Mastering Tools For Rock Music - Will these work?

H

homeuser

New member
I've been researching alot of mastering tools, comments, reviews, etc. and almost everything boils down to a few specific tools:

Multi band compression.
Brick wall limiting.
Some kind of digital "warmer".
Stereo enhancements, etc.
Mastering Reverbs.

For my particular budget I'm seriously thinking of going with "Ozone 2" and "PSP's Vintage Warmer". Together they can provide practically everything I've read on the tools needed to do mastering. Ofcourse all the tools in the world won't help anyone if they don't know how/when/why to use them, I have alot to read up on. :)

My genre of music is rock. What do you guys think about Ozone 2 and PSP Vintage Warmer? Is there anything else in the same price range (or slightly higher) that would do a better job?

Thank you for your comments and suggestions.
 
I guess my first question would be,,, What editing program are you using?

There is a reason why I am asking. After your reply I will respond further.

Malcolm
 
homeuser said:
Hi Malcom,

I do all mixdown/editing in Cakewalk Proaudio 9.x. So plug ins need to be Direct-X compatible. Any suggestions? Thanks...
Click to expand...

Yeah,
I would get a seperate software app for recording and editing. Something like Cool Edit pro, Wavelab, soundforge, etc. I would use the processing tools that come with these programs and learn a little more about how they work before I bought any additional plugins. Once you have learned a little more about how the editing software processing tools work,,, then I would shoot for the others. You will appreciate them more then.

In cakewalk,,, if you have a audio track and had one of the above apps installed.. you could just Highlight the audio track and go ( somewhere at the top in Cake) and click the editing app. This would pull your audio into the editing app for you to process and apply the built in tools. Click Close,, and the audio will return back to Cakewalk with your changes. Cake is not that good with realtime process monitoring. I think it will only do a few seconds while you are in Cakewalk. I cant remeber how many

Malcolm
 
Hey Malcom.

I hope you don't mind a further q/a based on your comments. :)

"I would get a seperate software app for recording and editing. Something like Cool Edit pro, Wavelab, soundforge, etc. I would use the processing tools that come with these programs and learn a little more about how they work before I bought any additional plugins. Once you have learned a little more about how the editing software processing tools work,,, then I would shoot for the others. You will appreciate them more then. "

I'm not sure what this means to be honest. Everything is coming along fine inside Cakewalk and I'm now ready to attempt to do some mastering. What would I gain by buying one of those additional editors? Unless I'm missing something (I'm sure I am...) the next step is to tweak my stereo mix with mastering tools, and that's where Ozone, PSP Warmer come into play.

"In cakewalk,,, if you have a audio track and had one of the above apps installed.. you could just Highlight the audio track and go ( somewhere at the top in Cake) and click the editing app. This would pull your audio into the editing app for you to process and apply the built in tools. Click Close,, and the audio will return back to Cakewalk with your changes."

This sounds fine, but again what would those "tools" be and how would they compare to Ozone and the PSP Vintage Warmer?

"Cake is not that good with realtime process monitoring. I think it will only do a few seconds while you are in Cakewalk. I cant remeber how many."

Hmm.. what I am doing now is simply creating my stereo mix, and then creating a new project with this stereo mix. And then adding plug ins before the main outs. Then when I play the mix, I can play with the plug in settings and get a real time output of the mastered song. I can tweak anything I want to while the tune is playing. I can't imagine this process being any easier than it is right now. ? ?

So, since you mentioned those other products, do they have mastering tools included with them and if so could you describe them and compare them to Ozone and PSP Vintage Warmer? Thanks for your comments.
 
PSP vintang warmer is the SHIT...in matter of fact get t he PSP stereo pack also and u have decent mastering, tracking, and mixing tools for a very reasonable price...

there's also a bunch of great free VST plug-ins i just don't remember the website...its called Digital fishbone or something do a search on the site

u can get a free VST wrapper @ www.directxfiles.com
 
That would be Digitalfishphones.com, and yes it's good stuff.......especially for free.

My favorite multiband comp is the Waves C4, and I like to follow it with the L1 Ultramaximizer with IDR. Plan to spend a lot of time learning how to use any Multiband comp, it's probably THE most difficult piece of gear to master (pun intended). The L1 on the other hand is probably the easiest stereo buss comp/limiter/maximizer/ditherer to use and not screw up your sound in the process. It'll get your apparent loudness up to snuff without totally creaming your dynamics.

Ozone is very good, and anyone attempting home mastering should read the Ozone guide to mastering, which is available to download from the Ozone site as a PDF, and is written for even non Ozone owners to learn from.

I've also heard good things about Vintage warmer, but never tried it.

Regards, RD
 
homeuser said:
Hey Malcom.

