I use the Acuma Final Mix plugin which has the following signal chain: 6 band parametric eq—>3 Band compression—> 6 Band parametric eq—> limiter.

Lots of overall bus presets as well as for sub mixes and individual channels.

I’ve learned a great deal surfing the presets and switching off and on and so forth. Not to brag, but I have a Masters degree in engineering with masters level signal processing courses. In other words, as part of that course work I’ve designed filters, dynamic processing, etc.

All of that deep training in how signals are processed is very useful in picturing what is happening to the signal, but I would say the preset auditioning is just as educational and perhaps more so.

I use Final Mix less, using more channel strip plugin tweaked presets on individual channels but even with those, auditioning and experimenting with presets has been a boon.

For those of us that didn’t have any opportunity to learn in a studio, I’m not sure there’s a better way to learn these days.

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