Outboard Equipment for mastering

[jmxdrummer]

I haven't posted in a long while but Ive always gotten great advice here. My current issue is that I hate using plugins to master my songs. I am looking to switch to mastering using rackmount equipment instead of the plugins. What do you all think about these units that I am contemplating buy at guitarcenter?

DBX 231 2 chan. 31 band eq

DBX 166A COMP/LIMIT

thanks

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

I've not used the dbx 231, but I have used a dbx 2215 for several years now, and I like it quite a bit for gentle mastering shaping. It's only a 2/3-octave EQ instead of the 1/3-octave of the 231, but it has, in addition to the EQ, two channels of limiter and dbx Type III NR. It's a very nice package for the price. There is a 1/3rd octave version of it called the 2231, but that's over twice the price of the 231. Maybe you could find one on meBay for Craig'sthing for a good price.

The 166a is nice for live use and perhaps even for tracking, but I'm not sure I'd recommend it for mastering. You could work it OK, probably, but it's not really ideal for that purpose, IMHO. While ART gets a lot of short shrift in these forums by a lot of people, I personally feel one of the best bang for the buck compressors on the market is the ART Pro VLA. It's an optical compressor similar to the LA2A (similar, I'm not claiming the same ) and not a brick wall limiter, but if you combine that with the dbx 22-series which has it's own limiter, it makes for a fairly nice combination at bargain basement prices.

IMHO, YMMV, FDNY, ETC.

G.

 

[mixmkr]

dbx nr for mastering and a graphic eq??

 

[Waltz Mastering]

What do you all think about these units that I am contemplating buy at guitarcenter?

DBX 231 2 chan. 31 band eq

DBX 166A COMP/LIMIT

If you wanna go outboard, it would probably be worth saving up and trying to pick up an api 2500 or Alan Smart C2...coarse you'll want a good da-ad loop and da as well...it never ends...

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

dbx nr for mastering and a graphic eq??

The Type III NR is a simultaneous encode/decode internal to the EQ; it gives a theoretical (not always real) 20dB of extra S/N to the EQ.

And no, it's not typical to find a lot of graphic EQ in mastering, but I personally like it not so much for fixing mix problems - that's what parametrics are for - but when I want to gently shape the almost-final result, I still like a decent graphic.

No, I wouldn't necessarily recommend that for those with a real budget, and I'm sure that John, his brother Tom, and his other brother Tom are holding their noses as they read this , but for those like me who are poor little bario babys and can't afford the real good stuff, IMHO, a nice *clean* 2/3 or 1/3 octave graphic can be a nice tool for overall shaping.

(Insert silly little capital letters representing all kinds of caveats here.)

G.

 

[Waltz Mastering]

No, I wouldn't necessarily recommend that for those with a real budget, and I'm sure that John, his brother Tom, and his other brother Tom are holding their noses as they read this ,

No. I've turned into an anti gearslut. The only thing I've picked up new in the last two years has been a hard drive.
For the foreseeable near future, I'm only interested in doing some mods to gear I presently have and getting the most out of it.

I was just thinking that compression is a lot harder to emulate than eq, so if I had to choose I would go with a used out board compressor. Klark Teknic, Urie and Rane make some pretty decent 1/3 octave eq's although recall would be hard.

 

[mixmkr]

that's what grease pencils are for.

I will have to potentially argue-agree...is that EQ are more colorful than any other hunk of gear.

Don't forgeet White either..

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

that's what grease pencils are for.

Or, if you wanted to go real 70's retro low-tech, you could use cardboard templates like they used to give with the old Soundcraftsman graphic EQs (not Soundcraft, different company).

They gave you little stiff cards with vertical lines representing each slider position to scale. Then what you did was take a pair of scissors and cut out the bottom half in a way where the top half of the card fit right over the slider positions of your EQ setting.

Then later, when you wanted to "recall" the EQ curve, you just pushed all the sliders all the way up, and then push the card down over the sliders until the far edges of the card line up with the bottom of the EQ, pushing the sliders down as you go, and voila, instant EQ setting recall!

Who needs computers?

G.

 

[Massive Master]

I haven't posted in a long while but Ive always gotten great advice here. My current issue is that I hate using plugins to master my songs. I am looking to switch to mastering using rackmount equipment instead of the plugins. What do you all think about these units that I am contemplating buy at guitarcenter?

DBX 231 2 chan. 31 band eq

DBX 166A COMP/LIMIT

thanks

My question would be much more towards the "What are you trying to accomplish with relatively cheesy gear that for some reason you aren't accomplishing with plugins" route.

Don't get me wrong here - I'm an analog nut. But there's 'analog' and there's 'analog' -- Crappy gear is crappier than plugins.

And 31-band graphic EQ's are generally for mixing monitors. But that's for another thread...

 

[mixmkr]

Or, if you wanted to go real 70's retro low-tech, you could use cardboard templates like they used to give with the old Soundcraftsman graphic EQs (not Soundcraft, different company).

They gave you little stiff cards with vertical lines representing each slider position to scale. Then what you did was take a pair of scissors and cut out the bottom half in a way where the top half of the card fit right over the slider positions of your EQ setting.

Then later, when you wanted to "recall" the EQ curve, you just pushed all the sliders all the way up, and then push the card down over the sliders until the far edges of the card line up with the bottom of the EQ, pushing the sliders down as you go, and voila, instant EQ setting recall!

Who needs computers?

G.

If you can believe it, I have some cardboard templates for an old Arp Odyssee that I had. A whole bunch of them. You laid them on top of the synth...complete with patch name, etc. I'm gonna wait another 10 years and then sell them for my retirement $$ ha!