Hi Everyone,
I am interested in what is favored for mastering in the box.
Personally I have mastered both in and out. My personal track record included's a few iconic acts.
In addition I have spent some time at the mastering lab in L.A. with Doug and Gavin mastering as well.
I have also used sonic solutions back in the day and Soundblade HD was a go to a couple years ago, now izotope 7 and T-Racks are options (apple and oranges).

When it comes to mastering it's all ears and knowhow but it does help to have a useful signal path, great sounding daw and some plug ins.

Which daw and plug ins do you prefer?
Do you have a favorite signal chain/path?

 

Hey! Ok this is probably going to turn into a seriously long thread about people claiming there is a sonic difference between DAWS and bits and rates and all that good stuff.

I'm just gonna keep it simple for you. All DAWS do and sound pretty much the same. If you can tell the difference then you are some kind of sonic God and we will all worship you.

I personally use Ableton Live and I absolutely love it and will probably continue to use it till the end of time. So use which ever DAW you're comfortable with because like I said they all get the job done really really well.

In terms of plugins, again there are tons of plugins out there you can use. A lot of times I mix/master entire projects (even for other people) with just stock plugins and I get great results. But if you're looking for the best plugins to use for mastering then i can tell you from my years of mixing and mastering experience that Fabfilter and Ozone are the ones you want to be using. They are easy to use, extremely flexible, sound incredible, affordable and work with any DAW with no problems.

In terms of signal chain it really varies depending on what I'm hearing. Sometimes you need to take care of obvious EQ issues right at the start before adding any compression or else those EQ issues become even more apparent. Sometimes he instruments seem distant from each other and you want to bring them together with some compression before you add an EQ. So it depends and the best way to go about it is to think of it logically, like a story. Ask yourself what's going on with this track that I'm mastering. How can I make it the best it can be and why am I using the plugins I'm using?

My mastering signal chain looks something like this.

1. Stereo Imager (Ozone) - Make sure lows are mono and low mids are in between, highs are nice and wide
2. EQ (Fabfilter) - Balance out any frequency issues, I'm doing mostly wide cuts here where needed
3. Multiband Dynamics (Ozone) - Again this is for balancing the frequency spectrum with gentle compression and making sure nothing crazy is going on.
4. Peak Compression (Waves SSL or Fabfilter Pro-C2) - This is overall compression to catch peaks and control the dynamics of the mix
5. Multiband Saturation (Fabfilter Saturn or Ozone) - This is to add warmth and character and bring out frequency ranges that may need emphasizing.
6. Limiting

Hope that clears things up for you a little.

 

Here is a link that may or may not help but check it out anyway if you'd like.
https://ask.audio/articles/8-essential-steps-for-mastering-in-pro-tools

 

I like the tools and workflow in Studio One and I often use the same as fuad above pluggwize. I do have some new favo in the chain, Dmg limiter and AirEQ ...

I play and rec "live" session in the studio but I use my loops and synths If necessary ;)

I used to work in Cubase / Pro Tools, but as I work today, I am fully satisfied with Studio One, highly recommended!

 

Multiband compression its a big secret in mastering. Can anyone give enphasis on setting the attack and release settings in different band of the multiband comp in mastering

 

Ok, i am not going to explain what plugins you have to use, because this always depends on the content. But i tell you about some DAW for Mastering. The first is ProTools, i dont think its made for mastering, coz its desinged to work like a analogue console. But it can be used for it, why not? The next one is Adobe Audition, its a very good DAW for mastering, the editing is great. Its abilitys are amazing. Then, Studio One, it has a mastering section with DDP generator and else, but it doesnt support pre-fader metering, which is a big minus. WaveLab is also a very good DAW for editing and mastering, and only for that. It has great features, like Adobe Audition. Another DAW, you can abuse for mastering, is Logic Pro X, but for myself, i didnt got any good results out of it, i dont know why. It has its strength in midi editing, recording, composing and else. I've never tried to master with cubase, i dont like the GUI. But the ultimate mastering DAW is SADiE, its a hardware and customized windows XP based system. For myself, mastering completly in Ozone is a waste of time coz the results are never satisfying. It hase some nice features, but they are only good if you use it in combination with other plugins in a DAW. What daw you use is up to you! Important is the result you get out of it.

 

It really depends on what you're trying to do. Let's say you're listening to the low frequencies and you want to glue the kick and the bass together because the bass is not loud enough. Then maybe you'd want to use peak compression instead of RMS with a quick attack time (3-10ms) but not so quick that it kills the punch of the kick. A quick/medium release time (between 50-100ms) depending on the tempo of your track. A ratio of 2-3 and then pull the threshold down until you hear the kick and the bass come closer.

Again it all depends on what you're trying to achieve with the compression

 

Thanks faud. Nice of you. Have heard its also good to use faster attack in seqeunce as you go up to the high bands. How true is that ?

 

daw : reaper.

surgical eq : fabfilter

color eq : pspe27

comps : slate digital

analog/tape : slate, uhe, sonimus

limiter : fabfilter, dmg.

 

Izotope 7 all the way, 500 E and you are done

 

Fuad pretty much nailed it as far as I'm concerned.

I do master occasionally, and I mastered a couple of full classical CDs. Yes, classical. Choirs, to be more precise and some full orchestra tracks. I laugh because I'm a huge fan of Industrial and all edgy and noisy kind of music. But I do like classical music a lot, too. I also mastered more than a dozen of singles and commercials. Anyway, I mostly do mixing, although I do prefer mastering. I'm just trying to survive somehow.

