Post Production/Pre-Mastering Our MIDI Mockups

Dear fellow composers,

how do you finalise your Music in terms of Pre-Mastering?

For instance, if I listen to the film scores even from Youtube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4P78aLrjqFo&list=RD4P78aLrjqFo&index=1), the Basses, Cellos and all the low range instruments are really well compressed and deep. From my studio monitors I can hear the difference when I use the sample libraries.

I know that recording the live orchestra makes a big difference, but I also know that it is possible to achieve a really good result even on demos, because I had the chance to attend some masterclass with Conrad Pope and Richard Bellis in Dublin few years ago, where they played their MIDI Mockups for explaining some Film Music Scoring process and the result was stunning in terms of sound. They demos sounded like a live orchestra recorded in the Studios. I never asked this information to them unfortunately, I should have had.

Do you apply Multiband Compressors on the Stereo Out or on the single channel strips? Or both? What is the trick there?

I know that Pre-Mastering is an Art which takes years of work/study/experience, thus it is better to leave this part to the experts; but maybe with this post, we may gather some good suggestions.

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