That's just all wrong, but hilarious though. I love how the article says to avoid presets and then proceeds to give an exactly defined "ultimate" preset chain for all cases. I believe proper english would be - bollocks.
In short, unless you focus your work as a mastering engineer, with a dedicated studio (with all that entails), and spend many years practicing, you're not going to get a proper master. It's an entirely different field than mixing, so as a musicmaker the cards are moistly stacked against you from the start.
Your one big advantage, though, is knowing how you hear things in your head and how you'd like the track to sound. A good ME is good at translating your description into process, and is well familiar with the limits of the medium and using it best. That's why, if you're publishing a track commercially, it's almost always a better idea to spend some cash on mastering. Than way you can focus on mixing and making music.
However, that's of course not always an option.
Basically, to put some final touches on your mixes without hiring an ME, do whatever sounds good outside the linear safety of your monitoring chain (e.g real-life listening environments). Mastering is about making a good mix sound brilliant in a sub-par playback setting. By learning the basics of medium limitations, the importance of dynamics and what works (the "magic sauce"), we can at least get somewhat in the same county as a "paid" master - even if we're not on the same block.
And sometimes, it'll end up sounding just right.
Typically, as "cheap mastering", use a touch of compression to glue the mix, some EQ to make it shine and to filter high and low boundaries and then possibly some saturation effect over it if it sounds good -
and always go very very easy. If you have to work alot on the 2-channel, go back and remix instead.
For level management, use calibrated
K-system metering to aim RMS levels within the realm of retail or broadcast masters.
PSP Vintage Meter can do it for free if configured right (600ms intergration time, and set zero reference to -14, -12 or -20 depending on what dynamic range you're going for).
Never "hard"-normalize more than once, or use compressor auto-makeup to raise levels. Just use the faders to increase levels, and use compression to tame unwanted peaks.
It's definitely well worth learning mastering techniques, even if for no other reason than to get better at mixing and to be able to do rudimentary "home masters".
Katz' Mastering Audio is an awesome book for learning, and there's plenty on the web.
Just some quick tips
