A qestion for Bruce, and everyone else

alibish

alibish

Hotrod Cadet
As a newcomer to this board, I found the "Seriously...I don't Get It" thread very interesting and informative.

I would completely agree that audio mastering (like any other skilled job) is best performed by people with the necessary skills and experience.

On the other hand, in order to gain those skills and experience you need to practice, make a lot of mistakes, and ask a lot of stupid questions. This is why resources like this board are so invaluable.

I don't kid myself that my modest home set up could ever rival (or even faintly resemble) a pro studio recording. But I *do* think that a modest set up can allow you to produce something *worthwhile*. (My own limitations as a musician are a different story, but at least I can't blame the tools!)

What we're all trying to achieve is to make music that we ourselves, if no-one else, thinks is worth the effort. We can debate whether much of what we do is art, but it is at least *creative*, and in creativity, as in all aspects of life, achievement is related to a combination of talent, effort and luck.

So, my question to Bruce (and everyone else) is:

Can mastering plugins help me produce a sufficient improvement in the quality of my recordings to justify their price?

I'm not asking whether they can make me a pro, fix my dodgy vocals, or produce a CD ready for the shops. But can they *improve* the sound of a home studio recording in a worthwhile way?

And if so, does anyone have any recommendations for which ones are worth looking at (and lsitening to!) and why?

I'd like to understand what mastering treatments do that is different from 'bread and butter' EQ, compression, etc.

I'm interested in Ozone and BBE Sonic Maximizer, so if anyone has experience of these I'd be grateful for feedback, along the lines I've indicated. I know that I'm not a mastering engineer, and that even if I were I would probably need (and certainly choose) different, better and more expensive tools for the task. But given that I'm a modest home-wrecker with a modest set up, would either of these products be worthwhile additions to my armoury?

Cheers

Alastair
 
My point is always this.....

mastering engineers have spent many many years learning their trade and manny manyy $$$$ on specialized gear and rooms to do their craft in.....with that said, yes you can master yourself with the gear you mentioned.....but most of the time, your attention should be paid to getting better sounds recorded initailly and learning better mixing skills, fixing the things right in the first place that your expecting mastering to accomplish.....
 
alibish said:

I don't kid myself that my modest home set up could ever rival (or even faintly resemble) a pro studio recording. But I *do* think that a modest set up can allow you to produce something *worthwhile*. (My own limitations as a musician are a different story, but at least I can't blame the tools!)

What we're all trying to achieve is to make music that we ourselves, if no-one else, thinks is worth the effort. We can debate whether much of what we do is art, but it is at least *creative*, and in creativity, as in all aspects of life, achievement is related to a combination of talent, effort and luck.
Alastair
Click to expand...

I wish all Home Wreckers thought this way..... Excell to be your best... Yet know you won't be as good as the best is basically the message.....
There would be alot more self assurance out there....

To answer your other question...
There isn't much difference in the concept between mastering Plug-ins (ie. Compression, Verb, Eq......ETC...) and consumer Plug-ins

The difference is in the QUALITY (and of course price) of the plug-in and more importantly in the skills of the mastering engineer....

BG
BG
 
That price difference accounts for a huge difference. I found that when I got Steingerg's Mastering Edition and Producer Pack, and I learned how to use them correctly, the quality of my final mixes improved dramaticly. To the non-professional ears of most of my friends, my mixes became very similar sounding to the CD's they were buying at stores. And the mixing was done the same, I just had some new tools for mastering myself that I didn't have before.
I have been listening to T-Racks and I think I am going to add it to my collection, also. It seems to be another good PC Mastering tool that can be learned and will give you results that you will be pleased with.

Again, just like you said, a mastering house is really how to do it right. But if you own a good DAW, there are more and more tools that can help you greatly improve your sound yourself. It just takes some money and the patience to learn how to use what you have properly.

H2H
 
alibish said:

I'd like to understand what mastering treatments do that is different from 'bread and butter' EQ, compression, etc.

I'm interested in Ozone and BBE Sonic Maximizer, so if anyone has experience of these I'd be grateful for feedback, along the lines I've indicated
Click to expand...

One of the main tools of mastering would be multi-band compression. This applies different compression setting to different bands of EQ, it really helps for overall balance in the mix. There are several other tools that are mainly found in "Mastering" software or tools. But this is my personal favorite.

As far as the BBE, don't buy it for mastering. I had one once and got rid of it. An exciter is not really something that will add improvement to your overall sound. For the same $, you can start looking at good plugins.

H2H
 
I'm a married Glaswegian - is that worse or better? ;)

Thanks for all the responses so far - helpful, to the point, rude to Canadians. What more could anyone ask for?

That was a joke by the way - I loved Canada when I visited a few years ago. But is there any excuse or explanation for Celine Dion?
 
alibish said:


So, my question to Bruce (and everyone else) is:

Can mastering plugins help me produce a sufficient improvement in the quality of my recordings to justify their price?
Click to expand...

