Need help with mastering

[grouse]

But now I'm adding (or trying to add) the MasterWorks Limiter and running into all sorts of problems. Sometimes "Preview" works, but mostly it's grayed out.

I don't see much in the manual as far as how to hook the danged thing up with the master slider, which is what they suggest. Is that an automatic thing?

I'm either getting very erratic behavior from it, or nothing at all...occasionally it is definitely doing something, but typically "craps out" after a bit. I'm not sure if that's a function of the preview or whether I'm doing something wrong...or:

Is MWL a memory hog? I'm wondering if I'm just hitting a ceiling as far as memory goes. But also, I can't seem to get the darned thing to work.

Am I missing anything other than opening it? It doesn't need to be actually installed or anything, does it?

It sounds to me like you're trying to print the effect to a piece of audio rather than placing the device as an insert in the mixing board.
Could that be the case?
This is not the way to work with the MW Limiter.
Check out "inserts" in the manual.

Now, as for freezing the track, it sounds like something I need to look into. No, I haven't used that, just went ahead and played the track as I'm recording to a stereo soundbite track. (VI's to bus in and soundbite track recording from that bus) -- then bounce to disk, and works great.

What you described is basically what freezing a track does. It sets up the bussing automatically and it should prevent the VI form playing in your track, to prevent doubling.
It's just a convenience really, speeds up the workflow and saves resources.

[newrigel]

I'd reinstall DP and don't leave anything out. Install EVERYTHING. Then, when you assign anything to the output buss, make sure it's your MAIN output buss. Don't go and assign anything to another buss that could be aggregated so to speak to your interface. All auxillary busses should be assigned to the master stereo out buss, all tracks should be assigned to the main stereo output buss.. everything should. The only assignments you should have assigned to anything else are your channel sends going to you auxillary channels in which you can go into bundles and name them appropriately... like VOXREV 1, VOXDELAY 1, VOXCOMP, INSTREV, INSTDELAY 1 etc. etc. then your confusion is alleviated. Sounds like to me you have two pairs of outs going on because you can bring down the master fader and it's killing the amplitude somewhat, but not completely... and thats pure evidence of another output pair activated. Your master fader should attenuate the entire mix to total silence when brought all the way down. And a killer utility called Audio Hijack Pro works great because you can hijack DP's output pair (internally) and record it. What the application is sending to your audio interface is being recorded... just like the old days where you can hear the entire outputs of the consoles outputs and recording it while the production master plays back. I'd be careful bussing to re record to another buss in DP because you best use naming conventions to differentiate between auxillary buss and output buss or else you'll end up with these straggler signals your dealing with.

[lamboguy]

I have a feeling you are all correct. And that I have no idea what I am doing.

Well, I need to look at this more carefully, no question. I think next mastering session (in a week or so) I'll read through this thread FIRST before attempting a mix.

For my stuff, it really doesn't matter much, I'm just having fun. But at the same time, I can see where I'm not taking full advantage of the gear, which is silly.

Thanks for all the input and insight!

Fred

[grouse]

Sounds like you're going about it the right way though! There's no better way to learn than to jump in and start experimenting and get it wrong, read the manual, use online resources etc. and then do it all again...on a loop!
I speak for myself and probably a lot of people on this board, all this is a continuous learning experience.
One thing I will say to you is that "mastering" is the final piece of the puzzle before a piece of music is released. It's not even necessary ALL the time.
It is also a specialised skill and many great mastering engineers spend all their time just mastering.
Mixing is about making everything sit nicely in the track, without any clipping, and the best advice I could give you for that would be to listen to your mixes on as many systems as you can (car stereo, living room stereo, ipods etc.).
So just keep at it, you'll learn a lot as you go along.