What do you use for mastering?

[shibster]

software, hardware? how do you do it?

[groupouts]

A mastering engineer! They are specialized in mastering and have certain tools that you might not have.

[Brandon Hook]

Mastering is a pretty broad term. A mastering engineer is definately something to consider since their facility usually has a couple hundred thousand bones invested in just the monitoring system.

As far as do it yourself mastering, there are a few boxes out there that can do a good job, as well as a few good programs that hold their own.

Check out the TC finalizer for the hardware unit,
and check out the L1 Limiter for software...I think it's made by Waves...but not too sure. Both are really good for getting a polished/in your face sound, yet can be more versitle with practice. Good luck!1!

Hope this helps

[Ernest828]

I use Waves plugs, especially the L1 Maximizer and Renaissance compressor. Outstanding plugs.

Let me know if you`re interested...I`m willing to master a track gratis and if your happy with it, I can do the rest for a fee. Usually master a song in an hour if mix is reasonable.

Ernest

[michaelhoddy]

A mastering engineer, as stated above. Having a second set of ears and a second expert opinion is very often priceless.

For home brew stuff, I use the Waves L2 (better release characteristics than the L1), LinEQ, LinMB, and C4, as well as the occasional TC MasterX plug-in, although I don't like it as much.

[Implicit]

I use a Finalizer 96k a lot as well as some PC based plugins.

[Scott Gould]

Like several others have said - a mastering engineer. Having reiterated that - on zero budget productions (i.e. demos & self-duplicated CDs that bands sell out of their trunks) I will, if pressed, run the mix buss out through a Z-Systems Q-2, Crane Song HEDD, a pair of Trakkers, then back to the HEDD and finally to a Masterlink.

Scott

[cederlink]

I think by the nature of his question he is asking how to do it meaning how to do it himself??

I hope that is what you were asking so here goes-

I do NOT mix down to a stereo track after mixing and before mastering-
I have had better sonic results by adding a touch of EQ, RCOMP, and an L1 or L2 on a master fader.

Here is what I have done- After you get a final mix (where everything has its own little happy spot on the mix) and everything just sits well and blends then I apply Some plugs- REQ I like to roll off the lower boomy frequencies that will get enhanced when you limit the track.

So I roll off the bass boom freq. The range of "boomy" is different for each instrument so use your ears.

I then add RCOMP and use a soft mastering preset and then bring the threshold down until i have between 3 and 6 DB of gain reduction it all depends on the tracks but what you do not want to see (usually) is pumping and breathing. this is when the reduction goes from 2 to 5 to 3 to 6 dB you want to see a nice smooth reduction on the threshold meters and a little slice of heaven on the attenuation meter (the right side on waves)

I then add the L2 for limiting. I use the High res cd master and bring the threshold down until again, I have a little slice of color on the attenuation meter.

I also use the dither on the L2

I then bounce-

If this doesn’t work or does not produce a decent sound I will run thru hardware- avalon 737 to masterlink.

I guess I am assuming by the way you asked your question that you are doing all this "in the box" and were looking for basic pointers. I hope this helped a little.

I can not replace my waves plug-ins.

Mike-

[JKim67]

Here's a little tip that helped me immensely in mastering my own songs using Steinberg's Wavelab. I plugin Waves C4 and then Izotope Ozone at the end of the plugin chain. I really don't like the sound of Ozone so I disable all the Ozone Modules. I leave it in the Paragraphic Equalizer view and choose Snapshots - 6db guide on. This gives me a nice yellow line on the EQ view that serves as a great guide. Also make sure you have the Options - Spectrum Data on Average. Now play your track in Wavelab and adjust the Waves C4's 4 bands as needed while wathcing the Ozone EQ view to try and match the yellow guide. You can actually get pretty radical with the C4 here! Once you've got the Ozone EQ to closely match the yellow guideline over several passes, it almost always sounds great! Before rendering, remove the Ozone plugin (it seems to add some color to the sound even with all modules disabled), render using Waves L2 and presto.

I found this a great tip for people like me who don't have the best ears or the best monitors. I can even do it with headphones and get a decent mix. I'm guessing Mastering houses use expensive hardware frequency anaylyzers to master. Who would have thunk it, but Ozone's only decent feature is using it as a spectrum analyzer! Anyways, hope this helps and have fun mastering.

James Kim
Still learning the art of recording.

[michaelhoddy]

As of this week, for "in the box" mixes, I began using the Sony Oxford Inflator followed by a stereo Oxford EQ, and then the L2.

I have the Waves Masters bundle. I used to use that. The above chain makes the Waves Bundle sound like crap.

Bouncing out to hardware is nice too. I have a couple Manley pieces on my shortlist to add for that purpose this year.