Yes and No.

Yes if you have a an understanding of what a Mastering Engineer does, and you have a special kind of ear. Mastering Engineers are a individuals who have been mentored or indoctrinated in the art of making a mix sound good to the widest part of the purchasing masses. Lots of stuff involved mentioned in other posts.
No if you have no idea what your doing, experimentation is always a great way to learn, but like any scientific process it requires a plan, a direction and an understanding of the fundamentals. I suggest doing alot of listening to music to see what the common thread is that makes music sound good to you, outside of the genre and musical instruments. One thing you will notice this that homemade music, usually lack intermediate zone frequencies, those who have done A/B comparisons from the Mix to the Master know what that means, its like the life of the music being added to the mix. You can break it into tecnical terms if you like but if it was purely technical then there would be a button on a box that says "MASTER", though many multibutton boxes try to fake you out with psuedo-master buttons called master.
If you must, get T-Racks, its the most cost effective pre-mastering/editor for the home recordist.

I think that anyone trying to learn something new can make things better. Someone has to do it, or it never gets done. Even Bob Ludwig started with no knowledge at one time.

Peace,
Dennis
 
And another thing...

The (very good) advice from most people seems to be that the first thing to get right, the area to spend most time and effort, is getting the original sound as good as possible.

Mastering plugins, and by entension all processors and effects, can be used to improve recorded music in technical and/or artistic terms, but the most significant determinant of finished quality is the music you record in the first place.

So I got to thinking - what do people see as the *absolute essentials* for recording contemporary popular music? (classical, jazz, avant-garde, etc. may well have different requirements, so let's put them aside for the purposes of this debate)

Here are some possibilities:

1) Nothing. Record everything in a single take. No overdubs, no EQ, no effects, no mastering. Learn to play your instruments, learn to sing, rehearse until you're as tight as is humanly possible. And record as many takes as it takes (clever wording, I know ;) ) to get the performance you're after.

2) Multitrack recording, overdubs, but no EQ or effects.

3) 2 + EQ

4) 3 + dynamics processing (compressor, gate, etc.)

5) 4 + reverb

6) 5 + delay/modulation effects (chorus, delay, etc.)

7) 6 + enhancers/exciters

8) 7 + mastering tools

9) Everything. Even that really expensive Wavy Gold Mo'Better-Iser (Pro version)

My own feeling is that while the purist route is admirable in a way, and its focus on musicianship is a good discipline to get into, the most sensible 'minimum toolkit' would be multitrack, overdubs, EQ, dynamics and reverb. If you're any good you can produce excellent resuls with the above. If you can't get good results with the above, then the Wavy Gold Mo'Better-Iser isn't going to help.

Comments?
 
Alastair,
Why not download the Ozone demo and see for yourself? Yes, it is REALLY annoying when the sound drops out every 20 seconds, but when it is on, it is fully functional. I think Waves has demos as well, but I'm not sure.

Queue
 
Thanks Queue. I have downloaded Ozone, although I haven't yet tried it.

I was interested to hear whether folk in general, and the pros in particular, think that consumer mastering plugins as a breed are worthwhile, as well as opinions on specific models.

I may well end up buying Ozone, or whatever, but I've been struck by the very strong steer towards getting it right at record time.

I'm as guilty as anyone for yearning after a magic box (or plugin) that will automatically transform my meandering ditties into chart hits, but it's useful for me to be reminded that the most important thing, and probably the area I should be working hardest on, is getting the performance and the initial recording to be as good as possible.

So, while I'll certainly try out all the stuff I'm interested in, I suspect I don't yet have the necessary knowledge to really judge the relative merits of Ozone, T-racks, Waves, etc. Maybe after a few more years of hard practice and close listening, I'll be better able to make use of a mastering plugin. At which point either the magic plugin really will exist, will use 0% CPU and will come free with Cornflakes, or I'll realise that what I really need is the services of a professional mix engineer. ;)

Thanks for the input.

Cheers

Alastair
 
Be sure to grab the manual (in .pdf) form. It not only tells you how to use the plugin, but also a little bit about what mastering is and is not.

Cool factoid - in that manual, they give props to this very BBS as a good reference on equipment and recording and such.

If you want to read some opinions on mastering, go to the sonic foundry forum here on homerecording.com, and hit a thread titled "Mastering in SF" (or something very similar). Amidst a lot of name calling and bickering there's some good comments. A little "mastering" pissing match has come out of the whole thing, which should be interesting. But the damn thread is 6 pages long, so if you are short on time, skip to the 6th page, and read atomictoyz's post.

Queue
 
hey alibish,
don't let the post count and fancy avatar fool you. i haven't even bothered to begin to focus on learning about mastering. i'm still in recording/mixing school. i do keep my eyes open, and check out the stuff, but i really haven't even tried to master something yet.

Queue
 
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