A.I. Vs Me. Mastering Shootout

RedStone

RedStone

Member
I have a couple of mixes that I've been working on as I've learned Mastering techniques. One track in particular gave me a lot of trouble and when I got it to a place I was happy with, I decided to try Mastering the track through a variety of services, and thought it might be interesting to compare them with the final version I decided on after much comparing and auditioning and getting feedback.

Even with the final master, I found there were trade-offs. But I was happy with the trade-offs I settled on (and that is the most important part).

I used Reaper to compile the various versions and loudness matched them to avoid the perception of louder = better. I was going to do this as a blind test, but I decided to leave the service names in.

Here's what I used and some thoughts:
Waves Online Mastering - Pleasantly surprised. I liked what it did for the most part. Controlled high end, nice midrange, but the low end wasn't quite there. I wanted a bit more thump in the kick and a bit more presence in the bass guitar. If I had to choose between only AI services. I'd have probably gone with this.
AAMS - brittle upper mids, uncontrolled High frequencies, and low end was lacking. Trying a few presets could probably help and I just used the free version so no customizations.
Self-Master - Ultimately, this is what I decided on for distribution. For the self master, I used Ozone (not the AI section, just a bunch of the modules), Soothe 2, Townhouse Bus compressor and the Bx_true peak limiter. Would you have gone with this?
E-mastered - barf. terrible midrange, low end lacking. truly awful. I liked the v1 of this service better, though v1 was always too heavy on bass for me.
LANDR - Not bad, but not incredible. I used balanced and normal loudness settings.

Here's a link to the test. I zipped it for easy download :)

A.I. Mastering vs Human Shootout – Google Drive

drive.google.com drive.google.com
 
Hi
i would of gone with the self master
i have also tried a couple of AI type masters & even though they sounded louder i feel
they lacked clarity & transparency
Ozone does a good job in my opinion & to some extent the pre sets are based on AI algorithms
soothe is also good & Avalon also seems to get a clean balanced mix
i suppose ultimately its the sound you are aiming for , if you post a song maybe one comment
is the bass is too muddy others may say the bass needs to be louder ... i try to roll off the bass
end in Pro Q

subvibe
 
Interesting project. I liked the drum dynamics of the AMMS but you're right, there's too much top end. Cymbals are especially cutting. Levitate had the best mix of overall spectral balance, the bass carried the bottom better. Waves and EMaster both missed the mark by a ton.

Where did the piano come from in LANDER mix? The guitar channel is swapped, and a piano suddenly was there on the opposite channel from the guitar. I went back and didn't hear it on any of the other 4.
 
CoolCat said:
Man vs Machine.... :eatpopcorn:
Click to expand...
😂

Man wins?

TalismanRich said:
Interesting project. I liked the drum dynamics of the AMMS but you're right, there's too much top end. Cymbals are especially cutting. Levitate had the best mix of overall spectral balance, the bass carried the bottom better. Waves and EMaster both missed the mark by a ton.

Where did the piano come from in LANDER mix? The guitar channel is swapped, and a piano suddenly was there on the opposite channel from the guitar. I went back and didn't hear it on any of the other 4.
Click to expand...
The price of non-human mastering is you get what you get and there is not much recourse. If that swapping weirdness happened with me as the M.E. I'd have serious explaining to do
 
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