reccommend me some directx mastering plugins

  • Thread starter Thread starter treymonfauntre
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I use Sound Forge on a daily basis. Sony(sonic foundry) makes some wonderful things. The wave hammer isn't one of them.
The advantage that a home recordist has over a commercial facility is, the home recordist doesn't have to have any equipment that doesn't pertain to their specific situation. The mbox is the same quality as the TDM version of protools, it just doesn't have as many inputs.
Commercial studios have to be able to handle a 20 piece drumset, a horn section, and a plethora of different singers. If a hobbiest finds the perfect vocal mic for them, they can stop buying vocal mics. You don't need $1,000,000 worth of stuff, you just need a few choice things.

I am making a pretty good living just mixing stuff that was recorded in home studios and recording drums for these bands and transfering the tracks to a siab so they can do the rest at home.
 
I agree with you

farview said:

And you cannot expect to get the same results as the pros do without the experience and gear, etc... It doesn't make anything better or worse, good or bad. But it doesn't do anyone any good when you bullshit yourself into thinking that a freeware plugin is doing the exact same thing that a $9000 compressor is. Or that your behringer truth monitors are just as good as a set of Genelecs for tracking and magicly turn into mastering monitor that are just as good as B&Ws. It is possible to get great results on not so great gear, but it takes more skill, patience, luck, etc... than on great equipment.

Bartman's reply:

Farview, I agree with you. I thought my post supported, not refuted your initial post.
 
Bruce/Jazz...

It's not bullshit that HOME recordists today have access to tools which you have learned and mastered. In one generation, the analogue devices which took vast amounts of money to possess have been digitized and made available to the masses. You can't tell me that if none of these HOME recording devices and softwares were not available, your businesses wouldn't be more lucritive.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying any idiot can use these tools, without any knowledge, to produce recordings as good as someone with your experience. I agree, there are no 'magic bullets' to instantly polish a turd into a gold record.

The point I was trying to make is that HOME recordists, by its very definition, DO NOT have the knowledge and resources to do what you, as professionals, do. Belittleling and critisizing those who's knowledge, or resources, is limited, does not garner the respect which your opinions deserve.

If WaveHammer isn't up to your standards, state WHY it isn't! If BBE Sonic Maximizer is a piece of crap, explain to those of us without your years of experience, WHY it is.

We're here to learn, not be flamed.
 
Heated/Spirited debate is good

I personally like the more emotionally charged posts from the pro's in this forum.

As far as crticism.....it's virtual criticism. Blow it off man. Maybe they had a bad day, maybe they feel you (or I) deserve it, maybe they answered the same stupid question 6 bazillion times.

My learning in this area has tons of headroom so I will read and (try to) absorb everything I can from the seasoned folks on this forum. The MP3 clinic is a good place to get a bead on the folks who really know their trade and those who are pretending.

I don't even know enough yet to pretend....but I do know how to learn.

Bart
 
michaelst said:
If WaveHammer isn't up to your standards, state WHY it isn't! If BBE Sonic Maximizer is a piece of crap, explain to those of us without your years of experience, WHY it is.

We're here to learn, not be flamed.
Click to expand...
A little forum searching goes a long way, because the evils of sonic maximisers has been done to death, but anyways, I suppose it bears repeating.......

The one thing that separates amateur from pro is the recognition that tight song arrangement and proper recording technique eliminates much of the need for extraneous processing after the fact. Amateurs tend to disregard recording technique in favour of more boxes... thinking that it's the gear, not the process that gives them "that sound"........

Get your recording technique sharpened up, and you won't NEED sonic maximisers. Same with just about any other type of processing....

Pros worry about how it sounds right at the beginning -- amateurs reach for gear first, and worry about how it's going to sound or sit in the mix later - often then finding tracks aren't working and they have to reach for more gear in a vain attempt at getting the sound they could have had by simply recorded properly in the first place.
 
michaelst said:
If WaveHammer isn't up to your standards, state WHY it isn't! If BBE Sonic Maximizer is a piece of crap, explain to those of us without your years of experience, WHY it is.
Click to expand...


Well, in short ... the wave hammer pretty much has this uncanny ability to suck the life out of anything that passes through it.

And just about any of the exciters and maximizers out there will tend to add a certain unpleasant, artificial quality to the high end. And it tends to get abused a lot, because people often use it when their ears aren't fresh ... only to listen back after the fact and realize they used too much.

More often than not, a lack of high end detail is due to accoustical anomolies or just poor mic positioning (or inappropriate mic choice). But even more common is just a duller-sounding source. If you want nice high end sheen, then use guitar strings that sound crisp. Use cymbals and high hats that sound that sound lively. Annunciate your words when you sing, and don't look away from the mic to look at your lyric sheet. :D There's just so many little things that I could go on and on and on ... which is why experience and practice play such a crucial role.
 
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michaelst said:
Bruce/Jazz...

