Hi all,

This plugin is quite controversial.
IK multimedia designed it together with Gavin Lurssen a big name in the industry.
The Namm demonstration didn`t really convince me.
I demoed it.
Im not a mastering specialist,so those are my somewhat limited observations.
Seems like a LANDR for home use,though still somewhat better since you can still control some of the parameters.
It is obviously designed for musicians,with the less knobs is better for me, mentality.
It does sound smooth,seems to work nice,though its one of those plugins that seem to either work well with your material or it doesnt work at all.
It still requires a set of good headphones or monitors and ears that know what to look for.
You can not tweak almost anything in the chain,or should i say you can tweak very little parameters,mostly just treshold of de-esser,compressor etc...
Input drive and push can be adjusted,also certain freq. can be adjusted on the main display.
It also lacks more information as to what is going on with the levels,lacks certain metering tools.
If IK made the chain of gear fully tweakable,then we could talk about a serious plugin.
Reminds me of EZmix,though with more parameters to control your source.
Also,notice how Lurssen and his co-worker are both dressed in black to get that Jobs vibe going on.
All in all,its not bad,just very limited for what it is supposed to do.
It wont make a bad mix good,but it can make a good mix better.
You can achieve these or better results with just a few different plugins,that give you full control over Lurssen`s plugin.
They market it well and they probably already sold a lot of units.
Is it revolutionary?I dont think so.
I also think it costs too much.
What do you think?

 

I'm telling you guys...The plugin industry is mostly a scam, specially regarding the big players like IK....Expensive price tag, fancy realistic GUI, average or often mediocre coding.

Regarding this one, the Lurssen Mastering Console, I think it's ridiculous. Come on...Think about all the sonic possibilities that may exist, and you're supposed to "master" them using twenty (or so) presets?

The only module you can actually configure is the first EQ. Believe me, there's a second EQ in the chain that you can't even touch it...

Now, if you ask me how an EQ is supposed to "guess" about the corrections/enhancements required for a song...really...It's impossible.

Anyway, the strongest indicative that is one is a big scam is that it doesn't offer a level-matching function, so it can trick your ears using that old "the louder the better" auditive illusion....Try level matching it on one of your tracks and you'll see it's got nothing special at all.

Ozone is a hundred times better, and I'm not even a big fan of it in the first place...In fact, I haven't seen any all-in-one solution that actually works better than using a carefully structured customized signal chain.

 

Did you really think IK Multimedia could do better than iZotope? Come on! Years and years of hard job (iZotope) vs a company which doesn't upgrade their stuff by years.... Be serious.

 

Last edited: Mar 19, 2016

For 250$ you get a plugin with an embedded chain of tools that you can not tweak,a "secret sauce" of ingredients.
Fuck,i don`t need secret ingredients,show me what is being used,how much and give me the tools to alter it.
It could be a fun plugin for 50$,but for 250$ i expect full customization

 

Last edited by a moderator: Mar 19, 2016

Izotope 'sandwiches' are the only way to go. The EDM scene is dying because of the commercialization of the industry and these bogus presets.. Why not just use the native mastering presets in your daw? Doubt there's any difference.

 

I'd just like to add that mastering with presets is IMO a no-good mastering. Every track requires you to use different things, in different order etc. If you're looking for a good all-in-one plugin for mastering then I can only recommend Ozone, and using presets only as starting points. Ozone's strength is its versatility - you can customise everything in it. I don't use it, but if I had a choice of one plugin for mastering I'd choose Ozone. This "mastering console" is just like having Ozone with some presets and a few parameters you can tweak. Some kind of "Ozone" lite?

 

I quite like the solid state De-esser. Either way Ik-multimedia or izotope or waves if the track isn't well produced or well written aren't much of a help.
And if the track is quite incredible public won't give a shit about what was in your master output.

Is not what you use it is how you use it, I've seen people rocking a party with a guitar and a bongo

 

As lite as a ghost...

 

More like an EzMix with a fancier GUI.

 

It is just another tool. The difference is the company which spends more time marketing than improving or developing product.

Did a A/B test with the standalone and the plugin inside Reaper. Used two tracks of the same song with Lurssen on one
and level adjusted down to match neutral track.

Picked the album Aja from Steely Dan since it's one favorite for tuning systems. Actually does what it is supposed to do.
Not too much, not too little. Just right.

Also inserted the T-Racks Master EQ using the 'Big M Bright S' preset which added another level of clarity and definition.

 

Last edited: Mar 19, 2016

This is a great album, man...One of my all time favorites.

 

The Lurssen Mastering Console is better than Ozone for "mastering". The problem is too many people don't know what mastering is. Mastering is not conducting surgical dynamic chaos on a single fucked up mix. That's called "mixing the whole mix" which is a common mistake made by people who don't know how to mix the individual tracks to a state that is truly ready for mastering. The Lurssen Console is a far more transparent tool than Ozone when it comes to the maximization of a single mix, and more so an album as a whole. Any custom chain configured over an individual song with Ozone will likely destroy the next song that passes through it. Unless what? Unless Ozone was configured to perform something very "subtle"? I'll leave one piece of advice even though no one is going to pay me a dime. Put the Lurssen Console on your master buss, choose your EDM preset (if that's the shit most of you are into), decrease the input drive to -4.1, raise the compression threshold if you hear too much glue, and use the makeup gain on the compressor if you want to increase the overall volume. There's your starting guide.

