WWMBD: What would Michael Brauer do?

[The_Metallurgist]

And I think I stumbled upon a few more pitfalls to avoid. Learning what not to do is crucial...

fully

What's bothering me is that in some ways it feels almost like you're trying to discourage me (?)

i can understand how you'd feel this. i'd much rather you looked at the inherent problems first and try and negotiate them within your constraints. i think that by understanding the limitations of our environments, we can better address (i.e. prioritise) how we move forwards from where we are today. Rome wasn't built in a day, but they did have a Plan.

Have I plateaued and stagnated for a time?

oh yes, this is a totally valid point you make. i think we go through stages, where sometimes progress is rapid and in others we can actually regress. you are confronting both the issues of a new working methodology as well as entering a genre to which you are not directly affiliated, and this could be a factor. perhaps the best way to judge the relative effectiveness of a fairly significant shift in work flow , is to mix a genre you are aufait with, and see how this feels. you might get a better idea of it's effectiveness and value in future or even specific projects. Matt is dead right in saying that day 1 of any trial is going to be shaky and it can take quite a bit of noodling to find what works best. exploration is important, but i think we need to base it firmly on a solid foundation. if your listening environment is compromised, then making that judgement call can be difficult. and i worry sometimes, about the quality of the feedback.....given that so many don't actually fully understand the limitations of their own listening environment - my previous notes in this tread above refer. and elsewhere, for that matter.

if you feel you are on a plateaux, don't panic. take some easier mixes and relax a bit....take the strain off yourself? i'm not so good at practising what i preach in that regard....i tend to push harder and get in an even bigger mess, which isn't healthy.

Forgive me if I feel a slight lack of respect, especially if that's not what's intended. But allow me to say that I've been forcing myself under serious duress to make the improvements you've suggested over the past year: looking at the big picture, improving my monitoring system/environment, reducing the tendency to overprocess... All of that is present on this mix... And then I'm confronted with a lack of talent/work ethic, and the indirect suggestion that I've been dishonest about what I'm monitoring through?

fullest respect towards your endeavours, dude. i must say, however, that we are not mixing a static target.....but it's a continually moving one. given that no two projects ever offer the same challenges, the outcomes can be highly varied as a consequence. i think when the environment stabilises and your cross referencing is becoming more consistent, you'll feel progress. the problem inherent in the mixing process is that so many variables exist and it's the accumulation/totality of all those variables that we present to the forum. we can't nail all problems on day one, and being confronted with a non-static project doesn't help. i don't know if this helps, but i often go back to old projects and re-assess my mixing decisions. in most instances, i shake my head in disbelief at some of the parameter changes i've made. working with a static target, in this way, we can better assess our own individual progress. this is why sometimes we can make a mix that satisfies us, and sometimes we mess up.....it's that moving target analogy. some mixes suit our current development than others. the further the genre from our comfort zones, the more we risk going off course. but unless we take the risks and reflect on the effectiveness of the outcomes, we won't progress......

I'm not offended, not upset... And I could easily get a better mix/balance with a more comfortable workflow. But I've forced myself to try a new, uncomfortable approach that might help me focus on the mix as a whole rather than myopically adjusting individual tracks until I've completely lost objectivity and creative impulse. You suggest an improvement mindset, but that's exactly what this mix was all about. Whether or not it has borne fruit on this mix in particular... Well, I've conducted better mixes. This wasn't, however, an attempt to avoid fundamentals or dazzle the forum with a new, fancy gimmick... just trying a new method that seemed consistent with mixing toward a vision for the big picture, which I acknowledge as my biggest weakness. I wasn't improving doing the same old thing, but I also can't afford top of the line equipment upgrades every time I plateau with a family to support on a crappy grocery store job... but considering that most of the classic records that most people compare favorably to modern records were mixed on aura tones and ns-10s... the latter of which is INSANELY nonlinear, both in terms of frequency distribution and resonance times across the spectrum...

i take your points here fully.

all speakers are non-linear. it's the room which makes them so. and all rooms have their own response (no one pair of NS10's will sound the same in different rooms....which is one reason why speaker reviews are a bit of a rouse). one of our challenges is to minimise the amount the room disrupts this response, or perhaps more importantly, how it sways our perception of what is happening. but monitors do offer the biggest constraints, second only to the room we work in.