It's not bullshit that HOME recordists today have access to tools which you have learned and mastered. In one generation, the analogue devices which took vast amounts of money to possess have been digitized and made available to the masses.
The point I was trying to make is that HOME recordists, by its very definition, DO NOT have the knowledge and resources to do what you, as professionals, do. Belittleling and critisizing those who's knowledge, or resources, is limited, does not garner the respect which your opinions deserve.
Click to expand...

The fact that these great pieces of analog gear have been *modeled* and made digital doesn't make me feel any better, because, in the end, it still has one *huge* downfall

Downfall: Modeling = just that. It is made off of a model and is usually a bastardized misrepresentation of the real thing. Ex: Name one plugin that emulates the LA2a limiter that actually sounds anything like the real thing. Furthermore, if the plugin sounded remotely like the real thing, why wouldn't all the beginning pro studios just use the plugin and not deal with cumbersome hardware? Oh yeah, its because plugins like this introduce a terrible amount of digital crapiness into the music. The wave hammer is based simply on mathematical calculations - like a really anal VCA that introduces terrible compression artifacts at low compression levels. Dont get me wrong, I primarily mix on the computer and I dont have the skill or equipment like some of the other pros here (yet), but I can still tell crap from good stuff, and the wave hammer is definitely crapola. There are some decent plugins out there (once again, there is no end-all-be-all plugin), but those that I am talking about will run you several thousand dollars. In this case, I would just buy 1 good piece of rack gear.



michaelst said:
If WaveHammer isn't up to your standards, state WHY it isn't! If BBE Sonic Maximizer is a piece of crap, explain to those of us without your years of experience, WHY it is.

We're here to learn, not be flamed.
Click to expand...

No one's flaming you. The only reason why it may seem that way is because everyone refuses to use the search button before posting a new thread... its like having a little kid in the car that constantly states 'are we there yet?' To answer your question about wave hammer, see above.

Peace

-JazzMang
 
Good Point

Bear Said:

"The one thing that separates amateur from pro is the recognition that tight song arrangement and proper recording technique eliminates much of the need for extraneous processing after the fact. Amateurs tend to disregard recording technique in favour of more boxes... thinking that it's the gear, not the process that gives them "that sound"........

Get your recording technique sharpened up, and you won't NEED sonic maximisers. Same with just about any other type of processing....

Pros worry about how it sounds right at the beginning -- amateurs reach for gear first, and worry about how it's going to sound or sit in the mix later - often then finding tracks aren't working and they have to reach for more gear in a vain attempt at getting the sound they could have had by simply recorded properly in the first place.
__________________

Bart's Reply:

Couldn't agree more. When I listen to the mix contests in the MP3 clinic the biggest differentiator I see between the Pro's and Hobbyists is the natural sound versus processed sound.

The Pro's have this pristine, clear as a bell, natural sound while the Hobbyists (myself deeply embedded in that group) have an obviously processed/somewhat unnatural sound.

One young hobbyist even boasted about his mix sounding like stuff on the radio! It was so tinny, treated, autotuned, overcompressed and L2'd to death that the MP3 did in fact sound like an overcompressed radio broadcast mix. If that mix was broadcasted over the radio it would sound like a bowl of oatmeal........pure mush.

Too many people today want to shortcut or bypass the natural order of things and are unwilling to put in the required time to master their trade. There is no substitute for experience and sometimes skills need to be learned in a prerequisite fashion. Re: Bear/Farview/Chess posts.....good arrangement, well thought out instrumentation choices, sound at the source matches the sound you need in the mix, good mic choice, etc....

Makes sense to me. Kinda like putting make-up on an ugly woman.....She may look good in a dark bar when you have your beer goggles on, but when you wake up in the morning she's F-ugly.

Diatribe aside.....I still think the Pro's have a secret magic tool kit that helps them salvage some aspects of a non-optimal recording, but the magic is knowledge and experience, not a plugin.
 
OK, I'll weigh in here. I'm not particularly a fan of Maximizers or exciters. BUT...They do have their place, as an effect. Like it or not. Should they be used as mastering tools??? Absolutely not!!! But if used sparingly as an FX in the mixing stage you can get some pretty unexpected results (Not always good). This shouldn't turn into another bash on Maximizers/Exciters thread, it's simply an over-used, wrongly-abused tool.

So now I'll try and be useful, and recommend PSP VintageWarmer. Not as a mastering tool per say, but if you are looking for a basic little plugin which gives you basic multiband compression/limiting/saturation, this one might be for you. It is best suited for dirtying things up a bit (Not adding clarity), and is one of my go to plugins, when I want to add a bit of grit to a track (Most usually bass guitar gets this one).
I'm not a pro, and you can do much better, but if you're not looking to take out a new mortgage on your house to buy high-end, then go get a demo, and see if you like it.
 
mattamatta said:
If you're looking for clarity and low end tightness, I think the place to fix that is in the tracking and in the mix, rather than with mastering.
Click to expand...
Yeah a tight low end has alot to do with tight well controled dynamical playing skills of the musicians and also the composition of the song also.
 
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