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Hey again , Well I have been having a rough time figuring out how to mix "through" a compressor before I do my mixing within sonar 7. I just cant wrap my head around how to route the signal into a comp (either plug in or hardware) . The problem is that , when I send my audio out from sonar it goes out the master which in turn has all of my bussed groups that have effects on them being passed through the compressor after . Im new to mix buss compression but I was under the assumption that the signal goes through the compressor first. If anyone has any good info on this , as well a proper technique to start from for mix bus compression that would be greatly appreciated.

who says you must compress everything ?
if you don't notice (say) a lack of punch - leave it out
you may apply a loudness maximizer on the sum, though
carefully on stuff that supposed to sound well - full throttle on trashy tracks
maximizers like Optimaster or the STW Mastering Comp have great (almost) automatic processing

a step back:
you may not notice it because the part is pretty fat on it's own, like drum samples which usually are already compressed
or you simply lack the experience and your ears 'betray' you
don't worry, you'll learn it one step after the other, as someone will certainly tell you that your mix is a bit flat (or something like that).
Then it's time for action ...
the shotgun approach by just throwing in a comp on everything 'to be safe' will have a horrible result, in particular if you don't really know what you're doing.
Trust your ears - less is more in this case

cheers, Tom