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My mate wants recommendations for mastering software

My mate Steve (will read this - not a member - yet), has had a long break from music production, but now having moved home and done some restoration, is getting back into prodcution.

What mastering software would you recommend?

He has been considering UAD, but the price tag is a down side.


Steve I urge you look at this one;

SLATE �149
Imagine mastering your mixes without causing the lifeless, squashed, and over compressed sound that has become so common in modern music. We have all been at the mercy of the "loudness wars" for over ten years now. Masters have become louder and louder, at the expense of the music becoming harsh and lacking punch and dynamics. One of the main causes of this epidemic is the use of the Peak Limiter to achieve increased levels in the mastering stage. Peak limiters attenuate transients and often reduce punch, stereo imaging, can greatly alter mix balances, and cause a fatiguing result to the ears.

Some of the top mastering engineers have found ways to combat this sonic degradation by using techniques other then Peak Limiting. One of the more popular techniques is the use of saturation in both the analog and digital domain. Another popular method is clipping the front end of expensive A/D converters.

However, both of these methods, while better then peak limiting, have their downfalls. Static saturation curves are not universal in their ability to sound good on all transients. Clipping greatly reduces low end punch and is very poor at retaining sub bass. Both static saturation and clipping have a small window of gain maximizing before audible distortion. Enter SLATE DIGITAL.

FG-X DYNAMICS RACKTwo years ago Steven Slate and expert algorithm engineer Fabrice Gabriel started working out the concept for a digital audio process that could increase the level of a mix without altering the punch and dynamic feel, or make the mix sound squashed and lifeless. They started by researching saturation curves and their effect on various types of transient material. After several months of study and hundreds of listening tests, they made some fascinating discoveries. What they found, was that in order to transparently add level to a mix, a dynamic and intelligent transient saturation system would have to be developed.

New ADVANCED ALGORITHMS were created to execute the extremely complex communication system that would be needed to properly perform the new dynamic operations. A new algorithm was formed, and the process was named "Intelligent Transient Preservation", or ITP.



http://www.slatedigital.com/fgx.php

May be cpu heavy though.

I really do think your room, monitors and DA converters are much more important than your plugins. I think Ozone is probably good enough for most here.

quote:

Originally posted by Mad for Brad I really do think your room, monitors and DA converters are much more important than your plugins. I think Ozone is probably good enough for most here.

^ what he said



you'll struggle to get a good master unless the above is sorted first

what does he need it for? after being out of the business for a while does he really have mastering jobs? should he focus on making music instead, and probably take up learning how to mix? just a thought. mastering-threads should be banned.

Ozone is good, but I'd recommend taking a look at Sony Sound Forge 10 instead. It's a much more comprehensive package for working with WAVs and it includes the Izotope mastering bundle, which is essentially most of the modules from Ozone, but in individual plugin format.

Steve - you know my view - that mastering per see is one for experienced experts, so in my view my main goal is to get the mix tip top.

Theoretically a perfect mix needs no mastering at all.

Oh I see.

It's an 'I told you so' thread.

theoretically, it isn't rape if your sleepwalking.

quote:

Originally posted by tehlord Oh I see. It's an 'I told you so' thread.

Ha! - I have no idea really whats best.

Steve aks whether powercore or UAD would be better.
Tehlord - did'nt I read you bought UAD?

quote:

Originally posted by cryophonik Ozone is good, but I'd recommend taking a look at Sony Sound Forge 10 instead. It's a much more comprehensive package for working with WAVs and it includes the Izotope mastering bundle, which is essentially most of the modules from Ozone, but in individual plugin format.

Dave, another considered useful bit of input, cheers.

I used to have the mastering suite for powercore from the m5000 and a few things from the m6000. I always felt like the powercore was eventually gonna go out of business. Honestly you really don't need these hardware dsp cards. I think UAD is a rather poor choice as mastering should be rather transparent. There are tons of affordable plugins and you don't really need that much.

I mean your chain will most likely involve less than 5 plugins.

quote:

Originally posted by Richard Butler Ha! - I have no idea really whats best. Steve aks whether powercore or UAD would be better. Tehlord - did'nt I read you bought UAD?

I had a powercore and a UAD card. I'd say the UAD plugins are superior unless you spend silly money on the powercore stuff.

On the other hand there's a reason why SSL/Protools are dumping the DSP hardware now. I don't think it'll be long before UAD and TC go the same route. Speaking of home users of course, not the high end film scorers

To be honest you can get very good mastering done for �25 a track. You'd have to spend �5-10k to get anywhere near the same level of sound assuming you already knew what you were doing.

quote:

Originally posted by tehlord Oh I see. It's an 'I told you so' thread.

That's what I thought - it's like an advertisement disguised as a question.

