Understanding the Mix Bus

I'm going to talk about our mix bus now, because this is important. We've sort of got our instrumental track sounding pretty decent.

The Role of the Mix Bus

This is really the point where you can kick in the stuff that's on the mix bus to glue everything together.

Pro Tools and Slate Digital Plugin

In Pro Tools, I quite often use this plugin, which is a Slate Digital plugin.

• Virtual Channel: It's got a virtual channel.
• Virtual Mix Bus: It's also got this feature called a virtual mix bus, which I like.

I did explain this earlier, but the virtual mix bus makes it sound a bit more like a mixing desk. So I have that on my mix bus.

Setting Up

1. Enable the Plugin: I'll put that on and I'll play.
2. Checking for Distortion: Usually sounds pretty good straight off. Just make sure it doesn't distort.

Now, we add the compression, the tape, and the limiting. Again, we just have to go through and set it up to sound good. I'm just going to demonstrate that now.

Playing the Track

So, I'm going to hit play on here. Don't make it too loud so I can hear myself talking.

Bus Compression

The next thing is the bus compression.

• I'm going to put this in now.
• I usually don't have it going too much, so it sucks in a little bit more.
• Settings: On this setting, attack: 3 milliseconds, and release as quickly as possible (0.1 seconds).

I'm just going to loop a section here where everything goes, maybe a chorus. I'm going to set myself a nice compression level.

Compression Level

When it hits the four, it's generally a bit too much already, so I normally like to aim for 2 or 3 decibels. I'm going to do a bit more so we can actually hear it, before and after.

• It kind of sucks it in a bit and glues all the elements together.

Tape Machine Plugin

Next, we have our tape machine plugin. Again, it's subtle. I'm not sure if we're going to hear it on the video here, but it helps to glue the mix together.

Limiter

Lastly, but not least, we have the limiter.

• Purpose: It's going to make it nice and loud.
• Sometimes I put it in, and sometimes I take it out for mixing.

It's important to bear in mind that eventually your mix will have quite a bit of limiting on it. So it's best to put it on already to see how it's going to affect your mix and to ensure your mix survives the limiting process that happens later on.

Massey Mastering Limiter

Here's one I quite like: the Massey mastering limiter.

• Function: Basically, what it does is it turns up the level and then cuts off the peaks of your signal.
• We can add quite a lot of limiting, I'm adding 6 dB of limiting now.

We can see it kicks in there quite hard, but it still sounds good.

Before and After

It just adds a lot of level, as we can hear:

• Before: The mix without limiting.
• After: The mix with limiting, where now you can hear the drums balanced up, along with our reverbs and everything on the master bus.

Our mix sounds pretty decent already. Almost sounds like a record. There's just one thing missing, and that's the vocal.