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Upon re-visiting DSM I am now finding it useful.....I have spent a lot more time getting to know it.

The UAD stuff is awesome for mastering. The Fairchild and 4K are great general Master Bus compressors and the Precision MultiBand is a great compressor for zeroing in on any trouble frequencies. I like the Precision Limiter better than the Waves equivalents; it just sounds less hyped, especially on the high end. The Precision Maximizer is similar to the Sonnox Inflator, but again, the UAD plug just sounds better to me. A UAD card and those plugs get pretty expensive though. I have Ozone 4, but I usually only add a sprinkling of stereo imaging with it because I usually go with UAD EQ (forgot to mention their Precision and Cambridge EQs!) and compression. Last week I got the Slate Digital mastering plug and I've been switching out the UAD Maximizer and Limiter for it with great results on some material.

I tried the (third) demo of SSD's FG-X mastering processor and I
have to admit, it does what they claim it does. Slate had a problem
with PPC-compatibility which they say they've been working hard to
resolve and the next update should fix it. At that point I think
I'll buy it...it certainly makes things louder, with less artifacts,
than any other mastering processor I've used.

I've demoed every mastering suite out there, I own Tracks3 Deluxe,
Ozone4, and BIAS Peak. I've been using Ozone4 pretty much exclusively
for over a year, and will likely continue with it, using the Slate
plug-in as my maximizer in conjunction with it.

David Polich wrote:I tried the (third) demo of SSD's FG-X mastering processor and I
have to admit, it does what they claim it does. Slate had a problem
with PPC-compatibility which they say they've been working hard to
resolve and the next update should fix it. At that point I think
I'll buy it...it certainly makes things louder, with less artifacts,
than any other mastering processor I've used.

I've demoed every mastering suite out there, I own Tracks3 Deluxe,
Ozone4, and BIAS Peak. I've been using Ozone4 pretty much exclusively
for over a year, and will likely continue with it, using the Slate
plug-in as my maximizer in conjunction with it.

+1



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Definite +1 on the Slate FG-X

I bought it a few weeks ago after demoing it on a project. Using it in conjunction with DSM it's really amazing how loud I can now make a master while retaining the basic balance achieved during a mix. I finally felt like the Mastering EQ was being used for sweetening and not surgery.

I am extremely happy with TC Powercore MD3 and brickwall limiter. Very transparent and loud masters can be achieved once the tools are understood. I know that not every one has been happy with Powercore but (touch wood) it's working fine for me at the moment with DP 7.2

rainmaker wrote: But my go-to limiter and my absolute favorite is the Universal Audio Precision Limiter. It is a wonderful limiter that is extremely transparent even under extreme limiting.

+1 on the UAD Precision Limiter. - esp. since you mention you just got UAD. Go for it!

I dig Ozone 4, and before Intel, I was using Prosoniq's Dynasone (waaaaay too squashy and plastic), but even compared to Waves' Multimaximizer or any number of other plugs that simply get things loud, I still gravitate towards T-RackS, which still sounds like the best tape/analog emulation, to my ears. I usually start off with a T-RackS EQ (15 ips), and while I then stacked a T-RackS compressor right under it with a Transparent setting, I'm probably gonna start using a Voxengo Crunchessor with a "Glue" setting. I can't seem to find a decent compressor sound with T-RackS, and I've discovered compression is something that really needs to be used in moderation. After that, a T-RackS limiter with a "15 ips" setting and, finally, a T-RackS Clipper with a "Loud And Clear" setting. Since I switched from Peak to Wave Editor as my mastering software, I don't have to sweat sticking an IDR or an instance of Ozone 4 after to handle dithering. Anyway, I came up with my mastering chain after years of A-B rolling my masters against commercial ones ... but I started out squashing and boosting my masters to the nth degree. For scoring work, I usually just apply either a "Light 3 Band Compressor" or a "CD Master" setting in Ozone 4, and while neither setting is anywhere close to "commercial loud", it's great for movie work, where your music is being super-compressed during the audio mastering phase, and then, even more when it's shown on TV.

I have Peak and Ozone4, I prefer to use none but certain radio formats, especially K-LOVE, sound so horrible that squeezing your sound first is a must. It will still sound bad but, at least, you have control over the result.