Mastering Shootout: LANDR, Mastering Box, AAMS vs Real People

  • Thread starter Thread starter RedStone
  • Start date Start date
And, the big 'high end' studios will work with you as they are looking for work as well. There is one here in Denver that I go to all the time. I'm not about to give up my secret....lol


:)
 
Martin Maniac said:
Well I'm in the beginning of my mastering journey. I'm currently getting my plug-ins together. Waves have a 1 day sale going on right now. I just bought the Aphex Vintage Aural Exciter. I tried a demo version of it and was very pleased with the end result. It added a lot to my guitar track, so much so that when I turned it off it was very noticeable and I wanted it back on right away. They are on sale for $89 dollars which is a lot cheaper that the $149 price I got from Aphex the other day.

LANDR says it uses EQ, Multi-Band Compression, Limiter, Stereo Enhancer, and an Exciter. I've been using Aphex Exciters for years in my dj rig, so I'm familiar with what it does. I have all the other plugins in Audition and Sonar, so the Exciter was the only thing missing. This particular Vintage Exciter is modeled after the original tube Aural Exciter from the '70's. When they first came out they were only available on a short term rental basis.
Click to expand...

Dood! Your mix needed 2 of those to master the mix if that. But again, it is up to you to decide if you want to over - process your music.

LANDR is basically a preset that they already told you about.

I am not sure why I am even continuing this conversation.

Best to you and your waste of our and your own time... I'm out..

Sorry dood, I am over talking about this.
 
Well they say to let your ears be the judge. Having all these plugins gives me options to work with. I liked what I heard better than the raw track. So I bought it. End of story.
 
Martin Maniac said:
Well they say to let your ears be the judge. Having all these plugins gives me options to work with. I liked what I heard better than the raw track. So I bought it. End of story.
Click to expand...


Naw man, all those plugins give you an excuse to fix shit that should have been perfect at the recording stage. That is the beginning of the story. Why would you end it?

See man, it seems to me that you are jumping to the end result before the initial... And again, I am not trying to talk shit about your process. But dood, it starts at the tracking stage. If you have that right then you do not need to 'fix' shit.

I do not have any issue with what you find that works for you, other than you could do better by not needing to add plugins to make it right.

From my experience you will find that 'less' is 'more'.

I hate this thing, but: YMMV
 
Well I'm happy with the basic recordings I'm getting. That's not the problem. When I added the exciter to my raw track...quite frankly, it sounded much better. It was a definite improvement to my ears. I was looking at Aphex Exciter plugin downloads just the other day. Many years ago I had a version of it on floppy disk and I really liked it, so it's not a new thing to me. When you do an A/B test you hear the difference almost immediately, and it's a good difference, it doesn't sound over processed at all. $89 bucks sounded like a great price to me.
 
Martin Maniac said:
Well I'm happy with the basic recordings I'm getting. That's not the problem. When I added the exciter to my raw track...quite frankly, it sounded much better. It was a definite improvement to my ears. I was looking at Aphex Exciter plugin downloads just the other day. Many years ago I had a version of it on floppy disk and I really liked it, so it's not a new thing to me. When you do an A/B test you hear the difference almost immediately, and it's a good difference, it doesn't sound over processed at all. $89 bucks sounded like a great price to me.
Click to expand...


Well again, we agree. Kind of...The end result that makes the product sound good to you is what you find that gets you there.

But, I feel you lost my point. Carry on my wayward son. There will be peace when you are done. :)
 
Aphex are flogging their digital version of the "analogue tube based only for rent" system and sound very excited about it. They don't do any A B ing in the Utub sales pitch.
Get the tools you need Martin Maniac. You may be able to do well with them BUT get the ears needed first.
Mastering is all about doing what the mix needs and to do that you need to hear what is required then use tools to provide that.
If the Aphex makes your raw tracks sound much better then I'd suggest there's a prob with the raw track and if the exciter still sounds better to you hours or days later then I'd suggest that you've done well by using it very subtly or you need to retune your hearing.
 
Yes I am working on my ears. I bought Yamaha HS-8 monitors, Auralex MoPads for the monitors, and a new set of Sennheiser HD 650 headphones, Neumann TLM 102 mics... I'm training my ears by listening to professional commercial mixes for comparison.

You're right, only a touch of the Aural Exciter is needed, over use can indeed ruin a recording.
 
801.webp
You could get one of these from Ebay.
It'd be $5 or $150. It sounds GREAT on 1 song in 100 for me.
No secret sauce, just delay based feedback across channels to give a sense of width with some added high freq enhancement/distortion and a little low end of the same.
GREAT box because it's ON or OFF because I can't delude myself that buttons and sliders make it any less voodoo or hoodoo.
 
jimmys69 said:
I love finding musicians here on the forum, and giving my advice or taking over the project completely. For free. It depends on my time or whether I personally like the recording and find inspiration.
Click to expand...

