Mastering software question

[Elton Hyland]

Greetings, I purchased the 003 Rack. Unlike the 003 Factory, it did not come with any software to master a CD. While I know nothing of mastering yet, I thought I would get an opinion on what is the best software or technique for mastering CD's?
The guy at the store wanted to sell me a CD creator package from ROXIO. I read the label carefully and came to the conclusion that this is probably not what I want. Seems to me that all it did was burn and label CD's. Any suggestions?

[albee1952]

My fav is WaveLab with the Waves mastering tools that are available in several of their bundles. Lots of other choices out there like Maxim. I'm sure other options will be added shortly to this thread.

[drumnow]

yeah, I use some waves stuff and some UAD stuff for my mastering. Typically:
1. UAD multiband compressor
2. waves 8 band eq
3. UAD la2a compressor
4. UAD pultec pro eq
5. waves mastering limiter
not in that order and not necessarily all of them. depending on the sound that we are shooting for I will typically mix and match.

mw

[NickH]

...it did not come with any software to master a CD. While I know nothing of mastering yet, I thought I would get an opinion on what is the best software or technique for mastering CD's?

Mastering is a scarily deep subject, which can take decades to learn properly…

If you are mastering for a label release, I strongly recommend you seek out the services of a professional mastering house…

The benefits of another set of good ears & a different room alone are worth the cost.


However with that said, there are times when self mastering is the only option, usually when the band or label doesn’t want to pay for a mastering house.

There are many great tools; I personally prefer Sony’s CD Architect for the red book audio CD authoring:-

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/...ct=cdarchitect

Wavelab is fine also, but has a needlessly overcomplicated GUI & work path IMO if you are only doing Audio Masters…

As for Mastering Limiters I personally don’t think you can go too far wrong with the Massey L2007, I prefer it to the waves L2 and it costs a substantial amount less:-

http://www.masseyplugins.com

In fact he even has a free demo version!

Cheers

N

[Elton Hyland]

Thanks a bunch for the info. It seems I really need to read up on the subject as most of what you said, went right over my head. Is there tutorials out there dealing with mixing / mastering that are worth their salt? Some tutorials are pretty bad.

[kRokksOn]

Try www.izotope.com
and check out Izotope ozone. It´s a great all in one plug in for mastering (EQ, Multiband compressor, dither, maximiser, stereo imager, master reverb, exciter and tons of options)
Also there is a very nice Mastering and a dithering guide available for download, free.

Best part, You can insert it as a plug-in directly in protools and do your mastering there.

[danwillrock]

I have to agree. Izotope is the best all in one bang for your buck solution out there, hands down. I had my last EP mastered at discmakers and to their credit they did a really great job of polishing a mix with some serious mix problems (back then, well...I just sucked at mixing...). But just the other day I loaded those old sessions and put Ozone on the master fader and within few minutes I felt like a pro mastering dude....which leads to me to a question about Ozone.....hopefully someone out there can help:

When I put Ozone on the master fader, it seems to process the audio right then and there. So whatever module I enable (Eq, Comp, Loudness max., etc.) affects what I hear through my monitors....and it sounds good!!! BUT......when I bounce to disc, PT bypasses Ozone!!! What gives? The Dither manual states (in the PT section near the end) that you all you need to do bounce the session and choose 16 bit, 44.1 and let'er rip. I think I'm missing something though. I think you have to set PT to use Ozone to dither. I do notice that in prefrences, on the processing tab, digi uses its own dithering process when bouncing....and it looks like you can possibly set it to use something else (like Ozone) but I cant figure it out....it only gives me one option...digirack "dither" Can Anybody help here?

otherwise I have to bounce the file via digi's dithering software, and then import it to another session (a single stereo mix track) and slap Ozone on as a plugin on that track and bounce again....but I think this defeats the purpose of Ozones superior dithering....because I'm essetially triple dithering to get that final file....and manual explains very clearly that you should only dither ONCE.

any thoughts? thanks for any replies in advance. Maybe this is a whole new topic.....?

[seattleguitarman]

Is it merely that Pro Tools' bounce to disk is set to do processing after the bounce...and hence that crunching would occur once you quit hearing the real-time play of the mix?

[Stiff]

I think we'll have to separate two things here - processing and red booking. If you're talking about the processing itself like EQing, compressing and so on, most of what you'll need is in Pro Tools. My favorite plug-in for this is by far Flux Solera, it's so much better than anything else I've tried. If you want my tip on a separate limiter then I'd say McDSP ML4000, while the Massey certainly is good, they really are different animals. In fact, McDSP have a pretty nice set of plug-ins for mastering. For EQ, Flux Epure... I've been using this a lot lately, sometimes even on individual tracks, but mostly on mix busses... I'm getting OT, over and out...

[Herkimer]

Check page 27 of the Izotope Dithering guide. http://www.izotope.com/products/audio/ozone/guides.html

It will walk you through a ditering and bounce example using ProTools.

I love ozone too.