i'd strongly recommend running some room frequency response tests, so you fully understand where the issues reside in your listening environment (which will automatically include the monitoring combined). it's the low-mids and of course the sub bass that will be the chief problem instigators, as you already know. that's always a good start - if you are sitting in a 30dB null at 73Hz, you need to know that!! the second is to find a monitoring arrangement that minimises disruption by your room. i personally use an Avantone (but not for this reason, but it is excellent at helping avoid excitation of room modes because of it's bass rolloff). i once had them running as a pair but later went mono-only; there's no cross-over phase issues to deal with being only one speaker, and the box is sealed, so you don't have a resonance misguiding you. i don't use it as often as i did, but i use it a lot very early on in the mix process, but then rely on my nearfields for EQ adjustments and hearing compression. the cans go on from time to time to check how things are working out....but i don't use them to make parameter changes, at least not without checking back on the nearfields.

a point about speaker choice. while it gets a lot of discussion out and about, i learned the hard way about failure. the ONLY way to select a pair of monitors is by spending time mixing on them. NOT hearing how they sound in the shop. you will know on the first print and how they translate, if they are good for YOU, and importantly, for YOUR room. this takes me back to my audiophile days and the challenges of matching amps with boxes! might sound awesome in the auditioning room, but get them home and it's a different story. if i'd heard my current nearfields in a shop, i would have waved a middle finger at them and never looked at them again. i also tried out a pair of boxes which were getting some rave reviews, especially on the price-performance chart. i did a mix, and thought it sounded great. then i put it over some other reference speakers for translation and they were an out and out disaster. but i'm sure some folk can do great mixes with them. it's all a challenge, and it can take a lot of energy to settle on what works. AND to respect the needs of budget constraints while so doing.

you say that bass is a problem in your room which makes it's assessment in your mixes difficult? in this mix, i'm hearing the harmonics and i think you shaped the mix on those harmonics. what you need to do perhaps, is try to train your ears to ONLY hear the FUNDAMENTALS and starve them of the harmonics. over time you will be able to make a much better assessment with your current monitoring (even if it's bass-shy). even boxes that drop off at 80Hz can tell you the fundamental of a kick at 60Hz.....and how well the bass guitar and kick are working together, or not as the case may be. my nearfieds are low-cut at 90Hz. i don't let the bass slow the mid-range response and cloud my judgement. when i want to hear the bass, and sub end, on goes the sub (non-resonant, i hasten to add) and off go the nearfields. if i want to hear it all combined, then i go through the 3-way midfields.

So I talk and ramble a lot, but maybe that helps give a better perspective of what I'm trying to do. I've not ignored your advice, nor will I ever... But at the same time, the "advice" herein almost seems like "give up, you don't have the talent or finances to mix." If you think so, that's fine and understandable... Just don't think I'm not working my ass off, because you'd be dead wrong.

what do i think? i think you are one of the hardest and most determined chaps in the forum. but don't confuse "working harder" with "working smarter". but i do feel sometimes, that you over-do the academic aspects of the mixing process and make things more complicated than they should be and my response to the MB strategy was no doubt out of this concern. it's essential to try out new ideas and push the comfort zones, and i can see you do a lot of that already. but i'd probably ease up on the explorations and experimentations, and try easing up on the processing/number of processes and go back a bit to basics. i can't talk....because i can max out my CPU on even the simplest of mixes today. last year i was far too conservative. but having said that, i do much more of the "less", but have more plugs running - cubase5 has far too few insert slots! lol. i find the interactions, even the placement of a plug in the signal chain, can make a marked difference in delivery. and this can be a complete experiment in it's own right, just on one instrument!

most people are able to mix the mid range zone well, but it's the treble and bass regions that are problematic. most of the time, your trebles are smooth in delivery, which suggests to me that you are using very small speakers which over-present the trebles. indeed, the reason the NS10's are popular is the peak right in the sensitive zone of our hearing. by over-presenting the treble in this way, it causes the engineer to shape the zone more proficiently and implement cuts when needed. a less aggressive speaker won't present the problems so bluntly which can cause the user to miss opportunities. but small speakers will cause challenges in the low-mids and bass/sub bass end of course, and primarily this is your challenge, me thinks. MB's strategies won't fix this. no one single pair of speakers can do all things well, and this is another painful lesson i've learned the hard way. i have 4 systems at the desk, but 2 are used mostly, the others are final checks, if i remember or have the energy to take a mix that far! it depends on my goals/mix vision. if i've put all my time and energies into hacking an arrangement, i might not even bother fussing over the bass end! objective already achieved, move on....i don't fuss over things i know i don't have a problem with. i'm also aware that not many forum participants are in a good position to reliably assess bass anyway; so long as i can assess it reliably, and when i need to, that's all that matters. mp3 removes bass....so that's another factor most forget about or are not even aware of!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

