IK Multimedia Lurssen Mastering Console Reviews

In the recording industry for a very long time. I only use outboard gear (I own a record label). This program, I downloaded to my own personal PC, (outside my studio). . . .to see if the mastering done, in the studio, was adequate. In studio final product is converted, usually to WAV, via the Tascam SS-CDR250N (a very well built, rack mount unit). After final recording into the 250N, I simply insert a usb flashdrive into the front, and transfer my music. Now, after listening to my flashdrive, (in my car while driving, it gives me a broad perspective on what a listener to what I've created would experience). I then, come home, plug the flashdrive into my personal pc, drag the song into the Lurssen app, ALONE. I play it, and apply what "preset" I want, and it amazes myself on how much of a difference it really makes before uploading it for distribution. All you have to do is save a new file, with the apps features you have applied. I was afraid, that I needed a recording app to do this. NO, it just reconfigures your finalized original application. I love it.USB flash drive in, apply configuration via Lurssen, save to desktop. Mastered and ready to go.

Instant master and you can fine tune the presets to your material, quality sound right away, very kool!

This software is awesome, especially if you are not well versed in mastering. All you need is a good ear. This software is very easy to use. It has a comprehensive selection of genre specific presets that are easily accessed. The presets are easily tweaked to taste. An exceptional time saver.

I had this plugging before but my computer crashed and I was not able for some reason to reactivated. I love this plugging so much that I bought it again. This thing works like a champ. As soon as you bring it on my mix come loud and clear without distorting. I recommend this for mastering any and this May be the only mastering plugging you might need.

For a bit of background, I have been using Izotope OZone 7 for a long time, along with other Izotope products to master, and will continue to do so. I was looking to design a portable mastering rig, one that I could transport between studios, on a single laptop. I was intending to purchase an Ozone 8 license, until I read up on LMC. On a whim, I purchased LMC, to see if I could even use it, and do the things I normally do. The following is what I found.

1: My workflow was dramatically simplified, even when used as a plugin for Ozone on my primary rig.
2: The quality of my mastering simply changed dramatically, and for the better. The final product has more warmth and air.
3: The time it takes to master a complete album was split by more than half, decreasing the working time dramatically.
4: The clarity of vocals, the tightness of bass, thump of kick, all of those things and more, just seemed to be better.
5: The EQ curve is utterly sweet.
6: Even with the limitations placed on certain parameters, working within those limitations caused me to think differently about mastering, which is a GOOD thing, when mastering in the digital domain.

In short, I would call this software indispensable, worth far more than the $ I paid. And, the fact that it included Ozone Elements 9, thanks to the sale was happening at the time, I have more than enough capacity, even in mixing, to create highest quality tracks.

The guys and gals at Sweetwater, as usual, did all they could to make my purchase easy and swift. Well done, you all.

This program is out of this world! I can't live without it now. Since I got it working properly there is no going back. If your CPU is overloading when opening the Lurssen, just revert to version 1.01 and it should fix your issue. Thank you Sweetwater!

This plugin is great for mastering. I've been using it as my "Glue" plugin on the master bus during mixdown. I like the Hard Rock Metal (More Glue) preset. I flatten the EQ and boost the input drive and it's instant glue. I love it. This could add color to any source.

It won't make u a mastering engineer but you will think you are !!! Glad I made the purchase … Simplicity is king

I use this as a standalone unit. It works as well as hiring a big shot mastering engineer here in Los Angeles. (I know because I did a comparison experiment.) I process all my tracks into a stereo auxiliary master buss in Protools. On that mix buss, I place a Softube Chandler Limited Curve Bender EQ plug in, followed by an SSL compressor plug in (Waves SSL G Master Buss Compressor or Cytomic The Glue). I then add saturation with Fabfilter's Saturn using the hip hop mastering preset. I send the signal to an auxiliary track with IK Multimedia's metering software like Full Meter. That enables me to check stereo spread, and loudness via VU meter. I also place a limiter on my mix buss at the very end. When the mix buss sounds good, I am ready to print to to a stereo track. I turn off the limiter, so the printed stereo track will not be too loud for the Lurssen Mastering plug in to work. I take the bounced stereo track and import it into a standalone Lurssen Mastering session (outside of Protools). Then I select the correct genre and adjust EQ and the compressors in Lurssen Mastering. I can automate the push knob to raise all EQs simultaneously during the chorus/hook, and bring them back down during the verse and turnaround. Then I select options to ensure iTunes compatibility. I burn at 48 kHz 24 bit (same as my DAW session). I use that master for YouTube music videos. I convert that master to 44 kHz 16 bit for Amazon CD compatibility using Sony Soundforge.

