mastering software

[evilchopper]

oooops back to the original question:
Sound forge is a great sounding editor that is very user friendly(more user friendly than wavelab in my humble opinion) and is practically unlimited in it's versatility and unequalled in support(OK just slightly less than digi in support). Like wavelab, any presets are only just general starting points and you must be technically saavy to apply each stage seperately.
I like it for its direct X plug in capability. I like to run Steinberg's free filter through it, but the selection of third party direct x plug ins is unlimited.
It includes enough in it's stock form to do basic mastering techniques, several eq's, multi band compression(just set the controls to get limiting), and the new wave hammer(self descriptive).

In your situation I would get t racks for an almost non existant learning curve, just tweak and play. You can do all your editing in pro tools untill your needs dictate otherwise.

good luck

[Calvin]

I should have posted this earlier, but here it is. I know that so far we have mainly just talked about the limiting software. There are many great pluggins out there that will do this job, some better than others. But I also wanted to let you know just great a multiband compressor can really be. I know that only lately have I begun to understand it's full potential. I do alot of small time mastering, I don't have enough stuff to do full band recordings but what I have is a little very high quality gear so it makes it good for mastering. I love using the multi band compressor that comes with the waves mastering bundle. It still amazes me that if a band comes in with a song that has way to much low bass and it is ruining the mix, I can adjust it so that it compresses the lower frequencies and just turns that bass into a nice round sound that is manageble.

Right now I am working on something that a local choir did at a local studio that I just hate. The drums sound dry and toneless almost to the point that it sounds like he is just beating on a piece of plastic and the snare and high hat just kill me with how loud they are. While I have a hard time giving the drums a good tone, I can take my multiband compressor in and compress some of that snare and high hat to make it bearable enough to bring up the volume. It really is amazing how when you mix at lower levels like this guys does that when you turn up the volume or add in a nice limiter, how things all of a sudden spring out that you didn't know were so bad. Yet another reason to check you mix and several volumes. Well I don't know if this did anything but take up space but I wanted to expand a little further on just how powerfull a good multiband compressor can be. [img]images/icons/wink.gif[/img]

[maslusher]

Wavelab all the way

[BigRedButton]

I do all my "light mastering" with PT and SoundForge. I've always had great results, and have never had a mastering house complain about the source files when handed over.

I've also written an editorial on mastering HERE

It sounds like you've got a good handle on what you want to achieve through the light mastering stage, and I'm sure that any of the products mentioned in this thread would do the trick. Have fun! [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[Swaphappy]

As mentioned above iZotope's Ozone is very cool
and it is a DX plug-in so it will plug into
Soundforge and other's.

[David Fisher]

What Marketing group gave people the idea that they could do their own mastering?

How many professional cds that have hit it big have you ever heard of the Engineer/Producer/ or Artist mastering the CD?

You can sometimes get decent results with the software, but isn't "Mastering Software" an Oxymoron, as it's normally done with (expensive) outboard hardware?

If you can pull it off, go for it, but I would say save yourself the money (because of your time), and get the mastering done at at professional facility.

[Calvin]

Originally posted by David Fisher:
What Marketing group gave people the idea that they could do their own mastering?

How many professional cds that have hit it big have you ever heard of the Engineer/Producer/ or Artist mastering the CD?

You can sometimes get decent results with the software, but isn't "Mastering Software" an Oxymoron, as it's normally done with (expensive) outboard hardware?

If you can pull it off, go for it, but I would say save yourself the money (because of your time), and get the mastering done at at professional facility.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">This is a tired argument. Of course we all know that the pro's can do it better, but look he has 400 bucks and he just wants something to make his mixes a little louder. He dosen't need professional mastering, I find it hard to believe that many of us do unless you have a client that is willing to pay so much more for the mastering process than the recording part. In my mind that is the exact opposit of what it should be. And no, you won't save money getting it professionaly mastered. In one cd a mastering house can charge 400 bucks for that much he can do as many cd's as he could ever want with the waves mastering bundle. And working on your own stuff isn't a waste of time, especially if someone is paying for that time. Sure everything deserves a listen by a second pair of ears. But very few of us actually need to spend that much money to have someone do it.

[evilchopper]