>>>>>>>>>>>>> another key point:
small speakers are crap at helping us to judge the effectiveness of compressor parameter changes (but they do have their strengths/benefits elsewhere). you are far more likely to over-compress than under compress. and i'd point out that i hear a lot of over-processed mix presentations in this regard. but flagging up the problem that you are over-compressing simply disguises the ROOT CAUSE of the problem - your monitoring. are you reading this Matt?

it's my opinion that you don't spend enough time exploring your mixes in mono (i mean mono-single speaker, not stereo mono, with both speakers mixing down to mono!). FORGET ABOUT PHASE....don't obsessssss over that, but of course it's important to keep it in mind. if you did the mono thang, it would force you, screaming and kicking, to a much better mix. this metal mix is a case in point. and you can't simply pan your way out of trouble in the stereo domain - nobody listens to music sitting in the sweet spot (other than silly audiophiles), so they hear the accumulated outputs of both speakers in their rooms. but for goodness sake, back off on the compressor deployment....and this is why your mention of MB had me more than a little worried.

it's my opinion that not everyone is cut out to mix, and i don't care what Matt has to say on that issue. whether this applies to you is only for YOU to decide, and this will depend on what is important to you at the end of the day. but i ask myself the question from time to time, and i think it's important to reflect on rate of progress and time spent in achieving that progress and whether the totality of constraints are such that it makes further progress limited than is satisfactory for our own ego. i get all of Matt's references, but he's missed one important one "Knowing when to quit" by Jack Barranger. EVERYONE should know when this point is valid.....whether it's mixing, the day job, a relationship, a business, woteva. it's a crucial skill to learn, it's a life skill because there will no doubt be times when we have to make that call......but what skills do we possess to make it? but i'm way off topic now!

i hope this makes better sense and helps pull the previous posts into a more clear light. i'm happy to clarify points, should you feel there's some ambiguity at any time.

on topic:
this mix has a programme loudness of -19.6LUFS. it's true peak is -3'ish, though much of the mix is hanging around the -4 mark. if you simply pushed the fader up 3dB so the peak is 0dB, the LUFS would come down to around -16. i note that your intro is loud....so too the outro relative to the majority of the mix. speaking objectively, it's SL is -17LUFS, then the mix disappears.....and we have a loudness weaving around the -20LUFS scale. i don't understand your reasoning.

at 0:30, the solo guitar is only coming down the mid channel, so you've lost some realestate there. i'm not sure if it's lacking in the raw materials, but i'm not getting power anywhere in the guitars...and it's not simply because of the missing bass elements already mentioned by others. no power, no emotion. i should have been possessed by an uncontrollable urge to mosh, but it escaped me. it's gotta connect dude, and the decisions you make in your mix can make or break this experience. you gotta make it bang. power wont come from the low end....all this will do is cause the woofer to go sluggish and gobble headroom! so how do you plan to make them bang so they complement the snarles, growls and slime in the vocals? clue: changing your mix buss work flow to an MB layout probably won't help

that nice, sharp attack on that kick got my attention

[Blitzzz]

I only listened to this mix on my way to the office so I can't say much about it. the guitar(s) are clearly out of tune - especially in the bridge at 1:30/2:35. that alone spoiled the whole song for me (not talking about the mix, pauli)

[pauli]

Hey guys.

I hope I haven't accidentally implied that I'm as skilled or capable as Brauer... I'm way too humble to be that ignorant. Nor have I tried to imply that my compromised (but continually improving) "studio" isn't limiting me... in fact I'm quite aware of the limitations on more than an academic level... I've had the misfortune of experiencing them firsthand. Like anyone else who takes mixing seriously, I print my mixes and listen to them elsewhere. A friend owns a local studio, and listening to some mixes in the control room is quite sobering and on other mixes is a pleasant surprise. I'm beginning to understand the problem areas my room and indeed my monitors are creating, but of course it's a complex and multifaceted issue and will take time to apply what I'm learning to my own environment.