bounce my Protools session down to a master bus track and print that into a stereo WAV file. Nefor

This plug in is very much worth the price. I have tried other, more complicated mastering plug ins and this one by far gives me the best sound with the least amount of effort. It has such a nice, full sound, and the work I have done on it transfers well between monitoring environments. I wish it had a LUFS meter, and was a bit more precise on controlling the output ceiling, but it does wonders in other ways. I would be very lost if this plug in disappeared. When I started using this, more people started to comment on how good my recordings sounded. It gives a pro final touch. Maybe not the same as a true mastering engineer, but for someone on a budget, this is a no questions asked for me.

+++++++++ nice

This is a great program for creating a quick mix. Very intuitive and non destructive. It wont make your mix sound amazing by itself. You wont be able to throw your demo in here as is and expect professional sounding results. However if you are willing to take the time and get your mix put up then run it through, it can give very impressive results. If you are very old school or spent a lot of time with real live hardware, the lack of ability to tweak the small parameters may feel a bit restrictive, however i would still highly recommend this program as part of your rig.

I have been a recording musician for 30+ years. I was an Ozone user for years. In my opinion, this gets your mix 'there' with very little work. I no longer use Ozone, this program has all I'll ever need. Easy to use, as well.

Great software. Easy to use and provides immediate results. Headache saver. Special thanks to sales engineer Matt Alexander - great guy - I've worked with him on multiple purchases through Sweetwater now.

I have been an Ozone user for many years. I like Ozone, but sometimes it gets a little tough to get that extra analog warmth. This plug in has been a great fix. It definitely does not have the intricate controls that Ozone does, so if your mix is not on point, it may not do what you want. If you have a great mix, this plugin is a great way to add some glue, and analog warmth. It adds just enough color and gives just enough presence. I do wish that it had more detailed loudness meters and you could adjust the internal limiter, but for ease of use, and really great sound, this is really a great investment. Is it the same as having a mastering engineer in a proper studio, no...but no plug in is. For most users this is going to be a secret weapon. I am so glad I got this plug in. I use it stand alone.

although i am not deep into it yet, i feel and can already hear, it is a very nice effect and quick high level solution for home recordings.

I picked this up on sale and after a few weeks I have to say it has replaced O9 as my main mastering rig. I use it in stand alone. This mastering console sounds amazing. The controls may be limited, but if your mixes are well done you have everything you need inside the Lurssen. I use loudness penalty analyzer to get my level just right and the compression, eq and de esser controls along with make up volume give you plenty of wiggle room. I honestly see no reason to send my mixes out for mastering any longer. The overall magic this gives your mixes speaks for itself. The presets are amazing and the adjustments are minimal just as mastering should be. If you take your time and don't over use this console you will be very happy. Excellent product. I have compared my masters with some of the pro houses I have used over the years and frankly, the Lurssen wins hands down. Great sound.

Dynamic. easy to use, totally impressed!

I am multi instrumentalist, recording engineer, writer, producer, and music video director in the Los Angeles area. The Lurssen Mastering Console is simple to use and had compressor, limiter, de esser, as well as writable parameters moves that execute on track plays playback. I import my ProTools bounced stereo WAV file that has gone through 1st stage eq, compression, vintage warmer, multi band eq, limiting into stand alone Lurssen program. I select genre style. I can check mix in mono at flip of switch in Lurssen program. Very important to do this. Then I record eq and push knob so they automate. Then export file back out to WAV. You can choose bit depth and sample rate. I use 48 kHz sample rate 24 bit depth. Then I use Sony Soundforge to concert to MP3 and 44 kHz 16 bit for Amazon music. My mastered track made it to iTunes without problem. Used on project for teen synth pop recording artist Christine Lee.

