if you know anything about mastering, click here.

  • Thread starter Thread starter shackrock
  • Start date Start date
Agree...

Although I'm not a "pro" I do agree with Ed and LWS...

The "mastering in a box" tools are not the way to go..

When I "master" tracks I use LAP V5 and insert some quality plugins into the master bus before I bounce. (actually I import the mix as a separate file to do so...) I like some of the Sonic Timeworks stuff as well as the Waves plugins. A few of the native Logic plugins work nicely as well.

That being said - the Waves route MAY be cheaper because by the time you add up the cost of LAP V5 and all the plugs you are into some money. What I do like about my approach is I can track - mix - edit and "master" all in the same environment.

Avoid the quick fix and be happy (er)...

zip >>
 
the only advice i would add onto zip's post is that..

if you are going to record, mix and master in a sequencer programme, make sure you make a version without all the mastering aswell. you may think those meters look really cool at zero today, but come back tomorrow and you'll probably think it sucked. if you dont have an unmastered version, you'll have to remix the whole track!

ALWAYS HAVE AN UNMASTERED VERSION. even if you say, right, im gonna put this compressor very lightly on the whole mix, make a mix without it aswell. if you get into the habit, you'll be happy in the long run.
 
YES!

That's exactly what I do...

Track - mix - SAVE

IMPORT - "master" - SAVE

Good advice!

zip >>
 
sonusman said:
shakrock, DON'T waste your money on T-Racks!!! I am a professional mixing/mastering engineer who uses Wavelab and Waves plugin's in my work (and consider IT to be barely adequate for the job....:(). So now that makes TWO professional engineers, both who have/currently own their own studios (LongWaveStudio's is quite a bit bigger than mine was...) who recommend that you don't waste your money on it. We have both seen/heard too many people blow $300 on that piece of shit software.

Just consider this. You can spend that $300 for T-Racks now, and you will realize we were right a little ways down the road, then that is WASTED money because T-Racks certainly isn't going to give you your money back when you discover it sucks.

OR

You can spend a bit more money right off the bat for Wavelab 4 (my famous saying around here is "Buy cheap, buy twice!"), which contains plugins natively that are at least as good as T-Racks, and in addition allow you to migrate in OTHER plugin's as you can afford them. It will also allows you to do direct editing to the .wav file. As well, Wavelab has very good CD authoring software native to it. It is by and far a much better "mastering" solution, even for your simple needs. Trust me on this one. I have nothing gain by recommending it to you except the gain of knowing I steered somebody away from a decision, solely based upon finances, that they will regret later. I KNOW you will regret your T-Racks purchase later as your ears become better at hearing the bad artifacts it inflicts upon the sound. Yes, you are all "gee whiz" right now, but you have NO basis of comparison, and I DO!!! So does LongWaveStudio.

You can't argue with TWO professional engineers arguements that Wavelab would be a better "bang for the buck" can you? If you do, well, I guess you didn't need to post this question in the first place eh? ;)

Good luck.

Ed

Settle down beavis,
you gotta realize our friend shackrock is just trying to master 4-track mixes, not 32 tracks on a 250,000 dollar sony reel to reel digital tape machine. On a four track analog tape, it is not going to make that much of a difference if you are using tracks or wavelab or taking it to a professional mastering studio. You can only polish turds (4-track tapes) so much.
 
fenix,

a 4 track was just an example. he does say he'd work from CD-R aswell.

you might as well get the best anyway. why buy t-racks and later on realise you need something else.

where's the logic in that fenix?

wavelab is upgradable via it's plug-ins which can be used in a variety of ways.

-Romesh
 
with MY recordings, i'll be working with maybe 10 tracks average per song....basically its:

1 drums
2-4 guitar
1 bass
2-4 vocal
sometimes 1 keyboard/other instrument

and each of those are recorded seperate (through beheringer mixer...802A (yes i know..we all hate behringer..lol).....and then to my comp, with n-track).

So i'd be "mastering" those, as well as maybe other homerecorder's tracks (some done with 4tracks, some like me, etc.).

Are there any plugins that i could just use with n-track? like decent EQ/Compressor/Limiter plugins?
 
sjoko, sorry man, it's not the actaul snare hit im talking about, it's that other snare sorta rolling int he background.
 