For mastering I usually use a good sounding EQ that goes into a good sounding compressor, that goes into an imaging plugin, and finally a quality limiter with dithering. A metering plugin comes at the end of a chain, too. If the mix sounds really bad and a client cannot change the mix I might use a multiband compressor instead of just a buss compressor, but I don't like to use anything "multiband" except distortion. <-- not good for mastering except if the band is called "Black Death" or something...

What I use is EQ from DMG audio [EQuality] and TDR records [SlickEQ]. Buss compressor I use is The Glue or TDR Kotelnikov, depending on what I want to achieve. Multiband compressor of my [new] choice is TDR Nova, but I sometimes use Fabfilter MB compressor. Stereo imager and M/S processor I use is BX Control, and limiter is either Fabfilter Pro-L, or Voxengo Elephant. I use Voxengo SPAN and TB EBU Loudness for metering.

It's mostly DMG, TDR, Fabfilter, Klanghelm, Toneboosters, and Voxengo plugins that I use for everything. Of course, this chain is what I prefer to use, but I don't use it every time.

I almost forgot. DAW? I use Reaper for everythign, but I think it doesn't matter what is used for mastering at all. I could master in Wavosaur free editor for all I care. Plugins are important, not DAW! Sound quality between DAWs and editors is only measured by quality differences between their SRC [sample rate conversion] algorithms, and I use external programs for that. R8Brain or SoX. Mostly the former.

Cheers !

 

Last edited: Jan 30, 2016

Depends of what kind of music you're mastering, and how your mastering chain is made.
I personally have 2 compressors, 2 EQ, Dither, Stereo imager (I use Voxengo one.. Really flexible) and some more things (Not in that order BTW) in mine, and works for me, as I only Master Techno tracks(And some Tech House too)...

 

What changes would one have to make when mastering a classical record (Specifically choirs)? Eg: EQ cuts, limiting etc.

 

Add a bit-crusher...
When mastering classical records you send them to mastering studios, not to someone sitting in his bedroom. You do what a record needs to be done, it's not a recipe for a cake, such recipes are only good for a botched outcome.

 

@Nimbuss Well, when mastering classical music, I generally go for processing to be as less intrusive as possible. LIke, it is what it is. All I had to do is add a little bit of corrective and "sweetening" EQ with broad shelves, 30Hz LPF to eliminate rumble, and match loudness levels, as well as adjust M/S balance when they used MS recording technique [which I use, too - love it! ]. Compression is out of the equation completely [I edited levels manually with vol envelopes in some cases] and limiting is only used to cut the most protrusive peaks.

I generally use K-14 loudness level for classical music, even though K-20 or K-18 would be more appropriate for such material. It depends on the client. Clients wanted it a bit louder, and the client is always right, eh? I propose what I would do and then find a compromise between their wishes and what I know should be done.

If compromise is unreachable I offer them a glass of red wine and a spliff. It works 100% of the time. oops, I remember one case when offering Green Tea and some tofu worked, actually.

 

Last edited: Jan 30, 2016

To me The Glue has an excellent compression action but, unfortunately loses the depth of the stereo image (which happens with Klanghelm MJUC also, at an even more serious degree so that I would never use that in mastering, even on busses when mixing I'm reluctant of using it). To prevent this I use it unlinked by using Metaplugin, inserting one Glue instance for each channel separately. It sounds better and can be used even in MS mode if a MS matrix is inserted in the chain.

I would recommend Presswerk, DC8C and Bounce as mastering comps. The last two are very clean, the best for clean compression IME. Presswerk is a workhorse, a seriously underrated plugin.

For eq work, I use Equilibrium 90% of the time, in FIR mode with very large impulses. That's happening for some years now, it truly deserves the title as the most flexible and trusted eq, for me. PSP MasterQ v2 would be also another one that deserves mentioning, very clean and musical.

For adding color to the pallete I would recommend Nebula and/or Vertigo VSM-3 before hitting the clipper or the limiter.

 

My chain goes like:

Ableton as DAW.

1) Width adjustment. freq≤200Hz are straight mono (bx_control2)
2) Butcher-style EQing Cut ≤35Hz with 6db/oct slope and ≥21KHz with 6-12db/oct, depending on hi end crunchiness (bx_hybrid)
3) Surgical EQing e.g. M/S if needed (bx_hybrid or bx_digital)
4) MB-Compression if needed (FabFilter MB)
5) Tape-Emu for peak reduction and "warmth" (u-he or waves)
6) some SSL MBC (waves) to get rid of all the other transients to provide headroom and glue it together
7) M/S Limiting to make it loud (bx_XL2)

If needed after step 4 some parallel compression or saturation. bx_vertigo or ssl comps- fabfilter Saturn or devastor. sometimes aphex vintage exciter for the airy high. or maag eq.

trial and error is a decent way to go ;)

 

Can you elaborate? Just from an educational perspective does this give a slight boost in sound quality/dynamics?

 

lol, those "all the other transients" back in the day used to be called dynamics

Quality, if you down sample with a bad SR converter, you get artifacts, like aliasing and s**t, also a cleaner signal has more "readable" dynamics.
How is your Neon flashing lights "Registered to team AiR" banner going on?
https://audiosex.pro/threads/i-dj-a...custom-audioz-r2r-video-for-me-to-play.23190/

 

Last edited: Jan 30, 2016

It can, though most DAWs these days do it pretty well and some do it great. There's an extremely well-done chart at http://src.infinitewave.ca/ that lets you compare based on actual math analysis. The results are probably not what you'd expect (I didn't), but it does show that in general, you don't need a specialized program just for proper sample rate conversion. Of particular note is that iZoTope's basically perfect and dumps all over most everything else, including the two programs mentioned above (R8Brain and SoX), so if you already have iZoTope stuff, just use that.