mastering programs....

X

xerxes

X Marks the Toneologist
i have spent a loooong time finally finishing up my bands album...and i really want to master it and have it printed up. this company i know of does a great job doing it (both actually www.discmakers.com ) however im on a tight budget after recording....i could probably do it, but it would take months to get enough money.....so yea

anyone know any good mastering programs to use on the computer? (i have a mac). thanks
 
Re: mastering programs....

Mastering somthing properly is an art. It takes years of training to learn. There is no computer program that will give you the same level of final production that you would get by taking your album to a proper mastering place.
 
Re: mastering programs....

I'll be interested to see if anyone has a good answer for you, because I've been wanting something like this as well.

From what I understand, the software is fairly expensive and has a very steep learning curve.
 
Re: mastering programs....

hmmm got ya...lol

aight sounds like its to this place....thats what ive heard as well, btw, but i thought there might be somehting....
 
Re: mastering programs....

See if Jeff will chime in.. he will give you the straightest answer. Me.. i have no clue lol.
 
Re: mastering programs....

There are several different means and levels of mastering and by no means can I explain all your options just generalize. Proper mastering is going to cost a few hundred and its going to have to go to a studio with high end conversion and audio tools. Never is this more important than when you are dealing with 24bit 96khz-192khz sampling rates where resampling and dithering down to 16 bits accurately is extremely important. Then there is always just beefing up your levels and adding a slight eq touch etc. which can be done at home on a computer. It again just depends on what tools you have. Something like T-Racks mastering program sounds like poo to me and I can't stand it. Then there's programs like Bias Peak that sound really good and are really accurate. I'll typically throw up a little overall eq if needed and an L2 maximizer on a final track just to get a little more volume, tightness, and a little more ooomph without squashing the mix but it still doesn't compare to a professionally mastered cd.
 
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Re: mastering programs....

Yeah, it'll never sound professionally mastered, without taking it to a Mastering studio.

What I do is have a C4 (multiband compressor) and L2 on the output chain. I've heard awesome things done with a bit of Izotope Ozone and BBE applied, as well.
 
Re: mastering programs....

mastering is truly an art form, and an expensive one at that, for even if you "acquired" the right software, you still need accurate and flat reference monitors to make sure that you arent just mastering for the set of speakers you are mixing on. Also you need an ear that is sensitive to what is going on and what sounds good which is developped over time, for a quickie mastering job however you can always use a program like ozone which will do a decent job without too much knowledge or effort (which is why im starting to experiment with it haha)
 
Re: mastering programs....

bulb said:
mastering is truly an art form, and an expensive one at that, for even if you "acquired" the right software, you still need accurate and flat reference monitors to make sure that you arent just mastering for the set of speakers you are mixing on. Also you need an ear that is sensitive to what is going on and what sounds good which is developped over time, for a quickie mastering job however you can always use a program like ozone which will do a decent job without too much knowledge or effort (which is why im starting to experiment with it haha)
Click to expand...


yea, i have studio monitors....lol

im pretty anal about sound, ill probably just send it out...
 
Re: mastering programs....

ahh nice, so mastering by yourself could still be an option, try it out and see how your mix sounds on different systems.
Another thing which is a huge pain and makes a big differnce is treating your room for mixing, like putting foam on the walls and sound traps in the right places, which can be very expensive but some might even argue that its not even worth using monitors unless you are in a treated room, personally i wouldnt take it that far, but i wouldnt go buy a pair of event asp-8's or dynaudios without a treated room.
for right now, i am personally looking at a pair of yamaha hs-50's cuz apparently they are very flat and accurate and you can get them to be accurate without treating the room..
 
Re: mastering programs....

xerxes said:
yea, i have studio monitors....lol

im pretty anal about sound, ill probably just send it out...
Click to expand...


I think this is probably your best bet . . . even if you have great ears and studio monitors, you'll probably have been the one that mixed the whole song to begin with. Sometimes another set of ears can hear things that you've become deaf to . . .
 
Re: mastering programs....

Ozone works great for putting stuff on the web etc. If you're serious about your work and want it to be the best it can be AND have the money, send it out.
 
Re: mastering programs....

If you end up doing this a lot, and you feel it's worth it, the TC Finalizer Express is an awesome hardware mastering unit, for not too much coin.
 
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Re: mastering programs....

GuitarStv said:
Mastering somthing properly is an art. It takes years of training to learn. There is no computer program that will give you the same level of final production that you would get by taking your album to a proper mastering place.
Click to expand...


+1

I have used T-Racks for polishing up demos a bit, just to bring out some clarity, boost things, and warms things up a bit. This doesn't in any way replace that expensive analog equipment and a mastering engineer that knows what they are doing.

Most CD's that come out of mastering houses are good, but the best stuff I've ever heard has come from Ted Jensen at Sterling Sound in NYC. He mastered Dave Matthews Band's "Under the Table and Dreaming", and Jason Mraz's first release.
 
Re: mastering programs....

Doing 'yer own mastering is kind of like doing your own dental surgery.

You probably could pull it off but it's not recommened to even attempt.

Mastering is about giving your stuff the final creative tweek...adding a final coat of polish that will take that collection of individual songs & turn them into a "record."

It's also the first step of the duplication/replication process.

Not a place to skimp on quality because it's REAL easy to hit the "suck" button and destroy everything that you've worked so hard on or at worst...end up with a 1000+ shrinkwrapped discs that have errors on them because somebody screwed up the master that went to the plant.

Sure, you could spend a couple hundered bucks on a program to do it yourself but IMO it's not worth it unless you can put A LOT of distance between the yourself and the project...to approach it with a 'clean slate' and in a new room with different monitors then you used for recording & mixing.

Otherwise you'll be hearing all the same flaws & holes that were there in mixing and probably just make 'em worse.

Self-mastering...

A smart man wouldn't do it.

Nor would a lazy man.

I can't recommend Discmakers for mastering either. I had one artist bring their project there to "save money" over using one of my regular connections and they DESTORYED all the tonality that was in the mixes.

One song had a long, 20 second fade-in that was reduced to a 6 second fade because they used so much limting...to say nothing of the overall tone which was bright, harsh & super thin. The ME at the discmakers lab used a super steep high-pass filter to take off everything below 50Hz so "he could get the level up."

:eek13:

:no:

It's not like that client really saved anything either...after spending just over $10K to record & mix his record he decided to save maybe $500 or so by NOT using my regular guy (who's got a list of releases a mile long & has been nominated for several Grammys) and in the end, he wasn't happy with the final product...citing how much better the whole thing sounded before Discmakers did their damage.

If 'ya want...send me an email with your budget and I'll toss out some names of people who don't suck.

moose@mooseaudio.net
 
Re: mastering programs....

thanks for the headsup moose....ill deff send u an email...prob in the next few days....


a different question now....how about a program where i can just get all the sound volume on all the osngs equal? is there a simple program i can use? i have this gig on wed and we are gonna try to get some albums out, and the volumes are basically all the same, but i notice some VERY slight differences....anything easy i can do?
 
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