Introduction

A personal look into my process of hybrid audio mixing, summing and mastering

I've always had an interest in mastering. Ever since I created recording.org I paid most attention to the mastering engineers. Many don't realize the history of this site but we are in some ways the predecessor to most of the recording forums today. GS, PSW, and hundreds of other recording forums stemmed out from here. In the beginning, we had the old school big boys gathering here sharing their secrets. I paid attention to them like glue.

• A good recording shouldn't need a lot of work to mix it. Which is why a good recording can get mixed in a few hours.

• A good mix shouldn't need a heavy hand to master it. It should be 95% there.

Mastering Engineers will capture to DSD, tape or round trip. The guys that capture to DSD or tape have been the most interesting to me and who I follow. We share a similar workflow including stem mastering.

Imagine how beneficial it is when you "hear" a deeper detail with gear, your levels, mid & side information of a mix.
SPL, Dangerous Music, Manley are the ones I look at and noticed most talked about. SPL and Dangerous Music both make summing amps too. Which leads us to the next part. The Dangerous Master became my 2-bus summing box.

To be continued...