Tools For "Mastering"

[arcaxis]

Does anyone have some recommendations on what hardware would be useful for the purpose of home quality "mastering". I kind of get the feeling a compressor is pretty high on the list followed by a good EQ. Beyond these I'm unsure what would be helpful. I suspect any reverb or simliar treatments would be done on mix down, so wouldn't necessary here. I do own an Aphex Aural Exciter Type C2 w/Big Bottom. It does seem to help some of my recordings. Would this be regarded as a piece of gear I might use in the mastering process ? And speaking of chain, is there a preferable order of where things should be placed ?

In regards to compression, would a multi-band unit (such as a TC Electronics Triple C) be more useful than say one covering a broadband (RNC). Or would they both be useful depending on the material being mastered.

[pundit]

Originally posted by arcaxis
Does anyone have some recommendations on what hardware would be useful for the purpose of home quality "mastering". I kind of get the feeling a compressor is pretty high on the list followed by a good EQ. Beyond these I'm unsure what would be helpful. I suspect any reverb or simliar treatments would be done on mix down, so wouldn't necessary here. I do own an Aphex Aural Exciter Type C2 w/Big Bottom. It does seem to help some of my recordings. Would this be regarded as a piece of gear I might use in the mastering process ? And speaking of chain, is there a preferable order of where things should be placed ?

In regards to compression, would a multi-band unit (such as a TC Electronics Triple C) be more useful than say one covering a broadband (RNC). Or would they both be useful depending on the material being mastered.

You say hardware units? Is that because you're not computer based or just prefer going the hardware path over plugins?

If you have a fairly recent PC and a decent soundcard then an audio editor such as Wavleab or even Cool Edit pro, then something like Isotopes' Ozone will give you quite a degree of flexibilty to either improve or completely 'stuff ' you're work!

This will give you multiband compression and limiting, flexible eq, reverb and more all in the one package and has been well received as a good value package.

Waves Gold bundle and their new Mastering series plugins are an industry standard and are excellent but maybe out of the ballpark pricewise when compared to Ozone.

While the gear you mentioned will enable you to manipuate your tunes, you can 'see' a lot more using a waveform editor.

A full range of flexible, good sounding outboard gear I'm afraid will cost you a lot more than a PC based setup.

If you are going the 'home' route then I would seriously think about going PC.

Granted high end mastering houses use plenty of very expensive outboard analog gear to add magic to your stuff.

This gear is quite simply in another league to the gear you already mentioned.

The bottom line is if your doing you're own stuff at home then a PC setup is probably more cost effective and versatile.

Even if you had buckets of cash to spend on outboard gear, the experience of a well 'eared' mastering engineer cannot be learned overnight, and IMO, a PC based setup will enable you to learn a lot more about what's really happening with your mixes!

Just my 2cents... YMMV!

[Blue Bear Sound]

Mastering hardware is VERY expensive.... (on the order of $4-5K per item) -- not to mention the cost of proper monitoring and a properly-designed room (which is different than the needs of a studio control room)...

For "home-tweaking", going the s/w route is the most cost effective...

And none of the gear you mentioned in your post would be considered "mastering tools", including the RNC.

[Son of Mixerman]

If you don't have a PC, then just keep mixing it until you get better or closer to what you want. Never use Mastering as an excuse not to mix it right. Mastering Engineers enjoy getting a mix that doesn't need to much sweetening. I don't know what recorder or mixer your using so I can't offer too much advice, but using channel eq and some 2 buss compression can hepl a little. IF you do have a PC , Wavelab is probably the closest tool to what an ME uses, In fact I know a few ME's that Wavelab is the only consumer level computer package they will even look at.


SoMm

[littledog]

the cheapest useful all-in-one hardware mastering tools are the TC Electronics Finalizer and the dBx Quantum.

[arcaxis]

Maybe I've thrown a bit off by other threads I've read around here. I had found threads refering to the Triple C being used in the "mastering" process as an alternative to TC's Finalizer. And maybe I'm finding that the word mastering is a bit elusive if maybe all I'm trying to do is improve what my final mix sounds like rather than just get it mixed and then trying to polish it afterwards.

At present I track on either a 4 track Tascam 246 Portastudio or an 8 track 688 Tascam Midistudio (I haven't grown out of the tape stage yet, but seriously considering something like a Korg D1600). I'll either mix to a 2 track cassette deck or attempt to get it into PowerTracks Pro on the PC so it can be written to CD-R. The PC has not proved to be too reliable as it "hiccups" every once in awhile (I'm suspicious of my anti-virus program...) and there is a drop out of material. Maybe if I get around that issue I'll feel better about doing software stuff.

Anyhow I'm trying to maximize the apparent volume and keep things sounding "crisp and clear". This is what I thought the mastering process attempted to do among other things. What I'm hearing here is I should be paying more attention at mixdown to these points. Which leads me back to ask then, "What Tools for Mixdown ?" I haven't been applying much in the way effects or processing other than a tad of reverb. Would the aforementioned Triple C / RNC and/or EQ benefit the mixdown process. Correct me if I'm off here, a selective multiband compressor can preserve high end frequencies while allowing compression of lower bands. So things stay crisp and clear (??)

[pundit]

What PC do you have?

Operating system?

Processor?

RAM?

Hard drive?

Soundcard?

etc....

To be frank I wouldn't bother mixing to cassette if you're trying to achieve good quality results.

As you are becoming aware this business (hobby) isn't exactly the cheapest one you could have chosen.

That being said, quite a bit can be achieved on a budget if you are careful and plan your purchases carefully.

If your PC isn't up to scratch, and you definately want to get your teeth into recording, editing, *mastering and make your own CD's to give to all your friends and family , then the first thing I'd be doing is saving up for a decent PC and soundcard.

As far a ani-virus programs and other apps that run in the background... DON'T USE THEM!!! Your DAW doesn't need this stuff and they will cause problems. Consider running two seperate hardrives, ONE for your audio production only, and the other for everything else. ie internet, games, business apps etc.

If you use a drive caddie you can insert the drive you want to boot from and keep everything else seperate.

Sorry but from the questions you're asking and what you appear your trying to achieve, the world of 0's and 1's is the most logical solution.

As far as...

"What Tools for Mixdown ?"

Yes compressors, equalisers, reverb, delay etc are all part of the mixdown equation.

*Mastering is an art and science that takes years to learn.

I can read a book about brain surgey.... but I wouldn't be much good at performing lobotomys in my garage!

[littledog]

Originally posted by arcaxis
Maybe I've thrown a bit off by other threads I've read around here. I had found threads refering to the Triple C being used in the "mastering" process as an alternative to TC's Finalizer.

oh... i misunderstood. i thought you were looking for something more than just a compressor. The units I mentioned have far more than just compression: gates, parametric eq, and a whole host of other useful tools like phase checking, automated fades, stereo enhance, digital radiance, limiters, test tone generators, normalizing, etc.

[Son of Mixerman]

Another set of tools you could use is the Masterlink for about $1000 or the Sony CDRW33 at $500 est. Both have Mastering utilities built in, and you don't have to use your PC if you don't want to. The Finalizer might be a tad to difficult right off. But if you have the money...why not. If I had money Id have more of everything.

SoMm