MASTERING Equipment Ideas for new facility...

[georgia]

Hi,

I've been asked to handle the technology for a new mix/mastering private facility for a well know Composer. I'm looking for some points of view and potential equipment you would put in a facility if quality not money were driving your decision....

Thanks in advance for any insight.

Cheers
georgia

[jai7388]

System 6000 by T.C. Electronic. Use it in the Mix process, unreal reverbs, switch it over in the mastering process. Really cool thing about it, I like the converters better than the apogee stuff. Great front end to Ptools. The analog 24/96 cards are a must have if buying IMHO.

just the 2 cents,

Jai
www.themixstudio.com

[georgia]

Thanks for the reply! The 6000 is already in the plans, in fact i have 3 6000's and a 960L planned. I personally love the 6000. Any ideas on analog or digital outboard mastering hardware?
DAW systems for mastering? All of this has to be abole to handle 7.1, but do mostly 5.1.

cheers
georgia

[Chief Technician]

Any ideas on analog or digital outboard mastering hardware?

I haven't used this, but I know an engineer I used to work with AND the engineer he sends most of his projects to for mastering (high profile and in NY) swear by the Dangerous 2bus by Dangerous Music. As I understand it, it is an analog summing bus for digital mixes (I believe it does the D/A).

DAW systems for mastering?

Sonic Solutions still exists, though I have never used it for surround.

[RobMacki]

A search or post on GearSlutz may be helpful too.
There are threads on the Dangerous 2 bus (Jules uses) and the Cranesong Hedd is a must have too.
These two are on my list.

[imastering.com]

Hello Georgia,
it seems like you have a great gig ahead of you. Congrats....
Basically, if money were to be no object...well there ususally is a cap...is there?

More important than gear itself is to plan how is it that you want to do things. New stuff keeps coming out ALL the time. A lot of us engineers get used to certain flavors of converters, compression and so forth...and WE all like to recommend them...

Of course, unless you have being doing mastering for a while, it maybe a bit hard to forsee exactly how will you do things.
For example, How much analog Eq'ing do you want to do? Before going into the Daw? Would you rather EQ in the Daw itself, digitally? you want both? i know i do...but years of work lead me to choose certain paths more than others....

Have you tested your hearing? How about your room acoustics?
Now, will you be doing tons of R & B? For mixing R & B subs are generally essential...for mastering...well...Full range speakers are best....but then again a 5.1 Dyneaudio Air 15's with the updated 192 khz' would be nice...or do you need the Air 20's?...let see, i think Sting had his latest DVD mastered in London...and that facility uses Air 15's...? Genelec...Post guys swear by them...for my type of hearing, they are great you know, but I rather use other speakers....
So as you already know, options are many.
Acoustics are crucial...what's the lenght of the room...you know you have to deal with certain wavelengths...if you room is a bit small you will have to work on 'acousticizing' a sweet spot fro your listening...and so forth...

Don't even dream of trying to place an EQ before the power amp or pre Powered speakers, in order to 'tune' your room....
So speaker selection becomes crucial...
Then comes your way of working iteself....yes we want highly flexible routing, both analog and also digital...so custom ordering a console would be nice....
Or is Mastering more of a 'once in a while' thing?
If you are using the same DAW for mixing and Mastering...then i assume you will use PT HD...
Audio cube would be nice if you were only doing Mastering....
And so on....

ooopss...converters....two or three years ago there were only a few choices...these days i would say you have Several choices..all good and at diverse prices...I mean the 192 has really great A/D...beyond that get ready to spend about 8k for a couple of channels.....Apogee? they are quite nice of course, but guess what: Engineers who are used to their 'colored' sound (yes, they are like 'French' vanilla, where 'vanilla' alone would be the 'measuring standard'; and i do love french vanilla, but not crazy about the apogees), they should keep using Apogee if they are used to their sound...as for me transparency is crucial...
D/A's are very important, how many do you need? 8, 16, 32? 7k. 14k. 21k prices ? See what i mean? cost does matter....
Will you be working at 192 most of the time?
then you may think of leaving PCM behind...then you want Meitners...
But then DSD is still a teenager...

Yup, the TC piece is sweet...for reverbs, sampled reverbs are very nice....
Have you heard of Syntefex in england? ( i think that is the right spelling)

Best wishes. if you wish to chat just let me know.
i got a call earlier from one of my 'consultees' going into the Hit Factory...discussing 'post-protools' vs vintage analog tape...maybe getting ready to purchase a nice MCI 24 channel, just to flavor mixes once in a while...but i'll bet I wont use it more than once a year on my occasional mixing jobs....at the price of an stereo compressor...not bad

[georgia]

hi , wow thanks for the tips.

We've been building studios for a number of years. Always recording & post facilities, never a mastering suite. We're being very careful in doing our homework. We're basically up to speed on everything except the latest "MASTERING" toys. The room has been designed. The acoustics are being handled by a high end acoustics firm. We're building the technology infrastructure. Most of the rooms are basic editing suites and we're all set there. We have a complete handle on and have built rooms for SDDS, Dolby and DTS so thats in the bag. But selection of actual outboard mastering toys is the hole in my knowledge base, so any ideas for toys are greatly apperciated.
We will be dealing with a LOT of formats in this room so any outboard toys needs to be , at least, 5.1 capable. ( or at least we need to buy 6 channels of everything )... Lots of fun, but serious homework time. We also do not want to overspend. I don't want the client coming back in 2 months saying " why did I buy this!!?" SO we want to be very sure the right, and only the right, tools are selected in the end. There are also a LOT of tech requirements so money will be tight due to the amount of equipment required. Therefore, we are also looking for best bang-for-the-buck.

For the record I'll be happy to report on the final outcome. We've already been talking to a number of mastering houses & engineers and have been getting al lot of support.

cheers
georgia

[froyo]

Hello. Well since you are just asking about toy suggestions, how about Z systems digital patchbays/ sample rate converters line, Z systems mastering EQ line, SNS Fibre channel SAN's, Manley SLAM. Those are off the top of my head for now. Good luck!

[georgia]

yup.... z-systems are already planned. ( eqs, and digital routing systems )

Cheers
georgia

[wolfhound]

maybe the new SSL XLogic multi channel compressor?

Haven't tried it, but always loved their stereo compressor...