LongWaveStudio said:
fenix,

a 4 track was just an example. he does say he'd work from CD-R aswell.

you might as well get the best anyway. why buy t-racks and later on realise you need something else.

where's the logic in that fenix?

wavelab is upgradable via it's plug-ins which can be used in a variety of ways.

-Romesh

Sorry, you gotta realize i'm old-school and I'm still running on adats...t-racks is the only place where the computer comes in handy in my home studio. I don't even know what a plug-in is :)
 
" I don't even know what a plug-in is "

Isn't it one of those new-fangled bathroom deoderizers?? ;)
 
Yeah, does anyone know how to get my Spring Breeze plugin from Glade to work with Sound Forge?? My mixes still stink.
 
glade plug-ins are actually awesome.

they are the only thing that keeps my studio from smelling like kitty litter.
 
shamrock,

you should not have to lower your tracks to import them into another medium. if both mediums are capable of the same bit depth, there shouldn't be any clipping in one, if there is no clipping in the other.

i use Sonar to record and mix, and I use SEKD's RedRoaster (ie.. Samplitude Master) to do sweetening and mastering using Waves plugins in addition to the features in RedRoaster.

Everything I do is non-destructive so I can always go back and re-create the magic.
 
ozone....

I don't know much about wavelab but I'd get Izotope Ozone before T-racks. T-rack's compressor sucks, and isn't even multiband. Ozone has most of what you need in one simple little plugin (multiband compressors and even multiband exciters) and it's cheaper (200 bucks, I think). If anything download their mastering guide:

http://www.izotope.com/products/ozone/ozoneguide.html

it's pretty damn informative (at least for a beginner like me). They also have a demo version to try out.

One thing to look out for though with Ozone- it's a cpu hog. I have a pentium 450 and it's very slow (but nowadays that's a slow computer). If you have anything more than that I'd say give it a shot.

-Sal
 
well i found a warez version of t-racks and i'm trying it out, i think that if that IzoTope thing doesnt work for me, then t-racks would be fine.

its cheaper, and i dont know nearly enough to start using wavelab. I'll give myself a few years first.haha
 
LongWaveStudio said:
some company sent me the first version of T-Racks to review it and see if i wanted to use it in the studio. I played with it for about one hour and sent it back saying i didn't want anything to do with it.

it claims some analog warmth gets added. bull. you get a few valves which light up and change colour. the compressor was disgusting, the limiter had a horrible artifact , the only thing which was ok, was the eq. and that wasn't very comprehensive.

sonusman, true, wavelab is not good enough for "mastering", but im sure you'll agree with me in the fact that it is something that can always be upgraded and manipulated better than T-racks.

It's either wavelab, or I must admit, sound forge has worked quite well as well, the new version 5. the benefit of both packages is, you can edit onto the wave itself in a better way. ill give you a quick example...

yesterday, i had to make a radio edit for a client. so i put the track into Soundforge, found the points to be editied, zoomed into find the exact points of the beat, did a little crossfading, deleted the sections i didn't need. done. the track was edited, ready to be mastered. to do edits like that is so easy, and you cant do it with T-Racks.

Wavelab or Soundforge (sonic foundry) can be bought in most respected music shops, i guess. Maybe a little more expensive to T-Racks, but there are obvious reasons for that:-) i bought wavelab originally, just for the analysis features. so thats one good reason to buy it. you can check phase, frequency graphs, allsorts. im sure it will educate you in someway if you are new to mastering.


sonusman, which waves plug ins do you like? i must admit, i hate plugins, but ive been impressed with a couple of waves' stuff.

-Romesh

Romesh, I hope you didn't get the impression that I was knocking Wavelab! LOL.... It is what I have and use it shamelessly! My comment about "barely adequate" has more to do with the fixed 24 bit internal processing. The "featues" of the application are quite staight ahead and more than adequate.

About the only Waves plug I find myself using over and over is the L1. I have been starting to like the C1 Compressor on certain things, but it just falls a tad short is really giving me that "roundness" I want when I use a compressor over a mix. I don't particularly care for their EQ's over a mix. I use Steinberg's QMetric, and that is a parametric EQ that is hard to beat. It uses "double sample rate" processing, which is sort of like increasing the internal bit depth as I understand it. I like how transparent the sound is, and how "real life" the interface is. No funny graph stuff to deal with, just turn some cyber knobs....:)

I am beside myself to understand how somebody will go and spend the money on a "solution", even after many professional engineers advised that there is a better way to go for the long run.