That's my gig (or goal) at the moment as well. Really pumped about the whole home mastering thing, and I'm more and more convinced that it is possible to get results worth distributing/that you can be proud of. But --- and this is a big but, there is so much specialized knowledge involved in mastering that it's almost overwhelming, and the final results of a master in terms of the final EQ curve and technical specs seem to depend on a stunningly complicated set of factors.

However, just like mixing, I think that mastering can be made into an overly muddy and complicated process. I tend to over-complicate both my mixing and mastering - I think mainly because I don't pay enough attention during the recording phase of my projects. The example in this thread is a good one for that. I spent an inordinate amount of time mixing everything, but recorded everything as almost an afterthought.

Martin Maniac said:
When I added the exciter to my raw track...quite frankly, it sounded much better. It was a definite improvement to my ears.
Click to expand...

It is possible that the exciter did something good for your track, and no doubt it sounded better to your ears. But it's also possible that the exciter ruined the track while making it louder, which made you THINK it was better. This was one GIGANTIC lesson from this test. While John's master won out, it was also the loudest. I don't know how, but he managed to smash it to within an inch of it's life (DR7) while still maintaining clarity and depth.

Quite literally, the only way to tell if it's better is to Level Match it with the original and turn up the volume on your speakers so that both tracks are sufficiently and identically loud. If you don't do that, you'll be fooling yourself every time. I should know, I fooled myself for years.

If you want proof, here it is ...


There is a great free loudness matching plugin by TB Pro Audio called AB_LM. the x64 version is fantastic.
 
Why are you trying to convince me that the Exciter ruined the song ?? I listened to the song and A/B'ed it many times, there wasn't a loudness issue at all, if anything it sounded like an EQ adjustment. Either way..I liked the sound with the Exciter better. No it didn't ruin the song, it made it sound better. Without the Exciter, it sounded like I had tin cans for speakers, then with the Exciter it sounded very natural. I didn't notice any volume boost at all.
 
He's not trying to convince you. Just bringing up a 'possibility' and providing valuable info about level matching.
 
"But it's also possible that the exciter ruined the track while making it louder, which made you THINK it was better."

Sorry but this is totally untrue. It's BS. I know when I hear something that sounds better.
 
The key word is "possible".

No matter...you are the only real judge of what works for you.

But......there's a lot of good stuff to be taken from his post including the video. If not for you, but for others.
 
Oh now I get it, just raise the volume up .5 db and my mastering is done !!!! wahahahahahahaha
 
Martin Maniac said:
I listened to the song and A/B'ed it many times, there wasn't a loudness issue at all, if anything it sounded like an EQ adjustment. Either way..I liked the sound with the Exciter better. No it didn't ruin the song, it made it sound better. Without the Exciter, it sounded like I had tin cans for speakers, then with the Exciter it sounded very natural. I didn't notice any volume boost at all.
Click to expand...

Ah so what you are saying is that you reasonably know that there wasn't a loudness difference between the two references, so you were therefore able to reliably percieve the difference between the two, correct? A/Bing does nothing if one version is louder than the other. The catch is that even 1/2 a DB in loudness change can make a massive difference in how you perceive the sound!

Mastering is all about reliability. If the exciter objectively made the song better, then that's awesome! I was just saying that if it wasn't level matched (I would say to within 0.5db), it's impossible to make a reliable final judgement. And by impossible, I mean Impossible.

It's tried and true science. As the volume is turned up, our ears perceive more clarity and punch even if it's not there. This is the whole reason for the loudness wars. Our ears will even tend to ignore certain amounts of audible distortion if we perceive more punch and clarity. It's also why if you monitor at high volumes, your mixes (or masters) will turn out someplace between thin and unbearably harsh. As the monitors get turned up, the woofers push air harder which creates that extended bass response and the tweeters similarly push more air (just in faster intervals). #Just things to be aware of when auditioning even the auto masters

Level match to the original and to a reference track, and monitor at medium to low levels. This will give you the most accurate perception your system is capable of producing. Always.

sources
http://www.sfu.ca/sonic-studio/handbook/Equal_Loudness_Contours.html
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/sound/eqloud.html
 
The above is one of the things that causes me to be perplexed with the "headphone crowd". The claim is that they are in a situation where they 'cannot' mix on monitors. Such as it being late or living in an apartment. Hence, out come the headphones.

However one of the most successful proffessional mixers in modern times, CLA, always mixes at volumes where he could hear someone typing.

My contention has always been that if you can watch TV in your apt or while the family is sleeping, one CAN monitor on speakers. Monitoring at "TV listening levels, and I'm not talking about 'bombs blowing up movie sound', just normal watching the news levels, is the best way to monitor. (IMHO)

You avoid all the problems that come with monitoring loud. Crank it up after you're done mixing and enjoy the results.
:D
 
Interesting development...Cakewalk just sent me a free plugin...it's a CA-2A T-Type Leveling Amplifier. It's cool !!

I did a search and fount the exact same unit on Amazon list at $95.00 !!!!! At Musician's Friend it's $99 !!!
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top