I want to send our music off to be mastered by a pro, but we want to give it out to a couple of heads for what would probly be mp3 podcast stuff by THIS SUNDAY so no time for that. I hope that it will sound kind of close to a real mastering but since this will be probly ultimately be destined for mp3 im not too anal about giving these heads something that hasnt been truly mastered.

I only have an alesis masterlink and stock digi plugs with some extra bombfactory limiter and eqs that came with the pt7 upgrade.

what should i try? and what settings would you use given my gear, or lack of?

its only 2 songs. one is very dense with lotsa distortion and keys/strings, the other is more laid back and cleaner but still electronic drums on both. I went easy on the compression and limiting in the mixes for the M.E. fyi!
thanks
c

The coding/decoding will alter the peak level. Keep peaks below -0.5dBFS to avoid overs.

MP3 works much like radio compression, it needs a fairly open and dynamic mix to work well. Clipping is a big no. Give it a light polish and avoid squashing and it should work out alright in MP3.