what order are you plugins inserted

[revolver87]

Hi guys.. Wondering what order do you guys tend to put your plugins on tracks.. Ie eq then compression then limiter,, Also what do you guys tend to put on your master track?

[Wilty]

As I'm still very much a novice I've been experimenting with orders, but I generally have (especially for drum/perc tracks) EQ, compressor, another EQ in the first 3 then stack up distortion, delays or whatever as needed and sometimes put a subtle compressor, limiter or gate at the end of the chain to keep it neat.

[Khazul]

For inserts, it depends upon how you want your compressor to behave and/or the character of your compressor.

For eg, if you are going to cut the bass and dotn want the compressor to react much to dry sound bass anyway, than stick the EQ in firstt, OTOH if you want the compressor to react to bass more even though you will cut it, then stick the EQ after.

More generally I will stick the EQ in after as if I need to tweak the EQ to balance with other tracks, then i dont want to have to tweak the compresor everythiing I tweak the EQ (which it what will happen if the EQ is first). If you have a compressor with a sidechain EQ, then you can often use that to controll how the compresor reacts, then stick the track EQ after.

At the end of the day, for any given situation, work out what you are trying to acheive if you can and order them accordingly, or just try them both ways and go with whichever is best for the part.

The same applies when you are using the post-mix. I may have them in either order for various reasons, though generally I tend to prefer to get rid of unwanted sub-bass before compression.

[TrevCircleStudios]

Khazul nailed it... Eq before compression for surgery and after for sweetening/tone

[revolver87]

Cheers lads.. Also what about your master track. Do any of you guys leave a compressor on the track all the way through the process or do you just do it when mixing..

[TrevCircleStudios]

I usually mix with a compressor on the 2bus. I tend to put it on about 30% into the mix process. I often follow it with a massive passive EQ (more for depth than anything else though) with a cranesong hedd as the final processing in the chain.