Is Anybody using LANDR?

[johnlewitt]

HI All,

I read an article in the paper yesterday about LANDR (which is Left and Right abbreviated!), which is an online, automatic mastering tool. So I just did a search on the forum to see if anyone was talking about it. I see that The Element mentions it several times but nowhere else does it appear.

I just uploaded an MP3 and got a 192 kbps file back. I've got to say, I was pretty impressed doing a full A/B comparison of my mixed file and the mastered file. Now I realize there is an art to mastering and that it requires a 'magical' ear to do it right, and that automating things will probably leave something to be desired in the long run, but for someone who produces a tonne of music a month, this seems like an ideal, cost effective tool.

So, is anyone else using it? If so, what do you think the Pros and Cons are?

John

[TheElement]

Hey John,

I used to use it but was spending too much time uploading and downloading from LANDR. At a certain point I started getting decent and comparable results from mastering my own tracks so left LANDR.

Its really the mix which is most important to get right. Starting with the right sounds which work together is very important. Space in a mix is important.

After the mix is sorted then some saturation and limiting is really all that is needed.

Last track I tried stem mastering where track was split into 6 stems and sent to a mastering engineer. This worked out ok but mix could have been better to start.

LANDR is cool and does the job. But at some point I just decided to leave LANDR and do the mastering myself.

[johnlewitt]

Interesting.

And yeah, I totally agree that the mix is the most important thing. Basically the track I uploaded was one that I really liked the mix on. I used Mix Bus Lite to boost the volume of my tune, but in comparison, I found the LANDR version boosted the volume and presence of my song even more while retaining all the character of the mix I liked.

John

[TheElement]

Mix Bus Lite adds stereo enhancing which I didn't like. This might be ok for a stripped back singer/songwriter track but it was messing up the edm productions I ran it through. I like their Limiter and Parallel Drum compressor.

I just set my kick at 0 and mix around it to get max volume right from the start (this might work better for electronic music). I can always turn whole mix down if needed. On master channel got The Sausage Fattener set to 8%..color 0%. Then Cubase Brickwall Limiter threshold set to 0 and release set to 5.0

Thats basically it. Its all in the mix and less is more. on some tracks I might add a little more but its a good place to start.

[andygabrys]

from the archives:

http://forums.taxi.com/topic127941.html


and here is a "lively" discussion on another forum http://prorecordingworkshop.lefora.com/ ... Z7FTIv9qS1

IMO the proof is in the pudding.

if you can upload your material and get "better sounding masters" then its worth it for that, if you don't want to do mastering.

Now since most people are doing TV tracks here which might have a half-dozen alts and cuts / stingers, it may or may not save them time. And you need repeatability from alt to alt - some amount of consistency.

As I pointed out in the first thread, the results are also highly dependent on the source material. As the algorithms seem to deliver a master that has a certain dynamic range (or lack of dynamic range) and some types of tracks won't come out cleanly. Gavin pointed out that if you pay for the service (as opposed to the free 192 kb/s mp3) you are allowed to change some of the set points (like less limiting I guess) perhaps making cleaner results.

Probably the best thing about the service is they seemed to do a music profile of a lot of well know songs, and compiled those results (or something similar) and then used that as an ideal eq curve. So there are definitely some advantages there especially if like most of us your room is small or weird sounding, your monitoring is not top notch, or maybe you mix on headphones, or all of the above and you never use reference tracks.

Since you use Logic John, you can also use the "match eq" on the Landr free master to "copy" the eq curve, and then apply it to your master. If you do this, and then note what differences there are between the LANDR master and yours, you might have some valuable information as to the typical areas that you need to address (talking freq ranges here) because you over or under represent them in your usual work. Especially if you are able to compare 10 or 20 tracks with your master and the LANDR master.

Good luck~!

EDIT: I see you have been discussing while i was writing.

MixBuss Lite isn't a substitute for mastering. It doesn't boost the RMS level the same as a limiter, although it adds some. It has other effects, some of which are desirable for some tunes, and you might like the sound of it - but its not a (brick wall) limiter.

So any track which is then limited either in your DAW or by LANDR is going to sound louder.

If you want to do a test that compares sound vs. loudness, you can bring both tracks into iTunes with the SoundCheck enabled or you can bring both tracks into your daw and turn the louder one down until they sound equivalent, and then you are talking more of an apples to apples comparison.

HTH

[Len911]

http://c4dm.eecs.qmul.ac.uk/audioengine ... index.html


There are various links associated with it. It basically came out of Queen Mary College in London.
Landr, mixgenius...

Queen Mary has various free tools. Sonic Visualizer...

https://youtu.be/oGBl2h3bDF4

I think you can trace it back and maybe even read the papers on it if you like.

You can get a lot of free experimental stuff from some of these colleges and universities, though it seems anything with commercial potential is usually licensed or not offered free,lol,
remember this:
http://news.stanford.edu/pr/97/970709sondiusxg.html

[sansharbour]

Hi John

I had wondered about this too. It's tempting. I have read and listened to a few things and decided against

Here is an interesting post http://passivepromotion.com/can-landr-r ... g-engineer

Don

[Len911]

I'd read some papers and web pages I'd come across a few months ago before I realized it had trickled down into Landr.

The concept is what they call "Reverse engineering". Basically they've developed an algorithm from the data(parameters) they got from various mixing engineers.

You could say, those "auto eq" programs are in the same category. Of course the auto eq programs usually don't have individual tracks to work with, mainly the mastered tracks, and they only use eq and compression to match eq and loudness. Not really engineering. It's not a "wwjd" with these tracks and this situation.

Waves has a lot of "signature series" plugins, eg. Butch Vig vocals, CLA guitars... These plugins I suppose give you equipment and settings of what they supposedly use for various situations. If a reverse engineering algorithm like in the Landr was included with each wave signature series plugins, now that would be something special!!!
It's possible to get as close as you could could get if you were to have that signature engineer mix your tracks themselves through your plugins. And it might be fun if the algorithms could be swapped,.lol! and maybe not so much!