Mastering Plugins

[frodo]

May 12, 2008, 6:23am, silverorlead wrote: I'm using Ozone 3 right now, but I'm not really able to get the sound I'm looking for, even after hours of tweaking. Bri, I have a tip for you:- try using several different compressors in a row, each one doing a little of the job.That usually will give far better results than trying to get one to do the whole job.- until next timefrodo

[soundsgreat]

Jeez, not another one. Do you hear colors and shapes, too? Hehe...... yep ! I can smell sumbeams, and taste rainbows too ! Good huh ? Seriously, if the song is any good, and you don't have a good knowledge of mastering, I would probably send it off for "digital mastering" Around $15 from IAC for example.Otherwise, like anything else, it's practice practice practice....cheers, niteshift

[clanmorgan]

I like the Waves products and have had great results with them. Recently I started using T-Racks for warmth but I find that I still tend to steer towards Waves to master. I have compared Ozone to Waves and T-Racks and I just love how easy it is to get a similar sounds in half the time. Just havent invested in it yet.

[milfus]

yeah but woody, can i call ya woody? i like it, I would rather guide people to raise skills than credit card balances, cause plug ins get more complicated, hearing stays the same

[wodinlord]

May 14, 2008, 6:48am, milfus wrote:yeah but woody, can i call ya woody? i like it, I would rather guide people to raise skills than credit card balances, cause plug ins get more complicated, hearing stays the sameSure you can, but if you call me Woody and I call you MILF it could be taken wrong! LOL! No doubt, one can never acquire too many skills, but silverorlead already has Ozone and just wants to utilize it better. One can never have too many plugs or toys either. As you said earlier, Waves is really good for mastering, especially the mastering limiters. (L1,L2,L3) I use the L2 behind Ozone on every mix instead of the Ozone limiter. Personally, I can't imagine mixing without a least a Waves Gold bundle.Have a great Florida day! I truly do appreciate your cerebral approach to the black art of audio magic. It demonstrates a total immersion in the process of recording and mixing that is truly rare.Woodenhead (I wanted to use it before you thought of it)

[milfus]

yeah, I think ear training would help more with ozone than waves, for the record, just was kinda off topic. oh nah, I was thinking woody from toy story, haha. to me though, you can get a book or two on mastering, for like 100-200 depending on how serious the books are, and profit 10 times off what you allready have, tho for my money, waves is where its at, about 6-7 years ago I think, I updated to the diamond package, at the time it was a 7 grand endeavor and I was like ACK, but I am pleased to report I made 70k mastering, and only mastering, in the first 3 years, so it paid me back 10 fold, thats where I am coming from *shrug*

[che]

Milfus,I see that you suggest ear training. Wondering if there's any software that you'd suggest to help with ear training? My son's just completing music theory AP as a high school junior. He went into it almost cold turkey. He was only self taught and didn't even really play an instrument. He just created music on a DAW. One of the hardest things for him has been sight singing and dictation, seeing as he hasn't had the years of repetition like all the others in his class. He did well, but wants to take it again as a senior so that he can test well for his college diaognostic and hopefully get into honors so he can do Theory 1& 2 at the same time.His teacher has him using something called McGammut, for class purposes, but he's really looking into taking the engineering track and wants to know and understand WHY and HOW to get the best mix.So, any suggestions on links or software would be great.

[tinozigzag]

I have been using WAVELAB 5 which contains lots of waves plug-ins for the last few years coupled with HarBall which I have found very useful. Hope this helps.TINO

[mazz]

May 12, 2008, 8:38am, devin wrote:I'm in the same boat as silverorlead, looking for the next step in mastering tools.Is anyone using any UAD stuff for mastering? I have the UAD-1 card with software running, and I was curious about their mastering suite as well.For those using Universal Audio, May is apparently "Mastering Month", with 20% off or something like that (haven't checked it all out though...a fellow musician just told me to go look).Sorry to add more questions than answers...I did the Ozone3 trial, and I found the presets very 'dynamic'. I'm sure learning more (and toning it down) would make it a good step.I have the UAD-1 card and have been using the Precision Maximizer on it quite a bit. I use my ears and adjust it for the type of music I'm doing. On a recent muzak tune I wrote I didn't use any mastering at all and on some of the electronica stuff I've done, I maximzed the crap out of it. I did get the Precision Buss Compressor recently but I haven't had the opportunity to use it yet.I've also used the UAD Fairchild and the Pultec Pro on the master buss when I want a more "old school" approach. The broad cuts and boosts on the Pultec are pretty sweet for nice subtle tweaks. The Fairchild really makes a mix "glue" together when set right. I usually go for subtle tweaks since it's not a multi-band compressor and things like kick drums and vocals can make it pull the entire mix down if it's not set right.I've used T-Racks in the past and it's pretty cool too, the presets are kind of heavy-handed but there's no law that says you have to leave the presets "preset". I don't use it that much right now but I would if I thought it would do what I need to do for a particular piece.The thing I recommend is to learn what all of these tools do on a generic level, i.e. compression, limiting, maximizing, parametric EQ, and so forth. Then when you get ahold of something like UAD-1 or Ozone or T-Racks, you have a better understanding of what to do to get the sound you want. Experimenting with any of these will give you good experience. Use the "devices" one at a time to understand what they do to the sound. You might need to go a bit extreme on the settings at first to hear a difference. Do A/B comparisons with the device in and then out.Mastering is an art, and a great mastering engineer, like a great player, can make music on just about anything because they've perfected their ears and their feel. Everything else is just a tool.Disclaimer: I don't profess to be a real mastering engineer, I just try to get my mixes to sound cohesive and stylistically accurate. Mastering tools help with that. I'm not mastering albums, I'm mastering individual pieces for Film/TV/libraries. It's taken years for me to get to the point where I think my stuff sounds pretty good, and I'm still learning every day.Cheers,Mazz

[milfus]

hey,the best ear training I can think of commercially, at least that I have tried (they are all pretty equal to be honest) is the gold ear course, however, the easiest way to train your ears bar none, is just stop sweeping your eq, guess the number, then dip it, you will hear it is either higher or lower than you wanted if you miss, so you turn it off, make the notch again, then turn it on, just keep doing that until you get it.It just sets up a system so you keep getting better at eq (and hearing frequency) where as sweeping, you are actually making yourself worse, its not fast to get results, but its damn near garaunteed results in the long run.