Cpl questions for Chris Cavell about Waves

[skyking]

Chris i have a cpl questions before i dive into buying the Waves Mastering Bundle......you mentioned in another post that you thought it rivaled its competition and i just wanted to know a cpl things.....first of all i heard that the tools in the bundle eat up cpu and im wondering if you normaly use the tools as part of a session or if you create a new 2 track session and then use the mastering tools ....im concerned i may not have enuff cpu left at the end of a session to run the Waves Mastering stuff and wondered how you do that........it may be as simple as using them in audiosuite rather than as a plug in i just dont know is all....then i was wondering if they provided any mastering pre sets to get a person started.....any other info you have id be curious..thanks Chas

[marcusb]

why don't you just download the demo and try for yourself

[Chris Cavell]

Chas,

First of all, I never, and I mean never master inside of protools! I often use the masters plugs as part of my mastering in Wavelab (why wavelab? b/c it offers a very extensive suite of analysis tools) amongst other programs. Second, the masters plugs are extrememly powerful and "transparent" tools...meaning, they won't color your song really at all, but if not used properly, they either do little or completely squash a mix...it's a very fine line. For example, the guidelines in the manual for using the linear multiband will sort of get you on the same block as the ballpark but the plug at the same time has the capability to completely suck the life out of the mix if you go overboard.

In my honest opinion, most engineers should stay away from the masters bundle unless they really know how to master. If they don't, I think the masters bundle is a waste of money...if they do, it's worth more than every penny. My suggestion to anyone even considering purchasing the masters bundle without first having detailed knowledge and considerable experience mastering is to get a few more sets of monitors and spend some money making the room where you mix as "perfect" as possible. You'll get a lot more bang for your buck going this route than you will by not fully comprehending the power and use of these plugs. In the end, it's up to you. If you think you're ready for them, go for it, if you're hesitant, get a second monitor setup, maybe even a third and hire an outside mastering engineer.


-Chris

[skyking]

sorry it took me so long to get back to this Chris but thanks for the response to both you and marcusb....im just home studio guy but im getting better as time goes by thanks to the DUC and improving gear and trial and error with alot of error in there prolly but what i want is to master the cd our band is doing right now and thought we could spend the money on the waves mastering bundle and do it ourselves rather than have to pay someone, but i didnt realize you shouldnt master inside of pro tools and thats all i got.....i thought about getting TC Finalizer cuz i thought they had some pre sets that would get me close but then i read some ppl dont like the finalizer and i talked to the guy at sweetwater and he said pretty much what you said about the waves being great stuff by comparisan.....im sure what im doing is light years behind the level of work you do being a mastering engineer but was i was hopin we could bump our cd up a notch or 2 in quality by spending a few bucks on this stuff before we sent it off to a duplicating house..i may look at that free download marcusb mentioned that i wasnt awre of just to check it out...again thanks for your time!! chas

[Chris Cavell]

Definitely give the demo a shot. I'm just not sure that the money wouldn't often be better spent elsewhere by many engineers who wind up buying it. I didn't say that you definitely shouldn't master in PT; evidently some people do, and digi advertises that you can, but I personally feel it isn't up to the task, but that's just my opinion.

[skyking]

i get what you are saying yep and i can imagine there are horror storys about ppl screwing things up that dont know what they are doing when it comes to mastering like me....i tried downloading the demo and that turned out to be a nightmare ...i now have about 5 things in my audiosuite all called L2 mono and cant even use that without authorization.....live and learn......thanks alot Chris for the insight on this...chas

[lemix]

skyking ,

I'm totally with C.C. on that one, even though I do run PT now, all my mastering is done outside.
I use WaveLab with combination of external hardware.
As far as the TC Finalizer go...it's just a tool, like many others. Most negative feedback comes from users who don't fully understand it's power/functions/limitations.
I use the Plus version with great results. However, my very first session w/it went straight south,
I did not use caution and over processed my audio.

Always listen/compare when processing masters. Have a calibrated playback chain and know your speakers/room really well !

happy tooling,
cheers,