I hope you don't mind a further q/a based on your comments. :)


I'm not sure what this means to be honest. Everything is coming along fine inside Cakewalk and I'm now ready to attempt to do some mastering. What would I gain by buying one of those additional editors? Unless I'm missing something (I'm sure I am...) the next step is to tweak my stereo mix with mastering tools, and that's where Ozone, PSP Warmer come into play.



I guess my thing is Cakewalk.. I have been using Cakewalk since the first DOS version. I have also been through all of the upgrades with them over years and now I currently run Sonar XL. I have never used any other software based midi sequencer other than Cake. Im sure that during the years there have been better ones and there are better ones now from what I have read. I think it's a matter of choice.. I like yourself,, just stick with the Cake boys. But to me and this is just my opinion,, Mastering and Cakewalk just dont sit well with me in the same sentence. If I used any plugin with cakewalk,, it would be used and applied to a indiviual track ie.. I may run Autotune on a vocal track while in Cake,,, or apply a lil compression to a bass guitar to smoothe it out. This was really back in the days when I used solely Cake.. Now I use Sonar to primarily track my Vox and sync with my Instruments and Midi. I hardly do ANY proccessing or EQ, Comp. in cake no more because my Sonar now feeds a digital console ( I mostly level, pan, Quant. midi, etc with Cake ).. this is where I do all my tweeking.

Now once I have a final mixdown,, I would launch Sonar and send all of my digital console settings ( which are fed by sonar ) back into the pc on another Optical path and record my Stereo Wave in Wavelab.

And Bamm !! I have a stereo wavefile,, which is baiscally a recording of my final mix. To me Sonar has done it's job. I have my mix and Sonar was the Great. If I did a good job,, when I play either the mix again or the wavefile they should sound the same or close. Ok Now Mastering... Will I do it or send it off... Depends.


Ok, I could pull the wavefile back into Cake and start applying a plugin to get " That Sound "

Or

I can open the wavefile in Wavelab and say;
Check the DC Offset
get the average RMS of the whole file
get the average peak of the whole file
mark any clips that may have occured,, in the file
Remember,, we are mastering now right ?
Pull up a spectrum analysis while viewing frequencies ( I like ears better)
Compare one track to another for leveling, etc.

Oh Plugins
Lets use Waves for instance
Let me loop the file and first I will play with,, lets say :
The Stereo Image
Sweep all Freqs below 40, maybe
Damn that kick,,, plugin Q10.. nope that didnt work,, C4 (just 1 band )
Its a little Hot,,, renaissance,, maybe
Let me turn it up some. D@mn its a lil over 0 and it's no where as loud as I need it. L1. Turn it up somemore
Resample maybe,, yeah I recorded at 24/48
Dither,,, I got there to listen to UV22,, UV22hr, L1 without dither and the Wavelab internal ?


You get my drift ?
When you say "Mastering",, Cakewalk just does not come to mind for me. Not to say it cannot be done because it has,,, I just do not prefer to use it as such,,, When it comes to "Mastering"

Did I mention that I had a total of 15 tracks that needs to be burnt to cd? Montage !!!

Use the tools that you have to your fullest. May sure that whatever you purchase, will still be a asset to your setup as you grow. You may get so Good with Ozone that people start sending you Mastering work,,,, with different wave formats, wavelengths, bit rates, etc. With a good editor,, you can work with them more efficiently. OK,, Enough for computer Talk ..


Malcolm
Click to expand...
 
Good explanation Malcom. I don't use Wavelab as much as I used to since becoming a Samplitude user, but it is a great program with tons of tools for hardcore audio analysis and surgury, as opposed to running some songs through a "anyone can be a mastering engineer" plugin or finalizer box.
Regards, RD
 
Robert D said:
Good explanation Malcom. I don't use Wavelab as much as I used to since becoming a Samplitude user, but it is a great program with tons of tools for hardcore audio analysis and surgury, as opposed to running some songs through a "anyone can be a mastering engineer" plugin or finalizer box.
Regards, RD
Click to expand...

Thanks Robert,
Question and not to take over homeuser's thread,, but I read up higher where you said you like the C4. Explain to me if you get the chance the difference between Optra and Electra,,, I think thats it. They have both of them applied to a couple of the final master presets on the C4. I have only played with the C4, I mostly used to use dynamics multiband back in the day. I like the way the C4 looks, but it just lets me see too much.. IYKWIM. All those lines and graphical movements make me steer away from my ears. What are some of the key features You like about the C4?

Thanks
Malcolm
 
Hi Malcom.

GOOD reply! That makes sense. Since I'm just interested in making my own mixes sound better it would appear I'm on the right path. In the future when my budget supports it, I'll research the tools you suggested. Thanks again for the explanation.

Robert, thank you for your comments as well. :)
 
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