Again on buss compression: how much?

[Dean Roddey]

Originally Posted by doug hazelrigg

There's BIG a difference between mixing INTO some bus compression and just slapping some compression on a finished mix. The former is for the mix engineer to work out; the latter is ideally for the mastering engineering to work out (if called for)

I don't think that's really any sort of hard and fast rule, since there are no hard and fast rules. I think that it often works out well to mix without any overall mix compression and add one at the end for a few dB of glue (obviously a mix decision, not a mastering thing.) And if you are using an outboard compressor, that might be the only way it's possible since you may not be able to just leave it there all the time, or want to deal with the extra latency involved if you are keeping it roughly mixed as you go and need the comp for tracking purposes.