Hello everyone,
I’m starting with a new user name as my old one seems to have gone 
Anyway, I’m using Cubase Essential 5, on an old XP laptop. Hardly state of the art I know, but it’s still doing a job for me.
I’m trying to get more serious about my mixes and mixdowns so I’m looking at Mastering properly for the first time. I know some people on here have suggested that you can mixdown without plugins, but I don’t know about Essential 5.
Really I’m wondering whether I need to get a plug in (or 2) specifically for mastering? And presumably I’d need oldish ones that would still be compatible with Essential 5 XP.
Does anyone have any thoughts they could share?
Thanks.