This thread just got me thinking about 2 recent experiences with native plugins. I sent 2 different albums to 2 different mastering engineers and they both had similar, and for me, worrying comments. They both said that although the tonal balances were fine that the mixes all had a kind of graininess that was not good, and anything that they tried to do seemed to increase the graininess. I used buss compression and sometimes eq on all of the mixes, mostly Sony Oxford, Waves L2, L3, URS. It's kind of disappointing as I really like the recallability of mixing in the box, but wonder if this suggests that maybe it is still better to use outboard analog buss compression and eq, or just wait until mastering. I'm using Logic native and couldn't really hear the graininess in my studio, but trust these guys comments. Has anyone else experienced this, and if you have did you find a way to fix it? I'm using a MOTU 896, but assumed that it doesn't make any difference what interface is used once you are inside the computer and that clocking options don't make a difference either, unless you send signal to an external device. thanks Michael Brook