The next lesson is in regard to A-B referencing. Too many folks have that backwards too. Lowering the gain of the master to match the original doesn't tell you shit about whether you achieved a better "maximized" sound. The way to tell if your loud(maximized) version is better than the original is to duplicate the mix and increase the input gain of the original to match the perceived loudness of the master (this will typically go well into the red) If the master sounds better you'll know the end result was an improvement. If the original sounds better than your master you will know that your master is either too loud, or that at least now you have a 1:1 challenge reference in which you can see if it's possible to reconstruct your master in a way that will retain the same perceived loudness without breaking the 0dB threshold and still sound better than the original. And this is when people learn clearly why RMS levels should never shoot above -9dB on a modern day master if music was taken in regard to "sounding the best it can sound".

 

Last edited: Mar 19, 2016

For me, who can't master properly, it serves its needs. It can add some polish to a mix in a few steps. Not surgical, just broad like a Pultec EQ. And before you throw in the argument of what a Pultec really sounds like without having a hardware unit, I use the UAD version, at least it's certified. The Lurssen console does its job at offering a sweetening that clients can take as a mastered preview. As it has been said before, a good mix will sound good no matter which mastering tools are added. Does it do proper mastering? No. Proper mastering is done by a mastering engineer, not a tool. The question is, does this mastering plugin justify its price tag? Maybe not.

 

In the old days writers wrote, musicians performed, singers sang, arrangers arranged, producers produced, sound engineers recorded, mixers mixed and mastering engineers mastered.

Now one person does everything, so less knobs are better

 

It's great, and LANDR is great also... You have what you pay for, or what you aim for... Of course it's not like pro mastering, but will do the job... The next question is: Will be good or bad?
Of course that's a gimmick... If it's gonna master or destroy your work, that's another story...

 

Stop saying "EDM is dying" in every post. Maybe your inspiration is leaving you!

 

It's a great plugin. Enhances the mix a lot. I use both this and Ozone.

 

I tried it, clicked through the presets and couldn't hear any difference between them. Certainly wouldn't pay money for it, probably wouldn't want it if it was legitimately free.

 

Are you listening on a good set of reference monitors? Do you have enough space between you and the monitors to
allow the sound to travel and develop?

Close up earphones and inexpensive speakers will reveal very little although it is there even on those.
A mix into an old boombox or mono hifi radio speaker would reveal quite a bit.

I listened sitting, standing and out of the room. The further away you are, the more you notice in detail
how the mix holds together.

The presets are just starting points and are meant to do subtle balancing. This is the mastering process. Subtle.

 

Last edited: Mar 19, 2016

"EDM is dying" it's up to the listeners and the ones that actually buys the tickets to clubs shows or festivals, not us, the producers. Regardless of what we think, the listeners are the ones that will make a difference in the "EDM Evolution".

Don't overlook Lurssen's “whole is greater than the sum of its parts” personal philosophy of mastering, which should express a clue for most of you guys that are wondering why they can't throughoutly tweak all the "parts" of the plugin.

Lurssen even customly built his hardware mastering board especially so he can push multiple knobs at the same time through one of the big black macroknobs on his desk, as you can see on his studio's mastering board. So i guess that once e.g. you boost the 6k knob at the bottom of the GUI and there's 2 different EQs with different technical designs being shown in the chain view, then that must make me think that both EQs units are boosting that band, bringing their own flavour and style simultaneosly. Also because the plugin is so dependent on presets (unlike Ozone), should make us all realize that although few presets, they probably put a lot of work into finetuning each preset as "objective" as possible by testing a lot of balanced mixes in each particular genre that is represented by the available presets.

Mastering is not supposed to be a "mix fixer". Because let's face it, you wouldn't need much tweakability in a plugin unless you're trying to achieve something more advanced such as fixing something bad that wasn't adressed in the mixing stage and you don't have stems either. Seriously now, if you have access to the mixing project, just go back in it and do the fixes there. "Fixing in the mastering stage" is something you'd do only if you don't have a choice and neither access to the previous stages of that song.
A mastering plugin should NEVER be used for any kind of corrections rather than balancing stuff out and improving what already sounded great in the mixdown. "Complexity" goes hand in hand with "creativity". If you love doing complex & creative stuff with a plugin, just go back into the mixing project and do it all there, then proceed to the mastering stage again.

It seems that this dude even replaced his mastering engineer, lol:



..but still he's able to sell his music on Beatport and Traxsource. So why can he make a living with "less mastering tweakability" and you don't? If you think that's actually what would sabotage your whole career then get Ozone instead and be happy with it. All this concern regarding mastering tweakability in a masterin plugin it's such a shallow matter. They didn't even promised "tweakability" as the main creme you're paying for, yet you guys still complain about it when they don't even mention it in the product's features list. It's like blaming a cop in a cop uniform for not doing the duty of an army soldier lol.

Simply put, all the stuff this plugin is supposed to do is to decently turn your well balanced mix into Today's "commercial standard" in just a matter of seconds.

 

Last edited: Mar 20, 2016