Best Mastering Plug-In

[tommymandel]

Right, BobK - and I thought Mike was referencing the MW Compressor - which I'm very interested in learning more about, since I use it all the time on my Master Bus. I'm tryin to try to get away from that, but more often than not, it sounds good to me, ON. My current explorations have to do with where to place the 2 frequency dividing bands, and how hard or soft to hit it. Depends on the program material, of course. . . but In retrospect, perhaps Mike H. was talking about the Leveler.

[Radiogal]

Okay. Try this sweetie. Stillwells Event Horizon.

I got plenty of plugins, but this one is an all time high favorite.
It makes things louder, naturally LOUDER.. sweetening louder.. with warmth!!!

You can use the evaluation version for free and buy it later for 39 dollars if you fall in love with it, like I did.



http://www.stillwellaudio.com/?page_id=16

Stillwell got plenty of other great plugins. Plz Check these out too!

[Steve Steele]

tape and a mastering guru. Sorry, that's all I know. I send my stuff off to the guys in NYC. But us mere mortals need plugins. I would guess the Flux/IRCAM stuff.

[Kubi]

Taking heed of these great posts, I just instantiated a Trim plug-in on a channel (not the Master), set it to -3.20db, and then copied by option dragging, it to every channel strip. But when I checked the copies, they were at 0.00db. Is that a 'feature' that I should know about, or was it more likely a careless error on my part? thanks again all good posters here!

This seems to happen when you drag from stereo to mono, or vice-versa - the plug-in gets duplicated, but defaults to zero. Now if you option-drag between like tracks (stereo to stereo, or mono to mono) it should retain its setting.

A big +1 on using the trim plug to peak the mix *well* below 0dB. Most common mistake in digital mixing is leaving too little headroom. I mix for an average level of around -18dB, highest peaks end up being around -6dB this way. Once the mix is done, either I or my mastering engineer take it to the level it needs to go. So much more space and room to breathe in the mixes this way.

[tommymandel]

Okay. Try this sweetie. Stillwells Event Horizon.

I got plenty of plugins, but this one is an all time high favorite.
It makes things louder, naturally LOUDER.. sweetening louder.. with warmth!!!

You can use the evaluation version for free and buy it later for 39 dollars if you fall in love with it, like I did.

YES, Sweetie! I do have Stillwell's Event Horizon. But sometimes it makes me distort. What to do about that? (for the brickwall?)

[waitsongs]

A big +1 on using the trim plug to peak the mix *well* below 0dB. Most common mistake in digital mixing is leaving too little headroom. I mix for an average level of around -18dB, highest peaks end up being around -6dB this way. Once the mix is done, either I or my mastering engineer take it to the level it needs to go. So much more space and room to breathe in the mixes this way.

This sounds great, but I have a really basic question... is there any way to REALLY know exact levels in DP, or do I need certain plug-ins to tell what my average (RMS?) and peak levels are? I've been around long enough to remember calibrating analog equipment, and I'm fairly careful with gain staging in DP so I end up with appropriately loud and clear mixes, but it's always a little mystifying when I'm interpreting levels between DP meters, Ozone meters, Central Station meters, etc. Maybe I'm just being lazy and not calibrating as much as I should, but I sure wouldn't mind having a little more certainty that what I see on my various meters is real.

[buzzsmith]

This sounds great, but I have a really basic question... is there any way to REALLY know exact levels in DP, or do I need certain plug-ins to tell what my average (RMS?) and peak levels are? I've been around long enough to remember calibrating analog equipment, and I'm fairly careful with gain staging in DP so I end up with appropriately loud and clear mixes, but it's always a little mystifying when I'm interpreting levels between DP meters, Ozone meters, Central Station meters, etc. Maybe I'm just being lazy and not calibrating as much as I should, but I sure wouldn't mind having a little more certainty that what I see on my various meters is real.

I like Inspector XL...



Unfortunately, it's no longer available.

Buzzy

[timmeh]

+! on the L3 Ultramaximizer from Waves. That is an incredible plugin.

[Killahurts]

+ 1 on the Ozone 5 plugin. It gives you 6 modules in one, which is the idea, short of a chain of high end ($$$) analog gear. But I would add this:

When you are a non-mastering engineer working on a master, especially with an extremely powerful tool like Ozone, it is very easy to loose perspective quickly, and drastically overdo the settings. If you go far enough, and then hit bypass and listen to your mix and it sounds awful in comparison, you may have gone too far. Put it up for the night, and come back in the morning. You may have a "What was I thinking?" moment. If not, you may consider remixing. Remember, you want to enhance what is there, take it from good to great, not transform it from bad to good.