But anyway, run, don't walk, and get a copy of the Oxford EQ. Best plug-in EQ I've heard. Period.

[Implicit]

What formats are the Oxford EQ plug offered in?

[michaelhoddy]

TDM or TC PowerCore (VST, MAS, and, I think, AU, soon if not already).


As of now, I use the Oxford EQ on important things, and the Waves Q or Ren EQ's on less important things. I'm thinking of adding another PowerCore just to run more Oxford plug-ins. I use the Inflator on busses where I used to use the C4.

[Implicit]

Have you had many issues with PCI Bus saturation when using the Powercore?

[eventime]

Hey Michael, how many Oxford EQ's can you run at one time on your powercore?

[David Klausner]

The Oxford EQ also runs on RTAS systems. It's pretty processor intensive, but as Michael states, it's an incredible plug in. The Massenburg plug in for TDM is about the only other thing in its class I've heard.

[michaelhoddy]

Originally posted by Implicit
Have you had many issues with PCI Bus saturation when using the Powercore?

No, not yet, and I have run it full open with reverbs, delays, and Oxfords.

I have not and do not run mixes in which I am taking lots of inputs from the MOTU PCI card and trying to run PowerCore effects, so I can't speak to any problems that might exist there.

I just did some tests for you, and I can run 20 mono 5-band Oxfords at 44.1KHz 24-bit, which is my typical recording sample rate and bit depth. In a more realistic PowerCore session environment, I can run 12 mono 5-band Oxfords and 4 stereo TC MegaVerbs or ClassicVerbs at the same sample rate/bit depth.

There is actually more DSP available on the PowerCore, but it uses a fixed DSP allocation rather than a dynamic one, much like a Pro Tools TDM card. This means than an effect can only be assigned to one DSP, and can't be shared across DSP's. Which means that if you have all four PowerCore DSPs running at 89 percent each, you can't run an effect which requires only 12 percent of one DSP, because it won't fit on a single DSP.

I actually think this is a better system because of fixed DSP allocation, because you always know where you stand. I can speak from experience during my UAD-1 nightmare that dynamic DSP allocation isn't always a good thing.

The PowerCore is absolutely stable up to 100 percent, and then it just opens a window which says that you are out of DSP. The UAD-1 would get close to 95 percent dynamic usage and then crash the computer. I wasn't happy with that, needless to say. I no longer own a UAD-1, as it just didn't seem to be a very professional solution.

My setup is absolutely stable. No crashes whatsoever. And, oh yeah, the Oxford rocks.

[Implicit]

What platform are you running? I've had tons of issues with MOTU cards and PCI bus saturation. I've tested three PCI-424s and I am in the process of returning my 2408 MKIII setup as we speak.

[michaelhoddy]

Nothing special. Mac dual-800 Mhz G4. PCI-324, PowerCore, and ATTO UW dual-channel SCSI card in the PCI slots. ATI Radeon 9000 driving 2 Cinema Displays on the AGP bus.

[Implicit]

Interesting. I have been reading on some other forums about people who have been getting the same pops and clicks in the audio streams when using the UAD-1 or other SCSI controllers on their PCI busses when using the PCI-424.

[michaelhoddy]

The UAD seemed to give people with dual-processor Macs many more problems than the PC guys or single-processor Mac people. The maddening thing was that UA knew that, and didn't seem to be able to do anything about it. I have little use for companies that can't make their own gear work correctly with rigs that a large percentage of potential customers use. Heck, it's sure a lot easier to make things work on the fairly limited number of Mac configs than it is the thousands of possible PC hardware, software, OS, and motherboard combinations.

The difference between the computer running the UAD and the computer with the UAD removed was night and day. Things were just way better without the UAD, and I tried every known tweak in the book.

The PowerCore has been simple. Plug and play. Really.

[Implicit]

Yea I hear you there... I feel the same way about MOTU. Great features, marketing, and packaging but I think there is some solid engineering lacking under the hood. Apparently their PCI324/424 cards have real issues working on a PCI bus with other high throughput devices. Check out this tech note for problems when using high-end SCSI cards:

"SCSI cards that run at 80 or 160 megabytes per second can take up so much PCI bandwidth that they deprive your 324 or 424 of enough bandwidth to do their job. It's therefore advisable to set the thruput of such cards to no more than 40 megs per second which is plenty fast for even large high res audio projects. Contact the maker of your SCSI card for details on how to make such adjustments. "

I think that MOTU's statement is a poor excuse of imperfect PC card/driver development. It is simply not true with most modern motherboards that you principally have to reduce SCSI throughput by 1/4th to make it work with soundcards.