Mastering Tricks

[Kon Alexiou]

I use PT 7.3 as well as the Sonnox plug in bundle. I would like to master a bunch of acoustic songs (2 guitars and 2 vocals) which have been bounced to mono tracks

A few questions I hope someone can help me with:

* Can I just carry out the entire mastering process in PT itself using my existing plugins?

* If not, which program is best for mastering? I am on budget (max $400 USD), I know a friend who uses Wavelab and says it's ok. Any opinions on this? Basically, I need an 'all in one' easy to use package that will help me put tracks in order, edit track length and create enough space between each track for the final CD burn. I found the Sonnox plugins are already very good in terms of adding EQ and compression.


* Within which volume range should I master?

Thanks PT friends! :confused::o
KA.

[nst7]

If you're already satisfied with the overall sound and eq, etc., then it sounds like you need a basic CD burning program that will also do some editing, etc. If you're on a Mac, your best bet would be Bias Peak LE 6, which sells for about $99.

I'm curious because you said the songs had been bounced down to a mono track. Not sure I understand why that would be the case. Even if you pan everything to the center, you still would want the final bounced down mix to be stereo.

[se.audio]

PT is more than capable to give you big masters.
You just need to use it properly=

Separate session with MS routing

the right plugins (sonnox are great, but also look into tape sat plugs, mastering comp, multiband comp, lin phase EQ)

I do all my masters with PT and I can ASSURE you that you can get things sounding as big as the commercial stuff out there.

[AfterJohn]

Waveburner. If you have Logic Studio, it's bundled in there. If not, B+H Photo sells it for $409.99

[The Dougfather]

After a few years of using peak for mastering i'm ditching it for Pro Tools, for red book burning you can easily use toast. I just find peak so clucnky to use and you have to use Vbox for decent recall, it's a PIA and prone to crashes. At least with tools you just save the session and be done.

I only use peak now for very quick edits and tidy ups, tails etc.

The sonnox bundle is fantastic, you can't go far wrong. The only other thing i would add would be an EQ capable of mid/side.

[Kon Alexiou]

Thanks Nino. I will try and explore PT further - after all it is a great program.
By the way, what does MS mean? Cheers, Kon.

[Kon Alexiou]

Thanks NST 7 I'll check that out.
Basically we're mono recording. We're doing it old style! We spent a few hours figuring out where to position ourselves and our guitars around our mic > straight into a UA LA 610 pre-amp. In terms of sound quality, the results are great.

So basically, our initial result is in mono. Do you think we should still go for a stereo end result?

[Kon Alexiou]

Thanks Dougfather...After all I may just end up with PT! So, would it simply be a case of bouncing down everything in PT and then finally burning the CD in Toast?

The Sonnox plug ins speak for themselves. I've tried many others and I always come back to Sonnox. Their eq is so flexible and the compressor is a nice all-rounder.

Cheers,
Kon.

[nst7]

I believe you ultimately need to have the master on a stereo track, even if it means your instruments are panned to the center. When you want to put it on a cd, there may be issues with trying to burn just a mono track. I'm not sure it would even work, or it might come out only one speaker, etc.

Toast is very popular and has some other features besides audio. It does some things for video burning as well. Peak LE is primarily audio. They are both around the same price. You might want to look at the products on their respective websites. I think you can download a demo of Peak, but I'm not sure about Toast.

[Kon Alexiou]

OK thanks NST7 that's good advice. I'll try it out.
Cheers.
Kon.