stand alone mastering for old recordings

mr manchester

New member
I have to preface this by saying that I until I recently moved from Denver, I have been using a great Mastering Engineer for my "finished" projects and don't intend the following question to make anyone think I can, or want to quickly become a Mastering Expert.

Over the past 15 years or so I have amassed a huge amount of cheap and nasty home recordings on CD, many made on ACID Pro (I know it was never intended to be a multi-track recording platform). I was recently listening back on some of these recordings with a view to archiving the best of them. On listening I realized that the sound quality, EQ-ing and output volumes were all over the place.

As far as archiving project goes, the recordings are likely to be for no-ones ears but mine. That being said, I'd like to be able to do some basic mastering to even out the levels, improve some of the more horrendous EQ problems and generally polish them up a little.

Is there a good stand-alone mastering package that you could recommend? I like what Ozone 5 offers but I'm struggling to find if it can be used outside of a DAW. T-Racks looks feasible but I have read mixed reviews.

thanks
 
I'm pretty sure you need a host to run Ozone. I'm also pretty sure you can find a very inexpensive DAW to do it. Izotope also makes a lot of programs for restoration/noise removal.
 
Try Reaper
REAPER | Audio Production Without Limits

you could import everyting into a project and use included plugins or free VSTs. To me it sounds like that would be easier than a standalone

You might try CD architecht as a standalone. Or Har-Bal

For Free you have might be able to get away with Audacity although there isnt many built in FX. It supports VST but if your going to do that then its looking more like a DAW environment and REAPER would be better

I personally would try Reaper for the project you are describing but since you asked for standalones.. these are a couple I can think of.
 
? I like what Ozone 5 offers but I'm struggling to find if it can be used outside of a DAW.

If you're looking for a box to use that does eq, comp and limiting all in one without having to use a daw, ..you could grab something like the TC Finalizer to go between the source and destination and stay in the digital domain. You can find find them pretty inexpensive used.
 
T-Racks sounds fantastic, is inexpensive, and is aimed to solve the exact problem you are facing. Just make sure to go to the groove3.com website and buy "Mastering With T-Racks" so you can get the most out of your purchase (I think it's only like $25 and is worth its weight in gold).
 
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T-racks & Ozone7

I have T-rackS and it is stand alone but it only does WAV files ...no MP3 or AAC. I also have Ozone7 which is better except for the limiter. The advanced version of Ozone7 offers stand alone and has a nifty preview feature for lossy files plus the ISP tracking is quite good for uploads to streaming services. I never use the T-rackS in stand alone but their Stealth Limiter is amazing ... at 16x ISP mode it is heavy on CPU consumption though.
 
The basic Sonar DAW that Cakewalk offers would work, it includes the plugins you would need for basic polishing.

For the price (but no recent experience with it) Reaper is compelling. It's try before you buy so nothing to lose and full functioning forever.
 
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