Hey BigRedButton and Calvin, I am with you guys all the way.(Great editorial, great insight, presented in a very diplomatic light. Thanks.)
I personally learned how to master audio in response to the poor quality work I was getting from the mastering houses(names withheld).
As a result of my background in physics, and learning the properties and dynamics of sound from a basic building blocks standpoint(waveform theory), I found unlocking the techniques used to master audio to be very straightforward, and without mystery.
I don't care what equipment is available for me to use, I can use my techniques on vintage equipment, Mac and Pc programs, Sonic Solution and Sadie workstations. Most well trained audio engineers can, it doesn't take a degree in Physics before pursuing your audio training.(although it does makes things really easy.)
Good mastering technique is not dependent upon gear or programs, or how good you are at tweaking knobs, or how good your ears are at listening.
Good mastering accomplishes several goals at once. Yes it optimizes the sound and volume and makes things more pleasing to the ears, but there is more going on technically than most people realize. There is much more to a good mastering EQ curve than "it sounds good".
And most people doing their own mastering rarely even EQ properly so as to maintain headroom and preserve phase coherency, or rarely even touch the controls on the compressors or limiters. It just gets stepped on by some preset compressors and limiters, and I truly believe it does sound good to them.
But I have made my living the past 3 years showing them that it doesn't sound good, and then remastering it to a new level that blows them away.(I have been making and recording music for myself and others my whole life.) With no advertising, and just word of mouth, I soon had mastered over a thousand songs for many fledgling musicians and many veterens, in our local scene and realized that the state of mastering in Chicago was in desperate need of help. Most of these projects I got really sounded poor even though most had some sort of mastering. The word 'mastering' was being thrown around, but few had really experienced it on their own material, beyond what they could do themselves. Suprise, suprise.
Technically the mastering engineer must make the mix fit the technical requirements of the delivery format. If you mastered a record in the seventies using the severe limiting and musical density that is popular nowadays, I believe the needle would literally pop out of the groove. But now we are bending the rules to make CD's sound louder than they are technically designed, which leads to a lot of unintended results.
The trick is to accomplish all of this without changing the artists original intent(i.e. to do it transparently)
For every artist who demands an in your face loud CD, there is another artist who despises it.
However, both will despise a poor mastering job and praise a job well done, provided they know the difference.....

So, Don't be dissuaded from doing your own mastering, but don't expect the same results as great mastering engineers. I admire the work of Bernie Grundeman, Bob Ludwig, and other mastering legends, but things are changing, and the next generation of guru's has to come from somewhere(i hope)

-Chop

PS To my suprise there are still many people with apparently very little knowledge of the current state of professional audio.
In the seventies, eighties and early nineties, very vew artists/engineers/producers mastered because of the great cost and rarity of the equipment. Not because it required a degree in rocket science. In those days the fact that you owned several hundred thousand dollars of equipment made you a mastering engineer. (And quite frankly the quality of past mastering from this era leaves a lot to be desired, why do you think everything was "digitally remastered" in the eighties, instead of just transferred to CD. If the mastering was so great back then why not just transfer the recording? )
The world is changing fast around you, young one. Look through the pages of popular pro audio magazines like EQ and Pro Sound News and you will not only see many artists and producers doing their own mastering, but many studios are equipped with high end converters, workstations and 1" ATR machines for just such purposes. These very producers and artists share their secrets for all to see. And yes it happens on hits, and it will happen much more in the future as producers now are pulling their own strings and are not just the puppets of the labels anymore.

The phrase mastering software is just a misnomer.
Mastering used to refer to tracking back in the days of the beatles. 2" multitrack tape is still called mastering tape by some companies.
Soon mastering was used to describe the process of mixing to a "master mix" all done in one chain.
Then later it described a process of sweeting the mix after mixing(also known as pre-mastering)
Now it's used to describe the sweetening and final placement of tracks on a CD.
It will continue to develop and change further with DVD(5.1, DTS, AC-3), SACD, Blu-ray discs, etc.

Normal Mastering? Instead of 'normal' substitute: outdated, obsolete, historical, snobby, pre-historical, expensive, etc.
If I was sitting on half a million bucks of vintage mastering equipment I would be defensive about it too, but I would also be very nervous, because it's becoming very apparent things are changing faster now than ever.

[jon sutton]

crm-

i meant to post this question here and accidentally posted it on the mac forum (BIG MISTAKE) i was wondering more what my options were to master at home for the simple goal of improving (not to be confused with "perfecting", "professionalizing", "make godly", "put masterdisk out of business") merely IMPROVING my sound.

i see now that this is a very sensitive issue and i probably would have gotten people wound up in the same manner you did. as for your question (that seems quite misunderstood) i am wondering if you are having a problem or maybe doing something different than i am. i wind up with a slightly lower volume after bounce than my collection of "pro" cd's but you are talking about one third of that volume. i am talking maybe 5% less volume. are you sure you are maximizing the volume on your master fader before you bounce? there has to be something you can do different. if you are hearing speaker hiss when raising your wav to an audible level, something is amiss.

good luck

[matocaster1202]

This is a great thread! It seems to come up every now and then, and I always learn something. One thing I do know is that I suck at soft mastering, and am pretty good at mixing. My question is how much can a mastering engineer really do? If I've got a good mix (although mine don't translate very well to other systems) and I send it to a good mastering engineer they will be able to get it to translate on other systems? I'm mixing with Alesis Monitor One's and a Hafler TA1100 amp. I can get it sounding great at all volume levels, and when I take a mix to my car, it sounds great there too. But it sounds way different on any other systems. Also what is the ideal mix levels to send to a mastering engineer? I would assume that they would want no EQ, comp, or limiting and it to peak at less than 0db. More thoughts on this would be great!

Mat