Post links in this thread about any plugin recommendations, free plugins or plugin discounts.

It’s been a while… but our famous 3-day “Fix-The-Mix” event starts on Monday, in partnership with Softube. If you’ve never attended a “Fix-The-Mix”, these are 3-day online events where we mix and master a track from scratch, revealing the biggest problems that prevent a mix from sounding pro. It’s by far the best (free) method for learning music production, as you’ll get to look over the shoulder of industry pros while they reveal their entire workflow. EVEN MORE EXCITING… the song we’re mixing was recorded live at our last in-person event in Utah, so some of you might’ve been in the room when it was created! Either way… “Fix-The-Mix” starts Monday, November 18th at 9am Pacific / 12pm Eastern / 5pm UK / 6pm European time. Registration is completely free… all you have to do is click the link below. https://courses.mastering.com/event_full/1730885164358x610759297539411600?utm_source=FTMSkool See you there! — Rob

Welcome to decision 2024– It’s Election Day in the United States! Music plays an important part in elections, such as at rallies and to introduce candidates to the voting public. Modern presidents have even shared their playlists and instrument skills! Mindful of our global community — this question is for everyone for whatever country in which you cast your ballot. Do you listen to anything in particular musicwise to pump you up to vote? Or on the other hand—perhaps something musical is calming or even a distraction? Maybe silence is your jam? Do you have any stories or traditions tying music and elections together? Please share thoughts, ideas, input and perspectives!

We ran an event called Produce-A-Thon at the start of the year, and it was one of our most popular events ever. Good news - it's back! Starting Monday, Nov 11th, we'll be going live for three days of real-time production from scratch. You'll watch as two professional producers (Chris and Dane) go head to head to create a track using the same vocal, explaining every step along the way. Here's the link to RSVP: https://courses.mastering.com/event_full/1730137769843x859943494277136400?utm_source=FTMSkool&utm_medium=Event&utm_campaign=PAT11112024 See you there! - Rob

Hi again, everyone! I worked on a mix+master adjustment of a 2021 track and am running into problems again, mostly of the PC performance kind, what makes committing first necessary. I wanted to ask for your opinion before I do so - if the only persisting problem is the bass side-chains or if you might think that I already kind of over-treated that track to death and/or need to adjust stuff like basses' dynamic EQs first. I spent about 5 or 6 days working on the track lately, most of the time micro-editing values and often not being able to playback properly, first because of NVIDIA driver problem, then probably by using too much heavy plugins together, I already went to maximum buffer size and closed/disabled whatever I could in Windows or in the DAW's cue channels (Analysis/Reference/2nd headphone Sonarworks) before going back into the project the last times. While micro-editing those values to get rid of that damn ugly distortion in the basses when they coincide with vocals, the overall feel of the basses changed multiple times, current version not sounding the very ideal way and maybe already being too over-processed to a lackluster extent, it's hard to say. I'm also not sure if the VocalSynth2 affected tracks (the buzzing synths) sound "attractive enough" at that moment. And those VocalSynth2 tracks and the Ozone Dynamic EQ instances on the basses are causing the most of the resource load on the system that still can be saved by bouncing the single tracks... Other than that I'd probably like at the end to add some Oxygen to the Tops, but otherwise I'm content with that master. What would you say regarding those concerns or what other comments do you have? Can you maybe even recognize the clashing regions in the frequency range that should be easily adjustable between those Basses and VOX or other sounds? Am I over-limiting maybe? I'm sorry for not having labeled the single channels properly, the legend on screenshot is: red for Kicks, yellow for Tops, brown-orange for Drum-loops and stuff like Claps, green for Basses, pink for VOX, violet/dark-pink for VocalSynth2, cyan for a Synth-loop.