I'm not a scientist, but I'm very smart... and I've got a much better than laypersons understanding of acoustic science as it relates to the role of the room and how it relates to the benefits and compromises I made when I switched to my current monitors.

Acoustics are a sonofab***h, especially in a small room. Early reflections in the midrange are simple to treat, but bass is never going to be perfect in a domestic setting. Not only do we have to worry about room modes skewing our perception of the bottom third of the spectrum through simple comb filtering, we also have to contend with nonlinear reverberation time across the spectrum... and that's affected by everything from our mix position to the materials used in the construction of not only the room, but the entire structure. And of course when it comes time to apply reverb electronically, well, that can obviously be a bit of a crapshoot. Then we have to factor in the fletcher-munson effect, which comes into play quite severely in a small room where playing music at 80 dB will rattle the walls... midrange bias, much?

My monitors in particular are certainly on the low end of the cost scale, and I understand quality costs, but there are a few key features that make them a sound choice for my dollar in this environment. 5 inch speakers are appropriate for a small room because it forces a roll-off in the reproduction of frequencies around 50 hZ or so, and below 50 hZ is where the absolute worst room issues exist in my current and even most professional mix environments... those waveforms are simply too big to control without the sort of resonant bass traps that cover an entire wall! Unfortunately, unported nearfields, even in much higher price ranges, are becoming increasingly rare... however, many of the small room problems associated with ports can be mitigated by choosing nearfields ported in the front as opposed to the rear, which somewhat mitigates a less than ideal rear wall proximity, which can force rear ports to severely over represent their resonant frequencies. And of course, those resonant frequencies are usually somewhere between 90 hZ and 150 hZ, which is arguably where the kick drum vs. bass guitar battleground tends to take place. You don't want that crap getting to the wall before it gets to your ears or you've lost the fight before you've even begun... we simply can't afford for a low frequency resonance to arrive at our ears late, especially when a bass is growling and the drummer is a double kick speed metal monster. That's gonna sound like mud even after you've attenuated the fundamentals to near non-existence.

Even beyond simple physics, we have nyquist/sample rate shenanigans and bit depth to worry about, though most people worry too much due to the ABUNDANT bulls**t about both all over the internet. Which is why you see the occasional gearslutz post waxing lyrical on the purported benefits of sampling at 192 kHz... of course, when you tell them that most (acoustic) instruments stop producing harmonics at 30 kHZ or well beneath that, and most microphones aren't designed to capture much past 20 kHz (hello Nyquist, are you hearing this?), he'll tell you that you just don't get it. Do you believe in magic, ooooooh, in a young girls heart? Then casually mention that personal computers, especially the ubiquitous studio laptop, by and large aren't fast enough by half to sample audio in real time at 192 kHz, regardless of the quality of the converter, you get banned for life! And we wonder why there's so much distortion in digital music.

And, relevant to the sample rate/bit depth argument, we can rant about mp3 all day. Lots of mastering engineers these days are printing multiple masters of each song, one of which is processed specifically respond more favorably to mp3 conversion. Honestly, given that the public is becoming more and more aware of the issues inherent with mp3 and that lossless streaming is soon to become a reality, I think the mp3 crisis will be over within a few years... so I generally don't worry about "mastering" in that sense, although maybe I should learn a few techniques for the benefit of posting mp3s to the forum?

Anyway... my main point is that I understand the bulk of the issues that I'm faced with (a.k.a. "the fundamentals of audio") and it's sometimes a little depressing how little I can do about them... but I don't let it deter me from experimentation if I think there might be a potential gain. Even if it means I screw the pooch and print a lousy mix, at least I've got a list of processed tracks to look over and debug, to figure out what went wrong and how I might do better next time.

Which leads me to ask, more directly, where we feel as a group the main problem areas are in the mix. I'm giving it a listen right now with fresh ears and agree with Matt about the 4000-6000 range, though I wonder if my monitoring situation is over-representing the air frequencies because they really annoy me. As Dave suggests, however, compromised source material may be the cause of this... it's unclear to me whether the cymbals are sampled or synthesized, but inappropriately sampled cymbals or synthesized cymbals based on heavily modulated white noise tend to create top shelf mix obstacles. Usually, confronted with cymbals so cumbersome on top, I wind up attenuating it, but obviously that dulls the mix as a whole considerably... so aside from replacing them with a new sample, trying to process them otherwise is probably like hanging a fancy chandelier in a haunted mansion?

