50 different responses to this one Matt as it's very subjective really. I'll give you my take for what it's worth.

To answer your question, for most things, no I do not do it. In my experience as well as what I've been taught and learned over the years on my own, a compressor on the 2-bus before you mix is used for coloration as well as gluing the mix together.

The problem with this technique is, you will NOT see the same results using a digital plugin compressor like you would if you ran a hardware compressor in the chain. What happens is this...

When you add a hardware compressor to your master out from the start, it colors the mix. Therefore, you would use different eq settings in the mix due to this coloration. Without the coloration, these eq settings wouldn't sound good. So you are using the compressor to color more than to actually compress because you'd not want to use a lot here. The settings Bats gave are perfect for this technique in my opinion. You never want to over-do it. But that said, in my experience, unless a compressor can color the sound, you're really not changing much by way of eq if it's just a plug compressor on the channel, understand?

Now, when I DO do this, I use a UAD Fatso Jr. on my master bus because it is a coloration compressor. It literally chages the tone of the mix just by having it on the master bus. And, it's a change for the better for SOME songs as that extra coloration allows me to tweak up a mix that I'd not be able to get without it. The cool thing about the Fatso is you can darken the tone of the over-all mix or brighten it up a little bit. I like to use the Bus Glue preset they have as I feel it is an excellent starting point. I don't adjust the coloration controls on it because I like what it does there, but I will mess with the compression amount at all times.

So keep some of this stuff in mind when using this technique. It's important to understand why and where it came from. Guys today are using it to compress the entire mix to make things louder. They aren't using it like the old well-known engineers used to to it. They used glue with coloration. Guys today use cement with 0 coloration other than the loss of dynamics.

-Danny

What about a situation where you can use slight compression over the mix and it does not add any colouration to the sound at all but it still provides this nice slight compression sound.

Firstly Anderton mentions in another thread he does not use compressor in the mastering process sometimes but I firmly believe that when you apply even very light compression to a stereo mix it seems to just do something that is very hard to describe but I can feel it a lot. And I like it too.

I have got a Yamaha digital mixer and the good thing about those is all the processes which can be applied on every input and output. The stereo buss had got this very nice compressor on its output if you need it. It is very transparent and does not alter EQ at all. In fact it is so good like that you don't have to be concerned with any EQ changes that might result from using it. Still can be set for low ratio and light compression -2 to -3dB GR. Slowish attack too so transients get through nicely.

How does it sound? Very nice and it seems to add this layer of smoothness to the mix that I find very hard to describe and you don't hear it until you put a compressor like this onto the mix either. You can get a slight rms level boost in your overall mix from this stage too maybe 2dB or so. If you still use a mastering compression you need to take into account if this 2 buss compression has been used and the audio print you are working with has it on. As ratios multiply it just means lowering the mastering compressor ratio a tad to allow for it. 

I am like Danny too in that I print many things without it but I find for the right situation it is nice to use as well. I find it helps getting a loud master later as well for a client.

I don't agree with mixing right into a heavy mastering chain from the start because it means you will never be able to do a great mix without it and you should learn to make fantastic sounding mixes with absolutely no mastering on them what so ever. It develops and tightens up your skills at track and buss levels. The other bad thing about it is it never allows that music to be mastered by a better mastering engineer than you because the music is already mastered and you have just made it impossible to master. I think that doing a fantastic mix first then waiting a week (and really hearing that mix too and you will want to change it!) and setting up a classy mastering chain later and hearing it all fresh too is very hard to beat. If you have the music printed at a pre mastered level there are so many options for later remastering as well.

Jeff
What about a situation where you can use slight compression over the mix and it does not add any colouration to the sound at all but it still provides this nice slight compression sound. Firstly Anderton mentions in another thread he does not use compressor in the mastering process sometimes but I firmly believe that when you apply even very light compression to a stereo mix it seems to just do something that is very hard to describe but I can feel it a lot. And I like it too.

 
Jeff, quick question. Do you find you have to literally mix INTO the compressor for this method to work? There are times when I just do my mix without a compressor on the 2-bus and throw one on at the end just to keep things a little tighter.
 