The IK Multmedia Lurssen Mastering Console is incredible.
This thing actually works. I have many other "Mastering Software" plugins.
Yes, Waves, Yes even The Brainworx Bx Masterdesk, they are all good, But this Lurssen Mastering Console is outstanding!
I have been working with it on all kinds of tracks, this thing will get the job done!
No B.S.! It's warm and the EQ is very, very effective.
I don't know what's under the hood, but this thing is a deal for the price and something that you will use for years and years.
My masters now translate better. You know, to the car and other peoples devices.
Yes, they also have a version of this Lurssen software for you iPad that you can purchase and bring it out to your car and tune it in on your cars speakers. It works hand and hand with the version on your computer, so you cam go back and forth.
Once again, Incredible!!! Go and try it out for yourself!

I like the IK Multimedia Lurssen Mastering Console. It helps me to finish my mix by adding a color to the mix that I like.

I have all the tools I need to mix and work on the details so I see this product as an easy way to add a nice final touch at the end of the process. I took time to demo it before I purchased. I checked with my Sweetwater sales engineer to see if there was other alternatives.

Some say they wish it would allow more flexibility but I think there is enough to explore while staying on the right path. Since I use this only on my own mixes I can always go back to the mix if there is something I notice while using the mastering Console. Works for me!

This console is awesome in that it is fast an easy to master any song, I just wish it came with an amplitude statistic so I know exactly what I'm putting out. This unit comes with several presets for mastering the kind of music you are working with but still allows you to adjust it to your liking not to mention, you can put your song on an ipad, take it to your car and make adjustments in the car if you want to.

I never been so impressed. Any home studio should be using this amazing mastering plugin. All of sudden the mixed comes alive. It was easy to install and it has different settings to be use according to the type of music you doing. I strongly recommend this plugin and for mastering it may be the only thing that you need.

Instant awesome...The better your mix, the better it works...Tons of tonal range...

When the mix is done properly this plug in performs just plain performs. It does not allow you to go crazy with eq and processing which I like. While it does not have as much control as ozone or other mastering software. It is my go to choice for final master. Get the mix right and this plugin had a big analog sound. I have mastered several tracks using reference material from my favorite commercial cds and my masters sound just the same if not better than some of the commercial cds. It allows you and forces you to use your ear not visual analysers on screen. You can truly get a mix professional. Even if you choose to send off your material for professional mastering slap this plugin on your mix buss and make small adjustments to your mix. It will help you hear small things in the mix that may cause problems during professional mastering allowing you to adjust those problems. Then before exporting your final mix remove it from your master buss and you'll have a better mix in the end. Or use it to produce your own professional masters for cd.

This plugin is so amazing!!! Just turn it on and you're good to go. No fuss, no muss- just super easy to use. AMAZING!!! I had an album Mastered by Reuben Cohen at Lurssen and this plugin has the same MOJO as the real mastering studio. This is the real deal folks!!!

IK Multimedia has really hit a home run with the Lurssen Mastering Console, actually more like a grand slam . It's that simple. Worth every penny, an excellent stand-alone program. Lurssen and his co-pilot deserve credit for simplifying parameters that give you what you need, no extra filler needed. Plus, using this is fun and exciting...magic happens right between your ears. This plug-in will also save time in the studio,which equals Mo'Money. A full 5 Star product,so just buy it already!

Love it!!!!!

I love this plug-in. The sound quality is great and it's easy to use. Mr Lursen has put together a great plug-in. I recomend it to
any one. It has helped me in remixing my songs and they sound geat.

I own Ozone and Slate FGX. This thing is AMAZING. It is soo easy to use. It does not fix a bad mix,(although it will make it sound less bad) but for final master it is worth 10 times the price. BUY IT NOW!!!

This plug-in a great at getting you master right where you want it. The Equalization, input and punch controls can really be handy in getting a great sound on your master. Moreover at such an affordable price when you hear your end results you will say money well spent.
Mac owners running Logic will love this plugin as I have. The only thing that I wished it had was reference track loading for comparisons to your final mix.