Other thing that's bugging me is the low mid congestion, which is probably what Don was referring to in noting the apparent 250 hZ excess on the bass guitar. This is a bit of a sticky, since the distorted guitars seem to want way more low middle content in this genre than I'd allow them elsewhere? Which also means a lot of muscular stuff pounding away in the sides channel, and that's no good. Metal is a bizarre mix situation, since the bass guitar and electric guitars are generally downtuned by at least a half octave, if not three quarters, yet low end on double kick is just asking for trouble/intermodulation distortion/god help you if you don't have bass absorbers, so we have to allow more of the mid frequencies to let the kick drum "thump" come through... but the god forsaken guitars and bass are really hungry there, too.

So in a way, the multi-buss strategy makes sense here, to a point, by allowing you to introduce subtle level interactions between the related instruments. But it'll probably never quite work without serious, detailed automation. Automating low cuts on the kick drums during the 16th note rolls makes a lot of sense, and would allow a more bestial thump elsewhere when it's more physically possible. Something probably needs to be done in 200ish range to help the bass and guitars agree as well... could be as simple as frequency dependent sidechaining. I don't really trust multiband compressors for this because the phasing at the crossover frequency creates too many issues where I've tried it, but I know of a technique wherein a polarity inverted copy of an instrument or group is bandpassed surrounding a contentious frequency and gated... then the gate is triggered by another instrument you'd like to occupy said contentious frequency whilst they play together... and the fader of the polarity inverted track is then automated to vary the level of intentional cancellation as necessary. I've used this with some success to help a vocal cut through a wall of guitars without statically dulling them with EQ, and once somewhat successfully to remedy an overabundance of bass spill on EVERYTHING. Usually those kinda ninja moves feel like overprocessing at its worst to me, but maybe in this situation they'd be worth it?

[pauli]

LOL, that last post of mine may have been a bit redundant... you commented back while I was still writing it and addressed my points and I thank you for that. At some point I'd like to pick your brain about how different speakers react to compression... it was my understanding that smaller speakers often "compress" audio on the way out as an unavoidable consequence of their size... perhaps I'm backward on that?

Re: your comments on loudness, points well taken. This mix didn't go to mastering at all, where I may (or may not... this is still a weak point) have caught that. Based on the current trend toward mastering for iTunes, -16 LUFs is generally my target loudness for the mix as a whole. This mix, if it hadn't been mostly an experiment, really needs some help in the arrangement department. Given that overdriving a signal as hard as these guitars are driven naturally reduces dynamics, a little targeted EQ and some mild compression across the loudest sections should be more than enough for the issue you've noted to resolve itself, but only if the arrangement supports it.

Re: solo guitar. It needs to be doubled to work as intended herein, agreed. Enter Haas?

Re: raw materials. I can't really comment on it from an objective perspective.... it's all I can do to make it through the song, which is in no way intended to discredit the hard work and talent of the musicians who supplied the multi. Between the vocals and cymbals, even the best mixes of metal this hardcore hurt my ears, so it's possible I'm ruining the mix simply by trying to force it to sound more like I'd want to hear it, regardless of whether or not that makes sense.

[pauli]

I only listened to this mix on my way to the office so I can't say much about it. the guitar(s) are clearly out of tune - especially in the bridge at 1:30/2:35. that alone spoiled the whole song for me (not talking about the mix, pauli)

Hey man, thanks for listening.

That weird guitar in the bridge I figured was intentionally out of tune... given how obvious that would be to any of the musicians involved in tracking it.

As for the rest, guitars driven this hard always sound out of tune to me just by nature of all the crazy harmonics, I guess. On second listen though, I agree.. that by itself is going to be pretty much impossible to fix, and would certainly explain a lack of power like Dave was saying, yeah? Everything being out of tune even slightly creates sort of a psychological comb filtering for me... dunno how to explain it.

[londonmatt]

** EDIT ** Having written this in a rush while also cooking tea for my kids, I realise I perhaps came across as more confrontational than I would have liked. Herewith a hopefully more conversational version

Well I have an essay to write so apologies if my reply is rather more brief than others

Re growth mindset thinking - the central tenets as they apply to education relate to the type of praise given to children (telling a child "you're so clever" when they've solved a problem makes them *less* likely to try something more difficult next time because if their "cleverness" resides in their ability to solve problems correctly, their self-identity is questioned when they get something wrong. Conversely telling a child "you've worked really hard" when they've solved a problem makes them more likely to relish challenge) and to the extent to which our self-theories affect our aptitude. Psychologically speaking, it's pretty uncontroversial - elements of it are in Montessori and Dewey, writing a hundred years ago and it's backed up by decades of empirical studies.

