Izotope Ozone 4 is out

[glenn303]

so what is the best software for mastering?

opinions?

http://www.budovideos.com/shop/customer ... rce=nextag

[rustyman1]

what about Sony Sound Forge 9?
I a downloading that right now hehehe

[synnack]

anybody else that is older than 12?

I"m a huge fan of these.

http://www.rndigital.org/Master_Bundle.html

[foogermooger]

so what is the best software for mastering?

opinions?

Im older than 12.

But im still not telling you, go check some of those dodgy torrent sites you hang out at and see what they can recomend!

P.S did you mail customer support yet about your problem with Ableton?

Thanks

[rustyman1]

PostPosted: Sun Feb 01, 2009 9:10 pm Post subject: Reply with quote
rustyman1 wrote:
anybody else that is older than 12?


I"m a huge fan of these.

http://www.rndigital.org/Master_Bundle.html
_________________
so this is a plugin style mastering kit? and is it easier than sound forge but it is more expensive is the extra pricing worth it?

[Tarekith]

While in general I don't like Ozone that much, when I was doing a limiter shootout earlier this year among all the native AU limiters available on OSX, Ozone 3's limiter did very well (IMO), coming in just behind Voxengo's Elephant 3 in terms of transparency, stereo imaging, and just plain being clean sounding at equal amounts of gain reduction. I was surprised to be honest. Ozone's MBit+ dithering is very very good too, so for those two tools I think Ozone might be worth it. That said, I thought the reverb, metering, and EQ was only so so, if that.

I think for the average person looking to "master" their own tracks, Live 8's new tools will be more than enough. I don't think that anyone without some experience is going to get inherently better results from any other tool. While Live's new limiters and multiband are not what some might call "pro" level, I think they're more than good enough for the average bedroom muso looking to get that last bit out of their tunes.

Whenever people ask what mastering plug ins to get, it right away shows that they don't have a lot of experience in that aspect of music making, so I don't think it's worth invensting in those kind of tools until they understand the process better... And have trained their ears to where they can download the different demo versions and hear for themselves the differences, and what they prefer (hint hint).

[Nick the Zombie]

so what is the best software for mastering?

opinions?

The stuff YOU can torrent?

[aqua_tek]

is Elephant really THAT good? I've felt compelled to give it a try a few times but I always end up putting it off for later.

Anyways I've been looking at the UAD stuff, especially since the announcement of the Solo/Laptop card. Hotness. Though its pricey when you take into account the price of the card, and the price of each plugin after that. It almost feels like a binding membership deal for some expensive-ass club. Proably worth it though. Sigh... Decisions, decisions.

[rustyman1]

While in general I don't like Ozone that much, when I was doing a limiter shootout earlier this year among all the native AU limiters available on OSX, Ozone 3's limiter did very well (IMO), coming in just behind Voxengo's Elephant 3 in terms of transparency, stereo imaging, and just plain being clean sounding at equal amounts of gain reduction. I was surprised to be honest. Ozone's MBit+ dithering is very very good too, so for those two tools I think Ozone might be worth it. That said, I thought the reverb, metering, and EQ was only so so, if that.

I think for the average person looking to "master" their own tracks, Live 8's new tools will be more than enough. I don't think that anyone without some experience is going to get inherently better results from any other tool. While Live's new limiters and multiband are not what some might call "pro" level, I think they're more than good enough for the average bedroom muso looking to get that last bit out of their tunes.

Whenever people ask what mastering plug ins to get, it right away shows that they don't have a lot of experience in that aspect of music making, so I don't think it's worth invensting in those kind of tools until they understand the process better... And have trained their ears to where they can download the different demo versions and hear for themselves the differences, and what they prefer (hint hint).

thanx alot very useful info I will do just that download as many demos as posible and see which id prefer keeping in mind of my $500 budget.

[synnack]

I just thought add I'd the standard reminder.

That the best mastering is little mastering.


http://www.tarekith.com/assets/mastering.html

A good-sounding song doesn't need anything done to it by a mastering engineer. It already sounds good as is. This is what you should strive for.

[leedsquietman]

I pretty much agree with Tarekith - I think the metering is pretty great in Ozone but the mastering reverb and mastering EQ are weak. The multiband compressor is not too bad, ditto the limiter.

I think though that Voxengo Elephant 3 is the best choice for a native mastering limiter (this baby does it all), closely followed by Kjaerhus MPL-1 PRO. Both of these I rate higher than Waves products. I haven't tried the limiters by RND or Sonalksis though which look interesting, as does Crysonic's 'Spectra'phy'.

Thanks Tempus re the broken link, now fixed

[Tarekith]

To my ears, Elephant is definitely the best limiter I've ever used. Not only does it really stay transparent and not muck up the stereo imaging the way some limiters do, it has SOOO many controls to truly tailor it the material. Though i could see this being a negative for some people too, it's not always the easiest to use. Definitely my go to mastering limiter these days, I'm amazed it's as cheap as it is.

UAD's Precision Limiter is another excellent limiter, that was my go to limiter for a couple years when I had my UAD card.

The Sonalksis one was actually a HUGE let down for me. I waited months for that to get released, figured it would be class based on their excellent previous plug ins (SV-517 is my go to EQ for just about everything). Sadly, it didn't even come close to any of the other plug ins I tested. Lots of pumping at relatively minor amounts of limiting, not very transparent, really compressed the stereo imaging. I even sent them an email seeing if there was a buggy version online, as I didn't think there was anyway they could consider this a 'transparent mastering limiter'. They replied they were going for an analog transparency. It would be good for tracking or individual parts of a mixdown, but I'd not want to use it as a mastering limiter.

Waves L2 was another one that I used a lot in the past. Simple, does the job, and is largely transparent in small doses. It was the standard for years, but I think now a days there's a lot better options out there. Although that's general my thought about all Waves products to be honest.

[elemental]

I just thought add I'd the standard reminder.

That the best mastering is little mastering.


http://www.tarekith.com/assets/mastering.html

A good-sounding song doesn't need anything done to it by a mastering engineer. It already sounds good as is. This is what you should strive for.

That is something I also believe - however have been told otherwise by other producers and mastering engineers. There are those that say that its good to leave room for the mastering engineer to add phatness. I know people who's mixdowns sound pretty weak on their own, but after some creative mastering sound really full and phat. I dont do this tho, because when I'm producing its also for playing live, so I want each track to sound nice and full as it is. I use a lot of subtle distortion and saturation to achieve this. I've had at least one engineer complain about it tho.. that he couldnt get it to sound as load as he wanted. He suggested I do two mixdown versions, one for mastering and one for playing live.

[leedsquietman]

2 mixdowns is exactly what I would have suggested.

If you are sending something for mastering, you need to leave some headroom and dynamics.

You can always mix yourself a demo version with buss compression/limiting to pump up the volume for yourself or if you want that pumped up effect live.

Sonalksis SV517 mkII is one of my favourite EQs too. I love the essentials bundle, the SV 315 is one hell of a great compressor which also has limiting too. Disappointed to hear the mastering bundles were not as useful, I should download the demo I suppose and try it but really, Elephant is so good to my ears that I don't feel the need for anything else these days. You're right though that it isn't a one button push and fix plug in, although the el-uni algorithm is pretty good on most things,

[CR78]

SV-517 is my go to EQ for just about everything.

I'm wondering if you use it on individual instrument tracks or on the master channel?

Perhaps both.