Mastering In The Box-Wave Labs 6 /Peak/ Izotope/?

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highway51
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Mastering In The Box-Wave Labs 6 /Peak/ Izotope/?

Post by highway51 » Sun Jan 03, 2010 11:53 pm

Hey folks, I was looking to purchase a mastering program and was looking for any suggestions. I plan on purchasing a mac computer soon. Are there any stand alone programs that have decent multiband compressors, eq's, and limiters? Additionally, I would like the program to add fades and burn red book cd's.
I don't currently have any audio software installed, since I record strictly analog, so something that is standalone would be preferable.


Several of my friends have had records butchered by mastering houses either because of over compression or this fad of adding alot of high end eq'. . I'm mostly thinking of offering small local bands basic mastering that are doing small runs.

Please don't debate about whether or not I should send my music to another mastering engineer, that is not what I am asking. My friend mastered a recent album in pro tools I tracked and it sounds fine.
Also are there any programs that are suitable that run under 700$?
What about WaveLab Steingberg 6?
Btw. I plan on getting a mac just to remind ya.

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Post by chris harris » Mon Jan 04, 2010 6:45 am

Wavelab 6 doesn't have a Mac version. You'd have to install Windows on your Mac to run Wavelab 6.

That said, Wavelab is a much better program than ANY that are available for the Mac OS. Apparently, Wavelab 7 will have a Mac version. Can't wait!

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Post by highway51 » Mon Jan 04, 2010 8:29 pm

I've been leaning towards getting a mac but the lack of wave lab has been a major stumbling block. I'm mostly want a computer to do in the box mastering. How does izotope compare to wavelab? Izotope is avaialble on pc and mac.

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Post by chris harris » Mon Jan 04, 2010 10:19 pm

Honestly, nothing on Mac compares with Wavelab. It's a shame. I've tried several programs from $50 to $1500. They all have major drawbacks compared to Wavelab.

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Post by Crocoduck5000 » Tue Jan 05, 2010 10:34 am

I've never tried Wavelab but I have used Izotope at a studio I used to work at for in-house mastering. It works well for what it's worth, but depending on your budget it doesn't fix every problem, and it isn't going to make a shitty mix sound better unless you really know what you're doing.

Having said that, if you want Wavelab you can always dual boot on your Mac. I try to keep my mastering sessions outside of Logic anyway, I get distracted :shock:

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kingmetal
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Post by kingmetal » Tue Jan 05, 2010 2:14 pm

I have Wavelab and I love it -- but Ozone (which is what I assume you mean by 'Izotope') is sort of not a direct comparison.

Wavelab is a mastering suite, which basically just means that it has a basic set of mastering tools in an interface that is designed to work with audio in the final stages of mxiing. In my case (Wavelab Essentials 6) that means that I can only manipulate stereo files and can process those files in a variety of ways using the built-in mastering bus. It also does handy things like burns Redbook CDs, which is nice.

It's a great program, but Ozone is more of a suite of mastering effects to be used in any DAW, including Wavelab.

Wavelab has some decent mastering EQs and compressors (or maximizers or whatever mastering people call them), but from what I hear they don't hold a candle to the latest versions of Ozone. Wavelab essentials is a bargain at $100 if you're looking for a good workflow, but you should be able to get away with using Ozone in your current DAW and get some pretty killer results. Ozone is on my list of future purchases and I doubt you'd be disappointed in it.

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Post by JES » Tue Jan 05, 2010 6:13 pm

http://www.proaudiodsp.com/

I've been playing around with this and am pretty impressed. It's not a full mastering suite but for quick and dirty mastering I don't think anything can beat it as a link in the chain. Downside is it's a little pricey.

Ozone was nice when I tried it out but I have too much other stuff that does what it does as well.

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Post by ctmsound » Tue Jan 05, 2010 6:46 pm

Wavelab for OSX is coming out early this year, it will be announced at NAMM in a few weeks.

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Waltz Mastering
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Post by Waltz Mastering » Tue Jan 05, 2010 6:48 pm

This is one of the better programs for mastering if you're using a mac: http://www.sonicstudio.com/products/pmcd/pmcd01.html

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Post by Jeff White » Tue Jan 05, 2010 9:42 pm

I've been running Ozone3 for almost five years and absolutely love it. I've done some mastering work with it and received some really nice feedback. Getting ready to master another project with it in about a week.

What I love about Ozone is that it will work in any DAW. I use it in both Peak 5 LE and Digital Performer on a Mac. The dithering, limiting, multiband compression, and reverb are really nice and always a part of my work flow.

Anyway, I love Ozone and look forward to upgrading to the new version sometime this year.

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Post by route-electrique » Wed Jan 06, 2010 12:15 am

What is that Wavelab can do that others can't ?.
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highway51
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Post by highway51 » Thu Jan 07, 2010 2:12 pm

I currently only record on to tape and then send my final mixes into a decent cd burner and that's it. I don't ever use computers when I record and because of this I don't currently have any recording software so it looks like ozone is definitely out. How are the compressors, limiters, and eq's on wavelabs? I was looking for a program that does everything compression, eq, and red book burning.

After a friend of mine mastered my album in pro-tools I've been pretty hooked on mastering in the box because it allows small bands to actually turn a profit on a record. Am I the only person that has heard awful records that were butchered by mastering houses? I've seen so many bands have their album ruined by so called professional mastering engineers that I am just not really interested in mailing my album off to a stranger to pay to have my record get crushed and eq'd to crap.

From what I've seen and heard from others is WaveBurner and Peak can be very glitchy and they tend to crash more. Waveburner I believe is notorious for adding odd pop noises to recordings and can oftentimes add irregular noises in between the tracks of each song. This has been my experience and I've seen others mention it, but that being said I don't believe my friend had much experience with the waveburner so it could be operator error.

Wavelab hasn't announced a release date for their osx version though have they?
Is this supposedly going to be fairly soon like the next three months?

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Post by kingmetal » Thu Jan 07, 2010 2:21 pm

I believe they are announcing it at NAMM, so yes in the next few months I would expect to be able to purchase a copy. The tools in Wavelab are awesome for what you pay ($100 for the basic version, which does Redbook CDs). Plus, it's a plug-in host so you could get something like Ozone later if you want to beef up your tools.

You could always use software like Reaper to get started mastering in box -- it's free to try and $60 for a license. It has some decent tools built in and could also use external plugins. Can't hurt to give it a shot, the demo is not feature or time-limited!

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Post by highway51 » Thu Jan 07, 2010 2:49 pm

thanks alot folks. Yeah I have access to my college's pro tools lab for the time being so I planned on using that but now I'm starting to think Wavelab with the izotope ozone plug in would be a pretty cools setup. Thanks again.

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Post by casey campbell » Fri Jan 15, 2010 2:13 pm

very happy wavelab user here!

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