My mate...let's call him...whatever...."Steve" has this issue....enter MegaMaster Pro 5000! Solved all his problems, every song is a hit, now he's getting more sex than he can handle!

I think Ozone is pretty cool but don't fail too like i did, you can get an extra loud sound without red lights popping but the limiter will make the sounds to crush and in the end is worst.

quote:

Originally posted by derail That's what I thought - it's like an advertisement disguised as a question. My mate...let's call him...whatever...."Steve" has this issue....enter MegaMaster Pro 5000! Solved all his problems, every song is a hit, now he's getting more sex than he can handle!

I was thinking more along the lines of his mate Steve keeps asking Richard what mastering software to buy, and Steve won't believe Richard when he say's it takes the right equipment and a certain skill level.

I swear people think there really is a Tiesto button in Ableton Live

quote:

Originally posted by tehlord I was thinking more along the lines of his mate Steve keeps asking Richard what mastering software to buy, and Steve won't believe Richard when he say's it takes the right equipment and a certain skill level. I swear people think there really is a Tiesto button in Ableton Live

Steve is a very thoughtful cautious guy who today said he's thinking of selling his old hardware sampler and perhaps spending the proceeds on a mastering product.

He asked if I could send him some links to any products (he's always helping me out with things so it's the least I could do), and I replied I could go one better than a few links, how about a thread on this forum I frequent.

He's the last guy who would ever big himself up prodction wise and he learned over many years to mix, old school, cause thats what he had - old school stuff.

I hope he wont mind my saying he's recently purchased and overhauled a 24 track analog desk (soundtracs, I think he said), so getting it right in the mix is close to his heart.

Just wanted to giev the thread a better context

Cheers for input all.

quote:

Just wanted to giev the thread a better context Cheers for input all.

Would be useful to have the context up front next time

I still say a pro at �25/track is a better solution.

i think having a good mixdown and knowing how to use a good software is the best quality/price , specially because if the mixdown sucks you are paying to get a slightly less poor result.

quote:

Originally posted by tehlord I swear people think there really is a Tiesto button in Ableton Live

is that not that red thing at the top

Wavelab 7 FTW

Although as previously mentioned if you dont have a properly treated room and high end monitoring system forget it
Also you need a good inital mix and the experience top know what mastering ACTUALLY entails and obviously you need to know how to use your "mastering" specific tools intimately.

Mark

Just a good limiter, linear phase EQ with M/S option, nice character compressor, maybe a multiband compressor.

No special tools really, just what you'd use for mixing.

I like the waves L3 personally, I'd also check out the flux stuff, especially alchemist, I haven't used it but it looks the goods and gets good reviews.

I own UAD and a lot of their plug ins, so naturally I'm going to be bias'd towards UAD.

Obviously this is going to be a professional gig so he'll be doing stem mixing. I don't do that personally because as a producer I just mix along the way. In a way, and in the end, it's really the same though.

But I can give a huge thumbs up and vouch for UAD. Expensive? It appears so when looking at it from the outside, but if you're patient you can get some REALLY good deals. In September they were selling a Preamp/LA2A for $1600 that included a free UAD Duo card and $399 voucher. The preamp/LA2A sells for $1600 alone. Duo runs about 800, plus 399, that's a $1200 promo.

Also, if he has the money, he can just buy the Quad Omni and get every plug in up front for 50% off. They are $3,000 last I checked.

Going back to promos though, look at what they're running now. 20-60% off all plug-ins. Check it

http://www.uaudio.com/products/stor...x.html#SOFTWARE

They frequently email out coupons too for % discounts or $25 towards a plug in too.

So like I said in the beginning, it looks expensive at first, but when you pay attention and carefully buy your plugs it's not bad at all. You can also find AMAZING deals on UAD on eBay. I saw a DUO card go with the SSL plugs and about 4 other plugs go for $460 a few weeks ago. A DUO card alone is $800.

My mastering chain is as follows (I mix into it and edit it a bit here and there) Everything below is UAD

Pultec MEQ5 -> Manley Massive Passive -> The Glue (by Cytomic) -> Cambridge (Surgical EQ) -> Elephant (with 8x oversampling)

It's an amazing chain that won't even run you $500 (if you have a UAD card already)

I think the fact that avid just conceded defeat with pro tools is a good reason to reject any DSP hardware at the moment.

I think if you bought a UAD today, you'll find in a year that they're releasing a native version cheaper.

hard to tell. I think they enjoy the dongle aspect. But ya there is no reason why you would need those outdated video card chips from like 10 years ago. I mean lexicon released their reverb natively. Lets be honest, UAD is one of the few things EDM producers actually pay for.

quote:

Originally posted by tehlord Would be useful to have the context up front next time I still say a pro at �25/track is a better solution.

a man on the money... i simply dont understand producers that think about mastering often before even having a finished track.... mastering is a art form on its own.

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