The crucial point to take from it is not necessarily "I can be as good as Michael Brauer at mixing" but "there is no pre-set genetically determined limit to how good I can get at mixing, if I am prepared to put in effort". Moreover, effort, not genetic ability, is by far the greatest determiner of how successful anyone is at pretty much anything - even Mozart, who is regularly held up as a "born genius", wrote: "People make a great mistake who think that my art has come easily to me, nobody has devoted so much time and thought to composition as I... there is not a famous master whose work I have not studied over and over." To put it in context, the piano concerto recognised at Mozart's first great attempt in that genre (as opposed to more derivative earlier works), Jeunehomme no. 9, was his 271st published work.

Couple of other things - Dave, you said that the fact I have a music degree is "irrelevant" to mixing, which I found quite surprising. Leaving aside the fact that 30% of my degree was on Studio Recording Techniques and Electroacoustic Composition, the level of critical listening for nuance, balance and tone required to play at degree level in a classical ensemble is extremely high. Not to mention the years of ear training that makes me very sensitive to pitch inaccuracies, all the work I've done on harmony & counterpoint, musical arranging of many different genres etc - and of course I can communicate to musicians in their own language, so I'd say that it was highly relevant. However, I'm getting defensive, for which there is no need.

However, it does lead me onto a further question which is meant as a genuine discussion starter, not an attempt to start an argument: to what extent do you (or anyone else reading this) consider mixing to be an art or a science? I have a background in music and I - probably therefore unsurprisingly - consider it to be primarily an art. Your signature line implies an artistic leaning, but most of what I've read so far in this thread and a couple of others has all been about comb filtering, phase issues, mic bleed, frequency responses, the inadequacy of mp3 encoding, acoustic treatments etc etc - i.e., it's basically a science, and a highly mysterious and complex one at that. I find myself wondering: Where's the focus on the actual song rather than the technicalities surrounding it? Where's the meaning of the words and the feeling of the music? I know they're in there as well, but I can't help feeling that this kind of discussion is in some danger of not seeing the wood for the trees.

(OK, let's be clear, in this particular song, I've got no idea what most of the lyrics are, but you get the gist I think )

.... and back to the essay ....

[pauli]

That's the tricky thing, it's the trap I always fall into. I think of it as an art that's made possible and practiced through science... sometimes the science gets in the way of the art, though.

All of that is odd because I was a musician for 15 years prior to taking up mixing as a serious pursuit... Sometimes I wonder if the natural ease (borne of years of study) with which I make music on my guitar makes the musical aspect of audio feel like a secondary consideration on a different platform.

[Blitzzz]

After listening to your mix I decided to give this song a shot. Melodyne fixed some of the tuning issues, but I had to add a lot of additional tracks (choir, whooosh, screams, all kind sof fx) to bring more life and excitement into my mix. I still don't like this song because the guitars sound like shit (way too much distortion - sounds like the tracks allready clipped when they recorded it) but I made the best out of it. Haven't checked the mix on other speakers then my adams and headphones and I didn't use refs song to check if I´m in the right ballpark so I probably have to remix it tomorrow.

[pauli]

I'm looking forward to hearing it. Post production on someone else's work is a weak area for me.

[BlairHall1974]

Hey guys... mostly a lurker here... thought I'd add my 2 cents on the track.

The guitars are pretty bad right out of the box. Sounded to me like they used an amp sim plugin but forgot/didn't bother to use cabinet emulation. So... I used RedWirez mixIR2 with some Boogie 4x12 impulses and it dramatically helped the tone. Takes the tracks from having to spend ages trying to fix them with EQ, to just tweaking the odd frequency here n' there.

EDIT: For the sake of dovetailing in with the point of the OP... I always mix using multiple buses with compression. For example on this track, I had a drum bus, a bus for rhythm guitars and a bus for the vocals. They all get compressed (as needed of course) and fed to a "mix bus" that does a bit of overall shaping, before being fed to the master output. If I'm running a rough mix and want to do a quick "master" on it, I'll drop whatever is required on the master output and bounce from there.

Note: Mix is definitely not in a finished state... just ran this as a demo of the guitars.

Cheers!

B.