The facts remain:

1 - Wavelab and T-racks are very close to the same price.

2 - Wavelab contains NATIVELY eq and compression modules that are comparable to T-racks

3 - Wavelab allows waveform editing and T-racks doesn't.

4 - Wavelab supports third party plugin's. T-racks doesn't.

5 - Wavelab offers a CD authoring sub-application that works with many of the most popular CDR burners. You can also print a PQ Timesheet for a duplication house from the program if they require one with your "mastered" disk.

6 - T-racks will probably NEVER offer the above features! One day, there could be a T-racks Direct X and/or VST plugin that you can use in Wavelab!!! :)

7 - Only an idiot would pay money for T-racks when something like Wavelab is available!!! ;)

Now shackrock, I can't spend your money for you. But I can at least tell you when a fool and his money will be parted. Don't be a fool and trust a couple guys who have to slug out a living using these tools. If a couple of professional engineers advise a certain software that is comparable in price to what you are consider, and STRONGLY suggest that you DON'T purchase what you are considering, you should be counting your lucky stars that such help was provided to you for free!

You just can't get over how "cool" the T-racks interface looks, and the many "endorsements" offered by people about it. The proof is in the pudding. You start COMPARING the audio that was processed in T-racks to what else is available, you start HEARING that it is not a very good solution.

Don't be so fucking hard headed and buy Wavelab.

Ed
 
Ed,

but T-Racks runs on valves!! i can even see them on the screen....


LOL


DO YOURSELF A FAVOUR, GET WAVELAB/FORGE.

lol, quite true mate, i woudln't be surprises seeing a DX T-Racks.

ive been using the Qmetric for a while aswell, a very nice eq i must say. ive been using outboard eq a lot lately mind you.

and whoever said to get that izotope thing, i personally dont like it one bit. i dont know what it is, but i just cant seem to like it at all.
 
another thing is that with T-racks, you're only going to get one compression sound going really, where else with wavelab and some DECENT compressor plugins, you can have a variety of compressor types/colours/whatever. same goes for the eq. i dont think you can set bandwith in the T-Racks EQ either. and that fade in/out thing is shite. the last time i tried it (i doubt it's been updated), it doesn't let you fade out to a certain point. so if you said you wanted a fade out of 16 seconds, it would start fading out 16 seconds to the end of the file. now what if you have a drummer talking at 3 seconds before the end? you cant move that fade out to come earlier. i.e. you cant fade 20 seconds before the end, and then mute the remaining 4 seconds or whatever. do you understand this? i cant explain it well!!!

this was on an earlier version. on the new version i was sent, i think the same thing happened.
 
Another "inthebox" drawback...

Even if the EQ "inthebox" was good you only have a few truely parametric frequencies to work with. When "mastering" I rarely only have 2 or 3 frequencies to tweak...

In Logic (or soundforge / or wavelab) you can stack 2 or 3 or more nice EQ's AND you can use different limiters / compressors to get the sound you want. They ALL sound different.

Buy a "inthebox" and everything will sound very similar because you will be using the same components for each mix!!

I like the Sonictimeworks EQ's and I'll use it with the STW mastering compressor, the Logic AD Limiter, Multipressor or the L1...

FLEXIBILITY!! AVOID THE BOX!!!

Again - I'll say that's why I like Logic Platinum. It's not a true pro mastering setup but I can track,mix,edit,master in one environment.

The little tube light bulbs are cool looking however... ;)

zip >>
 
Keep your options open and check out ebay for used software. I got lucky and was able to pick up WAVELAB 3.0 + MASTERING EDITION 1.0 really cheap. It hasn't arrived yet but I'm looking forward to the mass confusion trying to learn to use it like all the other software I've tried. There are also a lot of demo downloads you could try out by most of the manufacturers including Wavelab and T-Racks. So try before you buy.

Oh yeh. One reason alone not to buy T-Racks. They used to use a dongle for software copy protection. I hear they now use a system that requires you to get a code from them when you install it and if you crash you are out of luck because it won't work anymore. Don't know what it takes to get a new code to get it going again.
 
Back
Top