Should I Leave the Limiter On the Mix Buss for Mastering?

TL;DR – Send Both Limited and Unlimited Mixes

When in doubt, send both the limited and unlimited versions of your mix.

Avoid Pre-Mastered or Heavily Limited Mixes

The general consensus is to avoid sending heavily limited mixes to a mastering engineer. However, if the mix engineer worked into a limiter, removing it can sometimes cause the mix to fall apart. This doesn’t always happen, but it’s a risk worth noting. It’s like carefully removing the frosting from a cake, sometimes the cake just collapses.

This is why I recommend avoiding mix files that have been “pre-mastered,” or excessively limited. While some master-buss plugins may be essential to your creative intent, any loudness-focused processing, such as an L2 Limiter or similar tools should be bypassed or removed before sending the files for mastering. Doing so preserves headroom and gives the mastering engineer the flexibility to achieve the best tonal balance, dynamics, and translation for streaming or physical formats. For more information on mix prep: Mix Preparation and File Delivery for Mastering.

If you mix with a peak limiter or other mastering-style processing on the master fader, it’s highly beneficial to provide two versions of each mix: one with the processing, so the mastering engineer hears your intended sound, and one without, giving a clean starting point for processing during mastering. Think of it as giving the mastering engineer both the “director’s cut” and the “raw footage”—they’ll thank you.

Master Buss vs Individual Track Processing

This guidance applies specifically to processing on the master buss, mix file, or overall mix. Compression and processing on individual tracks or instruments are perfectly fine. As long as the overall mix level or DAW output does not hit or exceed 0 dBFS, and there is no excessive true-peak limiting that artificially prevents peaks from exceeding 0 dBFS naturally, the mix should be well-prepared for mastering. If your mix is tiptoeing below 0 dBFS like it’s in a silent yoga class, you’re probably in good shape.

For more on headroom and safe levels for streaming please read my article: True Peak vs Inter-Sample Peaks