I was skeptical that this would would work, but for the small number of people that will hear my music, just couldn't justify the per song expense of professional mastering. For anyone that can afford it, I recommend using a pro and the second set of ears on your project. If you are like me and it is not cost effective, this program is rather amazing. I doubt it would fix a bad mix, but if you have the song sounding like you want it, this will almost certainly bring it to level and give it the sheen that is close pro level, at least for anyone listening on ear buds. I highly recommend this. It would get 5 stars from me if there were a way to trim fades in the program. And maybe there is and I just haven't figured it out yet.

I've never used a mastering tool before. Within my DAW, I have some mastering capability and never thought this software to be necessary. Well, it absolutely is worth it. It's very easy to use and really enhances the recording better than I could. This product, as far as I can tell, is targeted at the home recording musician that is not interested in becoming a sound engineer. A master of that craft (sound engineer) would likely feel limited. For the rest of us, it's great!

Seems like a decent tool for those who don't actually need full studio quality mastering. I have only used it a lil bit tho, and results may be much better after a more extensive experience.

Great program for my setup.

I just love your company, Ben Porter is just awesome helping me with my orders. I just purchased LMC and it's a wonderful plugin. But... I'm still working with tech support (Jacob Leonhardt) He is in contact with IK Multimedia about this problem. because of a conflict with my CLA guitar plugin, when I insert the CLA guitar plugin on a track and I enable the LMC in the master track. the VU meters pinout on the LMC and shuts off my monitors. I hope to have this problem resolved soon... Thank you, Joe McCabe

I was initially skeptical about a "mastering plugin," but after spending some time hitting a few different projects with this plugin, I felt compelled to chime in with a positive review.

If you're looking to add a bit of sheen and polish to your finished mixes without crushing them to death, you could do a lot worse than this. Very stripped-down feature set compared to other software suites, but that can work to your advantage. EQ sounds nice, which can sometimes make it easy to overdo it. I mix primarily live jazz projects which won't make it to pro release, but occasionally see radio play, and I find that very conservative settings (0-1 dB of compression, low drive settings, a touch of EQ) provide a competitively loud finished product without sounding "loud." The de-esser does a very nice job taming strident piano notes and sax squeaks without dulling the track.

Lack of a volume-balanced bypass option really does a disservice to the quality of this product.

Can't speak to its usefulness for rock/metal tracks, but I don't regret picking this up, especially on sale.

Amazing....Worth every penny!

This mastering software rocks, period. It does exactly what it is advertised to do, which is to provide the user a simple, yet effective mastering option. This and the Softube Drawmer73 plug-in both highlight the use of pre-determined settings, although they are very specific in their algorithms. While there are more expensive options available with many more parameters to use while "tweaking n seeking" the perfect mix master,for the price and ease of use, this software rocks the boat. Please be aware of what this software does before purchasing it; it is a pre-set ONLY mastering console. No additional parameters can be adjusted, no user presets can be saved. Having said all that, this will create superior masters with ease, saving many hours of labor. For the price, this is a steal. We love it, recommend it to all home/project studio owners. We give a solid 4.5 stars, dropping the half point due to the inability to save or create user presets.

This plug in works very well in the "Stand Alone" mode where it functions as if it were a Mastering Set Up (Mixer/console/dynamics processors) on a two track stereo mix of a song produced with your DAW. I didn't find it very useful as an insert on the Master Out of your DAW;s mixer as it seems to overdrive (clip) the material too easily. Again, nice piece for using as a virtual Mastering Set Up (Mixer/console/dynamics processors).

ROCKS!!!!!

This works very well as a plug-in within a DAW or as a standalone application. Just pick a musical style and it sets EQ, compression, and volume levels automatically. My only issue with it is that I can't tell the difference among the 40 different music types. There are settings for Pop-rock, Classical, Americana, Hip-hop, and others, and there are sub-headings for many of them (more glue, less glue, loose, tight, etc.). I can't hear a difference between Classical (warmer) and Americana (brighter), or any of the other selections, so I just leave it on the default Pop Rock setting. I guess my ears are shot, because there should be something distinctive about the various styles, but the differences are extremely subtle. You can definitely hear a difference when toggling between on and bypass, so it is clearly working. Still, if you have young, sensitive hearing you might be even more happy with it.

