What mastering Program to buy after mix is done?

[BigRedButton]

frstrtdmac & bjoneill74 -

That's why we're reccomending programs like Sound Forge & T-Racks.

Affordable & down & dirty.

[frstrtdmac]

Originally posted by David Fisher:
And did you mix in the box? There has been much discussion about this on the TDM/HD forum lately. Very very few people mix in the box. I mean you can get good results, but taking it to a large studio and going through a large console will do you much better than mixing in the box. LE does have it up on TDM/HD because of our Mixbus being floating point, so that may have some positive effect. It still doesn't replace a good mix engineer and an SSL.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Mix in the box? What do you mean? DO you mean re mixing? sending outs to my mixer then back through to the card? Explain!

[dodo]

Send it to a mastering engineer. It is well worth the money. If you work hard on your mix then don't mess it up with mastering software. Always leave room in your budget to send out for mastering. I've used the same guy for years and I wouldn't do anything different. [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[Jonah]

I bought Digi001 because I got way better results than from my Fostex / Seck-and-a-few-outboards 8-track-bounce-the £$%&* to death combination that I'd had for twelve years. That cost me £2500.
The Digi gave me 24 ( now 32 ) tracks, loadsa plug-ins, massive editing capability and so-o-o-o much more. For a fraction of the cost.
I can master stuff myself but it will never, ever be as good as using a pro mastering engineer and you really shouldn't expect it to unless you're prepared to spend more dough and, more importantly, invest a lot of time in training and gaining experience.
Mark my words, the end result you get from PT with even a little care and attention is almost infinitely beter than the quality of sound you would have got not so long ago!
Sorry to rant, but you just have to accept how far we've all come in a decade.

[jtplayer]

I would have to agree with Jonah, we have come a long way when it comes to home recording technology.

I am constantly amazed by the results I get with PT LE on my off the shelf Dell computer. Certainly far better than anything I ever did on my Roland VS-880. Not to mention that when I bought the Roland several years ago (for a couple of thousand dollars [img]images/icons/shocked.gif[/img] ) it was one of the most "cutting edge" digital units on the market at that time.

I do know that the kind of work you can turn out on a PT LE system, without a lot of effort, would have required a professional studio not too many years ago. At least that's been my experience.

That being said, I wonder how many of you out there who are interested in professional vs. home mastering are actually marketing your music?

The reason I ask is for my purposes, which is making music as a hobby, I feel I get very good results "mastering" right in Pro Tools. I am always reworking and tweaking my mixes as I learn more about recording, and when I A/B my stuff against professional releases I am very pleased with my work.

That's not to say that my music is ready for commercial release, it just means that as a comparison it's not bad at all. The levels are right there, my mixes sound clear and coherent with a nice, full sound quality through out.

I have been a huge music fan my entire life and I have a very extensive CD collection. The point is I listen to a lot of music and I have developed specific ideas about what sounds good to me. When I compare music that I write, play and record all by myself, sitting in my living room and recording on a Dell computer and Toolbox XP (that I bought for $199 on sale) I am amazed at what I hear. I just don't hear a huge gap between my stuff and my CD collection.

Sure it would be nice to be using top quality converters, pres, reverbs, etc., but I'm on a limited budget. I feel that what's available in the home recording market is certainly more than good enough for most of us out there.

So out of curiosity, how many of you are actually releasing your music, or are you strictly interested in making it sound as good a possible?

I would like to add that if I were going to market my music, I would probably send it out to be mastered. The reason being I would want it to sound as good as possible and on par with the "competition" so to speak.

Thanks,

JT [img]images/icons/cool.gif[/img]

[Oz-boy]

No software program will do the same job that a professional mastering studio will do.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Agreed David ... problem is in most towns there's professional & professional.
I find with most of my projects that I can get a better quality master than many of the so-called professional mastering studios. Just because a studio has all the right gear doesn't mean the bozo behind it knows what he's doing!

If you can afford to get it mastered by a true professional who has built a reputation & has good credits then go for it ... what they do can't be beat! But if money is tight investing some $$ in your own setup may be better than giving it to some schmuck!

And did you mix in the box? ... It still doesn't replace a good mix engineer and an SSL.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">The good mix engineer being the most important aspect [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img] Same applies here ... get a good engineer to do 2 mixes ... one in the box & one on an SSL & 9 time out of 10 the SSL mix will sound better. But a bozo with an SSL is still a bozo [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

Oz

ps. I use wavelab with waves mastering bundle & it does a seriously good job ... when I get it right that is [img]images/icons/tongue.gif[/img]

[odysseys]

Originally posted by David Fisher:
And did you mix in the box? There has been much discussion about this on the TDM/HD forum lately. Very very few people mix in the box. I mean you can get good results, but taking it to a large studio and going through a large console will do you much better than mixing in the box. LE does have it up on TDM/HD because of our Mixbus being floating point, so that may have some positive effect. It still doesn't replace a good mix engineer and an SSL.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Wait a minute.This is a protools LE forum.If anyone could afford to master his work in a promastering studio he wouldn't have bought Digi001 from the first place.
PS. I can,too,easily say that SSL sucks and REALLY good mix engineers will come out from forums like this. [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[8mmOverdose]

i say get wavelab and do it yourself. you need to realize that not everyones mixes will be "great" the first few times through. mastering it yourself gives you more experience with your gear and techniques. ie, if after you finish you realize that the actual mix sounds crappy, you can always remix and its only gonna cost you your time. sending a crappy mix to a mastering engineer is not going to come back major label quality no matter how good he is. when you perfect your mixing techniques and are ready to do a larger release of your music, then it might be time to get it professionally mastered. hope this helps.

[Polaris20]

Sound Forge 6 kicks all forms of ass. I love it. It is far superior to 4.5 that I previously was using.

[froyo]

Hello. I don't think anyone has asked this directly, but what do you want the 'master' for. I know you mentioned in a previous post you just want to hear your music clearly. If you just want it for you and your band mates that's different than if you want to present to the public for sale or as a finished demo product to shop around with record labels or producers.

If you just want it for yourself and your band mates, do it yourself or have someone do it on your system with some plug ins. T-Racks, TC Master-X are good. Hell, just use some Waves stuff like the L1 or L2, Q10, C4 on a Master fader; in other words, throw some EQ, comp/limiting, reverb on the Master fader and use that as 'mastering'.

If you want to present to someone and have some sort of professional product you need to spend some bucks. Either getting some high end gear or sending it to a mastering house. Remember, mastering houses are like other studios. They have down time and they do take smaller budget projects. Also there are some mastering houses that cover this market. You won't spend $200 to $300 however. Look more for $800 to $1500.

In my opinion, you have to decide exactly what it is you want. If you want a professional sound or something similar to that oy have to be prepared to pay for it. Mastering is one of the few things that stick very closely to the 'you get what you pay for' in our industry. You can record and mix and have a very professional product with little money. Mastering is a different monster. In my opinion, with mastering it is very hard to get a Penthouse at the Plaza by paying single room at Motel 6 rates. You get what you pay for.