[Shooshie]

Best results with least pain, for me, at any rate, has been Waves Linear Phase Multiband Compressor and Waves L3 Maximizer.

Ditto, but sometimes the L3 is mysteriously noisy. When that happens (sounds like clipping or blown speakers) I often switch to the L2. Otherwise, I love the L3 Multimaximizer.

Other tools I like are the Linear Phase EQ's from Waves: Low-Band and Broadband. They are ultra-clean.

Yet another tool is the H-EQ from Waves. I haven't tested it for accuracy on the mastering level, and I'm not 100% sure it would pass the tests, but it certainly has an amazing combination of features at your disposal; definitely not your run-of-the mill EQ.

I am not a mastering engineer, but I dabble in it, and those are the tools I mostly use.

Shooshie

[ghobish]

I'm using MW Compressor into MW Limiter. One client called me "Too Low-Fi for Broadcast."

I would hasten to add: consider the source. Maybe your client knows what he's talking about; maybe he only thinks he does. How do you think your output compares to other commercially released recordings in the same genre?

[Armageddon]

This sounds great, but I have a really basic question... is there any way to REALLY know exact levels in DP, or do I need certain plug-ins to tell what my average (RMS?) and peak levels are? I've been around long enough to remember calibrating analog equipment, and I'm fairly careful with gain staging in DP so I end up with appropriately loud and clear mixes, but it's always a little mystifying when I'm interpreting levels between DP meters, Ozone meters, Central Station meters, etc. Maybe I'm just being lazy and not calibrating as much as I should, but I sure wouldn't mind having a little more certainty that what I see on my various meters is real.

I usually have a set of "standard" levels at which I set everything to begin with -- -7 dB for the snare, -17 dB for the bass, etc. -- and go from that starting point and with the knowledge that all my audio files are normalized to begin with, and should all be theoretically maximized to 0 dB. I actually had the faders set 3 dB higher after I started mixing in DP at 88.2 kHz/32-bit float, but unfortunately, having increased headroom leads you to believe that it's actually okay to go louder when it isn't.

I only use the DP meters to make sure nothing is going over 0 and making the hated red "over" light go on. If I'm trying to calibrate a compressor output, though, I'll usually call up a PAZ meter insert after the compressor and use that as my guide.

I don't figure out if my mixdown levels are copacetic until after I bounce down a mix and import it into Wave Editor, at which point, I can see whether or not the mix's RMS is too high.

I've tried using Ozone 4/5 and T-RackS 3 on their own to master, and both of them seem to have a mix of good features and bad, so I've been Frankensteining it lately with the T-RackS 3 LP EQ, followed by a PSP Master Comp (I still need a compressor with a lighter setting but high fidelity, so this is likely gonna change), followed by URS Saturation, followed by a Waves L3-LL Multimaximizer. I'm sure I'm gonna break down at some point and just resort to one mastering plug, whether it's Ozone 5 or me caving in and buying an FG-X (and for those of you wanting good meters, the FG-X has the most responsive I've ever seen).

The rule of thumb I've been using is to set up a "typical" mastering chain preset on my Master fader, like, say, the "Indy Rock" setting in Ozone 5. Then, I solo my snare drum (typically, the loudest element of any mix), sometimes, also, my kick drum. I'll then move up the fader on my snare just until it starts consistently hitting zero on the output meters -- that's where I'll stop. From that point, I can mix everything else around that.

[HCMarkus]

I would hasten to add: consider the source. Maybe your client knows what he's talking about; maybe he only thinks he does. How do you think your output compares to other commercially released recordings in the same genre?

+1

[daniel.sneed]

IMHO, picky monitor level calibration is a key.
Bob Katz's book, Mastering Audio, is a good value on this subject.

[Matcher]

I'm using MW Compressor into MW Limiter. One client called me "Too Low-Fi for Broadcast." I am aware that it's how you set these things that separates the Silk from the Crunch, but I'd just like to find out here, what people are using, and like the best. Thanks!

Some years ago, when I used mw comp and limiter, for a number if productions, the results were mediocre at the best, after a lot of tweaking. To make a long story short, for example Ozone is on a whole another level, a simple way to get broadcast quality masters.