mastering in pro tools????

[sonny7]

If I nedd to master an outside project (cd of 8 songs) in pro tools what are the ways of doing this. I have ozone lite that came with PT le : is this good enough or should i pay for the update to have the full version? (i know stupid quesiton thought ide ask anyhow)

Also would I import the whole cd in one session so all 8 songs are in the the same session so i can balance out volumes and so on??

any recoomendations are appreciated and thanks as always to a great place to acquire info and learn

[Windshore]

wow, given the nature of your questions, I'd strongly recommend hiring someone or at least getting a friend who has some experience to do this. Your reputation depends on the quality of what you put out and mastering is much more involved than having a few of the right plugins. It's worth asking around for someone to help you out - really.

[bzldzl]

Yeah mastering is not something to be taken lightly. It's the last step the music will be touched before it is forever complete.

Although, once you have your room, monitoring system, ears and some experience mastering you can do it right in pro tools. I actually am now finding I like mastering at the end of a mix session. Using waves mastering plugins I get great results and have the supreme luxury of still being able to fine tune the mix after the mastering process changes it slightly.

Mastering is an artform just like mixing is.

For you I would recomend to try what you got and let the people know you are not a mastering engineer and recommend they get a proffesional. If they are cool with you trying your shot at it be sure to listen to your product against what you want it to sound like when it is done. A couple of your favorite songs in the same genre.

Listen to your product against the sample songs in multiple systems, it will change a lot unless your room is dialed perfectly.

You can get satisfactory results likely but realize at the moment your are short on tools.

Generally do a effects chain of;
EQ
COMP
LIMITER
GRAPHIC ANALYZER (If you have one, will help see stuff you might not hear in your room)

Use the best ones you have.

[sonny7]

I did reccomend that the cd get mastered by a "professional" but they do not want to spend the $100 or so a song . Any way I said i de do it. I have mastered before but on windows using sound forge. The onloy plugins I have are what came w/ pro tools factory , the music prod. tool kit, ( the lite version of ozone)

Are there any plug in packages you reccomend, I keep hearing about waves packages, is ozone sufficient enough for me to buy the full version or should I get a waves bundle (also do you reccomend a waves bundle?)

thanks for ALL your advice, it is greatly appreaciated

[bzldzl]

I have the platinum bundle from Waves and use it a lot, the mastering plug ins you get with platinum are really nice and easy to work with.

Never worked with Ozone so can't comment on it.

Best thing to do would be the demos of different plug ins. Seems like everyone has different favorites.

Unless you have a lot of cash I would push what you have to the max first and be very selective of what plug ins you get next. Try the demos when you know what you are specifically lacking with your current stuff.

I would definetly recommend waves from my experience. McDSP seems nice as well but I only have their chrome tone plug in but it sounds good and the company is reliable too from my experience.

Another option is the music production toolkit. I just got it and can't comment too much but it does have digi's limiter smack and some other nice plug ins plus extra protools functionality.

[sonny7]

I do have the MP tool kit, would that be helpful for mastering?? The TL reverb is great (atleast much better than the D-verb it came with)

thanks again

[stoneinapond]

I do have the MP tool kit, would that be helpful for mastering?? The TL reverb is great (atleast much better than the D-verb it came with)

thanks again

Not really.

You might try Massey plug-ins. They are really cheap, you can demo them and the limiter is really good. Waves is a good choice, but you really need to go to the Platinum Bundle to get the decent tools, but that is not a cheap alternative.

Other than some decent EQ, a compressor and limiter plug-ins (given there are no serious problems with the audio) a greater consideration is the room you are working in and your monitoring.

If the room is untreated you might want to look at some low cost room treatment so that you know that what you are hearing is reasonably accurate.

[sonny7]

what do you tink of ozone ??? the lite version comes w/ pro tools. I was trying to avoid Putting out another 1000 (for waves) lol I have a mac pro quad core so it should handle anything I put in

[stoneinapond]

what do you tink of ozone ??? the lite version comes w/ pro tools. I was trying to avoid Putting out another 1000 (for waves) lol I have a mac pro quad core so it should handle anything I put in

Well, since the band doesn't want to spend even $800 on a professional mastering engineer, it makes little sense to spend a $1,000 on a bundle which won't really help much. I haven't used Ozone so I can't help you there.

In the end, do you know what you want to hear, do you know what the band wants to here? Comparing your work with commercial CDs that are in the ballpark for the band is good advice. The other thing to bear in mind is the arrangement of the tracks (order) and the timing of where one track ends and another begins (or crossfades if that is what you are after.) And that can only be done using your own innate sense of taste and timing.

[denka]

I recommend you McDSP Project Studio - excellent bundle of 7 lite (but great) versions of famous plugins. This bundle could be your giant step forward in the way you do your mixing and mastering. And, you can separately upgrade any of plugins to the full version (I did it with 4 of them!).

If the price of $495 is too high for your budget, upgrading to Ozone is the second best option, IMHO. I discovered recently that it was cheaper to buy full versions of of Ozone, Trash or Spectral than using Izotope's own upgrade path. Go to audiomidi.com choose electronic delivery and save some money. Disclaimer: I did this a month ago and don't know if they still have such offers for those 3 plugins!

Well, I almost forgot DUY EverPack Bundle - great bundle at great price (all plugins are full versions.)