Thinking about getting a mastering app... What do you use?

[elcappn]

WaveLab works just fine on Mac. It's so much of a direct port from Windows that you'd think you're working on a PC when WaveLab is open. Since you already have an e-Licenser key, you can download and try the demo version.

You might also want to look into Ozone 6 for quick mastering.

[mhschmieder]

As the demo doesn't last long, I am holding off until I am 100% confident I have my final mixes for this album I'm producing, but I plan to download a trial of the full master edition of soundBlade as it looks to be the most professional, full-featured, and best workflow and graphics at the moment.

I've tried and/or own them all, and still use BIAS Peak as I prefer its wave editing and other features that I use all the time vs. only some of the time. But more and more I am using iZotope RX4 Advanced in sequence (one at a time, which is all it supports) for my final mastering plug-in chain, saving each stage as a progressively renamed file that indicates which plug-ins have been applied.

The soundBlade app seems the most complete in terms of CD Mastering needs. You have to buy up to get everything you need, but it's cheaper to start with the low edition and upgrade your way to the top edition vs. buying the top edition outright.

At some point, I will no longer be able to use BIAS Peak Pro. Possibly when I finally finish this project and dare to upgrade to Yosemite (or whatever comes after it).

[monkey man]

... You have to buy up to get everything you need, but it's cheaper to start with the low edition and upgrade your way to the top edition vs. buying the top edition outright...

Bizarre, but kinda cool, Mark.

[mikehalloran]

SoundBlade certainly looks great but I don't see what advantages it has over what I already have. I use DP to get it there and DSP-Q to add the Red Book features. True, I have Ozone and RX Advanced, Xenon and other plugs.

I just don't see what else SoundBlade brings to the table besides a great looking interface... and support for 384kHz recording?

The pricing model is a bit strange in that it costs less to start with LE and upgrade.

[mikehalloran]

I find DP and Toast handle my mastering needs. That, Cytomic "The Glue" and Waves L3.

I take back some of what I wrote. You master in DP, then add your CD Text, ISRC and UPC data in Toast. That works well and is what I did before DSP-Q.

Back to Toast for a moment. Yes, you can do what you need and it looks like v 12.1 has taken care of the bugs that caused 11 to crash or not recognize my USB bus. Overall, I like it.

Still, there are a couple of things that annoy me – these should have been dealt with in v 7.

The first is the documentation. Can you enter ISRC and UPC? Yes but the 130 page .pdf makes no mention of it. You can Google this and find page after page of people asking how until someone answers. It's Toast Preferences/Audio check Show advanced audio mastering settings – now you can find it in the Audio window by going to Options.

Next is a playback issue. You break an audio file into parts so that each has its own track listing, say a live recording or medley where you want the transition to be seamless. Easily done in DP. Now you drop those tracks into Toast with 0 seconds between. On playback, you hear an audio glitch at each track change. When you burn and test the CD, you will find the transition seamless as it was in DP. I have filed bug reports with every version complaining about these and feel that it goes into the æther, never to be known again. That was the issue that led me to finally go with DSP-Q after reading the many recommendations around here.

Toast and DiskLabel don't always play nice when iTunes is up. I suspect a possible memory leak in iTunes (among its many issues).

[billf]

SoundBlade certainly looks great but I don't see what advantages it has over what I already have. I use DP to get it there and DSP-Q to add the Red Book features. True, I have Ozone and RX Advanced, Xenon and other plugs.

I just don't see what else SoundBlade brings to the table besides a great looking interface... and support for 384kHz recording?

The pricing model is a bit strange in that it costs less to start with LE and upgrade.

I'm in the same camp as you Mike. It's something I am keeping in my back pocket, waiting to see what happens with DSP-Q in terms of a version 5 (or not). As of right now though, Peak still works for me, DSP-Q works, and I have the iZotope apps. At some point something in that combination may need to change (e.g. Peak breaks, or DSP-Q doesn't get updated, etc.), so it's good to have a list of alternatives.

Also, for future reference there is Sony SoundForge 2 for the Mac:

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/SoundForgeM2

[Gravity Jim]

I don't master for disc, so getting it on a disc isn't a concern. I master my final recordings in DP, a task that just got easier with Slate Digital's FG-X and Virtual Abe's Compressor and Waves' loudness meters.

This is my favorite new device, maybe my favorite ever.

http://www.slatedigital.com/products/fgx

[BobK]

I do sonic adjustments and level balancing in DP (with both MOTU and third-party plugins) and then do the rest in DSP-Quattro - trim heads and tails, make cross fades, set pause lengths, add ISRC codes, and export DDP files for CD replication. Works fine, and I've never had any problems with CD replication (though I've only done maybe a half dozen projects). Not only is DSP-Q inexpensive, but once when I had questions, Stefano (the developer) himself responded.

[musicman691]

Does DSP-Q let you work on more than one file at a time? When I was on a Windows machine I used a combo of Sony Soundforge 9 and CD Architect and you could have as many files open as the computer could handle. A lot of people were excited when Sony announced a Mac version but there's no comparison (and I mean that in a bad way). You can only have one file open at a time and Sony never bothered to add in the functionality of CDA to the program; it was only in a latter revision (just a few months back IIRC) that they even added CD burning.