I do this quite a bit actually but didn't mention it because Matt had asked about "mixing into a compressor". I just don't feel mixing into a digital comp gives me any benefits like one that colors does, know what I mean? I'm not knocking anyone that does it this way....you know me, whatever works is what one should use. But I just don't see the need to mix into one if it's not going to really alter how I would mix. Most of us that respect compressors wouldn't use enough of one on the master bus that would really be enough for it to mess with the mix, know what I mean? So therefore, in my opinion there would be no reason to mix into a digital one. Especially if it's not sonically coloring the sound at all. Make sense at all?
 
-Danny

I use the Classic EQ highpassing at like 30Hz, Opto Compressor or the Fairchild 670 followed by ARC. I like it and do it often, but not on everything.

No Danny basically I don't mix into it I suppose. Mixing into it could also mean you may be driving it harder than how I use that compressor. For me it is about one of those after things that I just know how is going to effect the sound in advance.

I suppose it is just a fine layer of that glue that everybody keeps talking about. I like how certain things get reigned in and the overall mix just takes on this slightly more professional sound or evenness etc..

Sometimes though the mix may change as a result of the compressor being there so then if I know I am definitely going to print a 2 buss light compression mix, I may alter the mix slightly to suit. But more often it is a switch ON switch OFF type thing. Quick listen to the mix before hand and then when happy with mix with compressor on do a print. 


I have used the Smart C2 in this mode. I want to be able to use the Waves API 2500 in this mode too. I have met a few others who swear by it too Danny! I can hardly wait. But our TAFE is closing down for two weeks so that would be a sensible time to bring the C2 back here for a little stay.

It is still imperative that if you are using any sort of compressor on your main mix buss for what ever job you want it to do, the quality of that compressor be outstanding. It is your whole mix that you are running through so what ever you are going to apply to your entire mix better be good. 

digi2ns said above I normally drop the Cakewalk VC64 on the Master Bus. I would not be inclined do that. I don't think it is not a good enough compressor on a whole mix. You are lowering the integrity of a mix by some percentage when you do something like that. (it is probably a much better plugin on an individual track) Try a much better plug in there and see how you mix sounds then. Leave it off for a long time and really learn how your mix sounds without anything there. Get used to that sound and then compare the sound with the compressor to that.

Danny, I'm interested by your hardware/software comment. You say you don't see the point of using software because the don't add color, and only hardware compressors add color. But wouldn't a software compressor that is trying to emulate a hardware compressor also emulate this color to some degree anyway, thus be good for the purpose still? Obviously don't want this to turn into a hardware vs software thread as there are far too many of them out there. Just that any shootouts of hardware vs software that I listen to, although they don't always sound exactly the same, all tend to at least get a general grasp on the color of the compressor it's trying to emulate. It may only get 80% there or be slightly different too, but it might be totally acceptable too? Just cause something sounds different to the real thing, doesn't mean it's a worse color, just that it's a DIFFERENT color. It could arguably sound better in certain applications.

Jeff, what kind of quality difference are you talking about here? The way it handles complex transients dynamically, artefact degradation, noise, or just a bad 'colour' to the audio? Are you able to be more specific, or would you say it's a case of 'all of the above'?

But yeah, I'm talking really mixing INTO the compressor. I actually like the feel of how the riders fight the sound a bit. I like to automate pretty much all my volumes of all tracks so to ride them into the compressor feels really natural and musical for me. I think maybe not doing so could destroy some of the balance and dynamic feel I'm trying to get out of the piece come mastering time - especially as I do my own mastering and and certainly no pro. It might save me a bit in that regard. On the other hand, if I was mixing a dance song, I highly doubt I would mix into a compressor. It doesn't make near as much sense to me there because the dynamics are often different, or at least the way I see them to work. But that's just me.

I like the protection limiter and I have done that one for a while. Just got to be careful you don't hit it accidentally! I was using Boost for a while as my protection till I realised it sounded like ass. I should get this concrete limiter I keep hearing about...

Too tired to remember what exactly I was going to say now so I'll leave it at that and go to bed!