The plug-in is modeled after Gavin Lurssen's (multi Grammy award-winning mastering guru) hardware chain, and its made to be very easy to use. You basically send it your finished mix, and select a genre preset, and it spits out the mastered file. There are pros and cons to this arrangement:

Pros: 1) the modeling does very nice things to your mix, so the output may be as good as you could achieve from a more expensive and complicated chain of home studio mastering plug-ins (or suite of plug-ins), 2) there's not much chance of screwing things up, because you only have access to a select set of parameters, 2) the presets are numerous, though they are only genre specific, 3) the sound is excellent for the cost.

All this baked-in simplicity results in .... Cons: 1) there is no way to adjust the parameters of the built in (and hidden) limiter, so the primary way to affect the volume of your mastered file is by pushing the input gain, which can drive the system into distortion, 2) there's no way to bypass the built-in brickwall limiter if you have a favorite limiter with better controls, metering, dithering, etc, 3) there's no way level match A/B (pre/post) without using external plug-ins, 4 ) documentation and tutorials are lacking compared to competitive mastering plug-ins.

For those wanting a quick, easy, and decent home-brew master, this pretty good for version 1.X. But, I sure hope the manufacturer works to provide some deeper "pro" features in the software so users can get under the hood if they want to get more out of the software.

This is an amazing plugin with sooooo much potential, but there is one serious flaw for us. The bypass level setting creates mucho headaches when matching levels. This plugin deserves a fix on that. The presets have been updated to include Jazz and Classical settings, and you can create some awesome masters that sound really good, but in advanced mastering situations that bypass/level disparity is a time-waster. One suggested thing; set it on your mix bus,then "master" as you record. Then remove it and compare, A/B the mixes, also try different presets. Great for beginner/home enthusiasts.

It has some nice features, but your over all controll is very limited. You are bound to their presets. You have little or no control of the processors they put in the chain. I found Ozone 7 to be a much better product.

Great concept, and for the most part, it sounds good enough. It worked fine for awhile, now all of a sudden its popping and crackling when applied to the send side of the master fader.
At this point this plugin is useless to me and has forced me to purchase and use other brands.
Never had an issue like this with dozens of other mastering plugins I've used.
Sent request to IK MM for answer, but have not received a reply.
Buyer beware before you purchase.

At the outset this looked like something that would be great for me. Stand alone mastering in a simple easy to use form. This program gives you a great view of a console. It shows you all the effects and compression chains for the different presets...none of which you can alter. What it does give you is a lot of presets. Out of the dozens in there you will probably only find a few that may get you close to what you want or that remotely pertain to the genre of music you want to use this for. I have a Roland 2400 which has mastering however it is all by the numbers and you have nothing to really look at which is irksome but it is what it is but the control you have with it is almost infinite. I thought this might be a better option that would actually give me a visual but sadly it is not. You don't have much control with this mastering console. You use presets to get you close and then they give you a limited amount of control with a few EQ knobs, an input gain knob and a push knob which in reality just lets you push all the EQ knobs up or down at the same time while keeping their prospective settings intact in relationship to each other. Comparing the mixes from this console to the same mixes I had done previously on the 2400 is really no comparison. While the mastering on this isn't bad I cannot get anywhere near the volume I do mastering through the 2400. There is no post gain. If you do a lot of quick mastering maybe this is where this console will shine. If you're expecting anything near studio quality mastering with this then prepare for disappointment. For me this is a fail, a disappointment and a waste of money!

I had a problem right from the start; the Lurssen Mastering Console may be a great thing, but just trying to log in to IK Multimedia to get started was a nightmare. They said my original log on id and password was invalid, they then gave me a different id and password and that was said to be invalid. After a week of going back and forth with them I gave up. Paid for the product I cannot use. Oh well lessen learned. I am sticking with PreSonus Studio One.