I'm currently using Adobe Audition (the pre-subscription version) and it works quite well but is clunky in trying to match levels across different pieces in a CD (before burn). The reason I picked AA over Wavelab was I'm familiar with the way Adobe tools work from what I do in Photoshop.

[bolla]

I use DP and various plugs to generate my master files.
I use mix snapshots to keep a step by step version of each mastering session so I can go back and fine tune if needed.
Dp and various plugs are all I need for this.

BUT....

I need to generate many formats and include with it as much metadata as I can for post production users.
In Bwave files you can include more data than you think.
In Mp3 the options are even greater and varied.

You can manually enter this data for each track when you only have a few tracks or CDs every now and then. If you need to do this on a regular basis or on many tracks I would suggest a few options.

1. Attach the metadata to the Bwave at the highest resolution point in the chain.
I use BWF Metaedit (free) from FADGI which allows you to import a .csv and embed RIFF and BWF data with the Bwav. You can also import dummy data into any unused BWF field to later manually move within Itunes or Wavelab or whatever.

I then use Wavelab just to batch generate each format I need with the appropriate metadata. While Wavelab is very good at this it is not perfect. IE you can not directly import a .csv file or move embedded RIFF data to mp3 (like genre) except manually.

A new option to do this are the various Monkey Tools programs like Library Monkey Pro.
When I had to choose an option they were not working well in OSX.
They look a lot better now.

ASFAIK:
Monkey Man has no direct involvement with this product line !!
In Jungleville metadata is "y" or "n"
"y" = peeled / "n" = unpeeled
"y" = tinnie open / "n" = tinnie yet to be opened


Cheers, Bolla

[mikehalloran]

Does DSP-Q let you work on more than one file at a time? When I was on a Windows machine I used a combo of Sony Soundforge 9 and CD Architect and you could have as many files open as the computer could handle...

Yes. It is one of the advertised features:
http://www.dsp-quattro.com/dspquattro/S ... tures.html

✓Support of multiple Audio File Editors, Audio Inputs, Input Recorders, virtual Instruments playing at the same time, each one having their own independent effects on insert. DSP-Quattro is easily configurable to be a Real time multi-effects unit, including Inputs to Outputs redirection.

I hardly scratch the surface in my use.

[bayswater]

Does DSP-Q let you work on more than one file at a time? When I was on a Windows machine I used a combo of Sony Soundforge 9 and CD Architect and you could have as many files open as the computer could handle...

Yes. It is one of the advertised features:
http://www.dsp-quattro.com/dspquattro/S ... tures.html

✓Support of multiple Audio File Editors, Audio Inputs, Input Recorders, virtual Instruments playing at the same time, each one having their own independent effects on insert. DSP-Quattro is easily configurable to be a Real time multi-effects unit, including Inputs to Outputs redirection.

I hardly scratch the surface in my use.

It would pretty much have to open multiple files if it is going to burn a CD.

There is a limitation in the number of output pairs you can use at once (e.g. for a VI). It normally outputs to a single pair, and up to 4 aux outs that can be assigned to physical outs or virtual outs in something like Soundflower, but six is all you get. I'm hoping for more in V5 to make it more useful as a VI host.

[David Polich]

FWIW, I can't recommend Sony SoundForge2. I found it to be one of the most poorly laid-out,
poor-sounding, and feature-poor mastering apps I've ever tried. Maybe the worst, actually. Bad Plug-in management, bad implementation of zoom in-and-out, limited rendering to other formats, lack of headroom, marginal audio quality, and prone to crashing...really, I can hardly believe anyone would want to use this piece of junk software.

My beloved Peak 6 stopped working in Yosemite, so I'm back to DSP Quattro 4. Pretty much like it
except for three things - can't change the horrid color scheme (as far as I can tell), it seems impossible to insert silence at the beginning of a file (which was so easy to do in Peak), no "tile windows" function like Peak had, and it is impossible to click anywhere on a file and start playback from that point (you have to insert a marker at a point in a file first). So Im still looking around for
a mastering app. Soundblade looks pretty good, but the full version is way pricey.

[bayswater]

it seems impossible to insert silence at the beginning of a file (which was so easy to do in Peak), no "tile windows" function like Peak had, and it is impossible to click anywhere on a file and start playback from that point (you have to insert a marker at a point in a file first).

There is an Insert Silence command in the Edit menu. To play from a position click in the time line or on the wave form when nothing is selected and press the space bar.

[musicman691]

It would pretty much have to open multiple files if it is going to burn a CD.

There is a limitation in the number of output pairs you can use at once (e.g. for a VI). It normally outputs to a single pair, and up to 4 aux outs that can be assigned to physical outs or virtual outs in something like Soundflower, but six is all you get. I'm hoping for more in V5 to make it more useful as a VI host.

Have you looked in to Blue Cat Audio Patchwork as a vi host? Been using it and it's very stable. They have a demo version of it; one downside of the demo is it goes silent for a few seconds every few minutes.