Mastering Program

[_Daryl_]

this topic was discussed just recently, here is the thread link:

http://messageboard.tapeop.com/viewtopic.php?t=28621

i will be going with izotope's product myself, however, i'm not looking to learn mastering from that program, only to learn how to crawl, then eventually walk, then hopefully jog....run,.....sprint...yadda yadda..you get the picture...Katz's book couldn't be a better recommendation. and oh yeah, critical listening isn't talked about for the heck of it.

[Cellotron]

First off -regarding T-Racks and Ozone - guess what - I'm willing to bet dollars to donuts that NONE of your favorite sounding recordings were mastered using them. While there are a number of dedicated mastering studios that in fact use a plugin or two in their process chain - I honestly don't know of a single one that has uses T-Racks or Ozone. The reason for this is that these particular all in one digital solutions simply don't sound as good as things that were designed to do just one thing well.

If you insist on checking these all in one solutions then while demoing them out try this: level match your original unprocessed mix with the mix processed and then do single button a/b between them. I'm willing to bet that once you have them level matched that the version that isn't processed with these mastering tools will in the majority of cases beat out the sound of the processed ones.

To me the goal of additional 2buss processing is to enhance the sound of the mix. In the vast majority of cases I don't think these budget "mastering" tools succeed in helping people achieve this goal.

Regarding mastering software:
To create a master that has the best possible flow in sound, and to also have work flow go much quicker and easier, I think it's best to have the app you are doing final assembly & processing in to be the same one that you also create and edit PQ points.

The following apps are capable of doing this:
Mac:
Sonic - http://www.sonicstudio.com - excellent solution but expensive - most common choice in Mac based mastering studios
Bias Peak - not as good as Sonic but will still get you there
DSP Quattro - good option if you're under a budget

PC:
Magix Samplitude/Sequoia - very full featured - common choice in mastering studios
Steinberg Wavelab - very good option also
SADIE - very pricy high powered system
SAWStudio w/ the JMS Audioware CSG add on (which is what I use) - http://www.sawstudio.com - excellent editing and processing options - no native DDP creation though
Sony CD Architect - an ok option if you're under a budget

Regarding "home" or "budget" mastering for things that are your own mixes - I see a trend these days where a lot of people only get the mix to say 80% there and then go towards two-buss processing to try and make up the difference. In general if you are working only in the box or with budget outboard then you are much better off focusing on processing individual tracks to get the sound you wish - i.e. if things are sounding dull to you instead of putting a digital eq across the 2buss try instead to bring out brightness in the individual tracks that need it the most. Important thing to realize that unless it is extraordniarly high quality a processor has the potential to do some damage to the integrity of the mix if it is placed on the 2 buss where it effects absolutely everythng. A rule of keeping the process chain as simple as possible while still achieving your goal can do wonders.

Remember that in mastering one of the big reason for additional processing is to help establish continuity between the tonality of the tracks - in which case most often subtle changes work the best.

The other big reason for additional processing is to correct for mistakes made in the mix processs that went undetected do to imperfections in the monitoring environment - i.e. bumps and holes in the response of the room & speakers, monitors incapable of producing the full spectrum, that lead you to making mix decisions that don't necessarily translate when played on a wider variety of systems. By doing mastering of your own mixes in the same room as you mixed you completely lose this ability!!!!!

as far as what equipment you'll need if you want to create a mastering studio:
start with monitoring. Full range & ultra accurate monitors (usually floor standers are found in most studios) are essential - along with great power amps and a tuned room. You'll also need a monitor controller that allows you to quickly do level matched a/b's of your process chain against the source signal that also does not color the signal.

Once that is taken care of you need a variety of transports to playback the variety of formats - a 1/4" and 1/2" 2-track, a CD player with a digital output, a DAW, and optionally things like DAT, MD, DVR-1000, etc.
You'll need at minimum 2 channels of fantastic AD and 4 channels of fantastic DA converters.
Then onto processors:
a great eq - both analog and digital varieties - start with things that are transparent as these will be most useful initially and then add things that provide colors as you get a bigger budget
a great compressor - again start with something transparent and then add other pieces that give you options for different colors

& since everyone is obsessed with "Level" and what most of the cheap mastering solutions do mainly is limiting -
a digital peak limiter - ones that I know that are actually used by mastering engineers: Waves L2 & L3, TC MD4, Weiss DS-1, the Omnia, dbx Quantum, UAD-1 Precision Limiter, Sony Oxford Limiter, and even the inexpensive plugin Voxengo Elephant. I happen to find the RML Labs Levelizer can work well for some material also. TC Finalizers & to a lesser extent the SPL Loudness Maximizer and were also popular in the 90's but the vast majority of ME's have moved onto other things at this point.

From there you can move onto other processors that will get used less often: multiband compressors / de-essers, stereo image enhancers (i.e. Bob Katz's K-Stereo box or the Dangerous S/M), restoration software and hardware (i.e. CEDAR), etc.

But the most important thing to work on is the monitoring and not the processing - being able to make good decisions about what processing (and not actually what the processor you do them with) is really the criticial part of good mastering. Just listen to a ton of different mixes from a huge variety of sources and get used to what sounds "good" and "bad" on your system. A really important thing to practice if you are getting into it is being able to correlate the sound of frequencies with their Hz so that you can hear something and know where on the spectrum it is nearly immediately so that you can eq things quickly - playing tones and doing sweeps of center freqs and Q's while boosting and cutting on a variety of material will get you trainng in this regard. With limiting and compression spend a lot of time doing level matched a/b's with the processed and source signals - and spend time tweaking threshold, attack, release, knee and ratio's to get a sense what works on the 2buss for a wide variety of materials.

Hope that helps.

Best regards,
Steve Berson

[chris harris]

that's one of the best responses I've ever seen on the topic of mastering.

thanks, Steve.

[JohnDavisNYC]

that rules steve.

john

[BusyBoxSt7]

dang steve, that is one of the best "welcome to mastering" things I've seen in awhile... a few adds

1) in the last paragraph it's mentioned the need to correlate certain "sounds" (deficiencies or excesses) to specific frequencies... Dave Moulton's CD training pack called Golden Ears can help especially for mastering (also useful for mixing I'd say), especially if you currently don't think in #s at all. I think every engineer has to have at least a vague clue of what sounds exist at what frequencies (what 9.5K in a high hat sounds like vs. 12K). Spinning knobs blindly IS very good to find initial settings but we can't be hunting in the dark at all times, if so, our work takes forever and we lose inspiration / perspective. At least knowing, hmm, I need to cut something between 3-700Hz or 800-2K or whatever, is necessary. It gets increasingly accurate / fine tuned in time.

2) tiny detail- the software needs to be able to handle "CD authoring" i.e. band names, track names, etc

[casey campbell]

as far as mastering goes, the most important piece of equipment is your ears and your brain.

mastering is more than just making something louder. it's the total process! you have to learn what that process involves. mmmm, like for instance...do you know what dithering is?

as far as gear and an editing suite:

wavelab is very overlooked, but it is intended for mastering. i absolutely love it. from there, get your limiting and eq plugins. this will be an Affordable in-the-box solution.

also, pyramix (by merging technologies) is a cool solution too for editing and etc.

more importantly is your monitoring situation. (room and actual audio monitors). you can't affect audio in a positive way if you can't hear it correctly!

no amount of reading or programs though can make you a great mastering engineer. this comes with experience...