TC Electronic FINALIZER EXPRESS??????

[EddieRice]

Anyone ever try this mastering rackmount out yet?

Ive read some great reviews on this gear and its suppose to be a great rig for mastering dummies like myself.

Run your signal through it to your recording gear and its suppose to auto read alot of the signals and auto level your signal, and you can adjust eq etc

For under 1,000 bones it looks like a beginner mastering dummies dream gear.

whats the scoop on this rig?

If anyone of you mastering wizards could advise if you think this is a rig worth buying.

Im not looking for top-notch $2500 dollar album mastering house sound. Since most of my music is for hobby purpose only.

Im old school and alot of the plug-in mastering software is like trying to get me to split an atom.

I want something easy to use that can boost the quality with ease, and from what I read, this gear is just that.

Im sold on buying this, if anyone thinks otherwise I'd love to hear your thoughts on this before i dump 900 bones on this rig

Thanks for any help.

 

[Blue Bear Sound]

I personally like the "Make it sound like Steely Dan" setting....

Doesn't matter what kind of crap-ass mix you throw at it, it turns it into a "perfect mix" - ready for selling or radio-play.




yikes..................


Save your money, work on your recording and mixing skills to concentrate on getting your mix to sound right before you throw money out on a what is basically a glorified Exciter with a few extra bells and whistles to make your mix sound like it should have before you even tried to Finalize it!

Seriously, these units do not "auto-master" anything for you - sure maybe you can tweak the level a bit, squash some dynamics or even munch it with EQ, but you don't need a specific unit to mess a mix up with that mess.

These Finalizer devices don't really do anything close to what a Mastering House will do to prep your mix. The basic comp/limit/eq processing is only a small part of "Mastering".

Bruce

 

[EddieRice]

hmmm

Seems to be quite a bit of Steely Dan fascination running amuck on this board Personally I dont really think there are 2 better guys in the business than Max Norman and Martin Birch.

I didnt expect it "run your tune through dude, grab a frosty beverage, sit back, toss your feet on the desk, shove a cigar in your grill and we'll have your mastered album in 20 minutes"

But it does reconize "in advanced level peaks" and is able to adjust them, and this could go along way with newbies. having recorded several records in my life, .. back in 89 we did a album recorded on tape from Morrisound recording studio under Atlantic label and just recently had it remastered on digital and the quality is ten fold the original sound. I have a rather good ear in recording, take a listen to some of my songs http://www.onlinerock.com/musicians/utah/

this is recorded dry, no mastering at all...

Im not paying 125 bones an hour to have my songs mastered if all they are is for hobby purposes only, Im looking for an inexpensive way to improve the overall sound, even if its just a little.

But thanks for the advice, have no problem eq'ing, its the overall mastering id like to do myself and not overspend.

Cheers

 

[jimistone]

i would suggest to get the mixies as good and clean as your can....then send your album off to a mastering house and let them master it. I say "leave the mastering to the masters". if your getting a replication of 1000 cd's professional mastering will probably run 500 bucks and will only increase your cost 50 cent per cd on 1000 cd's. the equipment professional mastering houses use is out of reach of most home studio budgets. I would be willing to bet that you would never find a tc finalizer in a pro mastering house. if your gonna sell an album to the general public 500 bucks for mastering is money well spent...just my 2 cents

 

[Blue Bear Sound]

Re: hmmm

Im not paying 125 bones an hour to have my songs mastered if all they are is for hobby purposes only, Im looking for an inexpensive way to improve the overall sound, even if its just a little.

But thanks for the advice, have no problem eq'ing, its the overall mastering id like to do myself and not overspend.

Ahhh!!! I got the mistaken impression that you wanted the "all-in-one-no-mastering-engineer-needed-anymore" kind of box that would make your recording release-ready! You'd be surprised how many here actually think a single magic box can better the job a skilled mastering engineer can do... (ie, take a look at the whole DIY HomeRec'cers Mastering" thread)

But given that you want to tweak your own hobby recordings for shits 'n giggles - that's probably an easy way to do it. Just don't fool yourself into beleiving you've "mastered" your recordings that way!

Good luck........

Bruce

 

[ruebarb]

I'm in the same boat

We've come up with a brillant demo idea...just give away CD-R's of our band off a spindle for free at gigs....at 35 cents a CD-R...we can do half a dozen tunes, and if people like it, they'll take one and come out to future shows. When we record the professional CD with professional tracks, it's off to the mastering house.

But in a situation like this, I'll just use the Alesis Masterlink stuff to round out the sound...no sense paying a mastering house for what is essentially a glorified flyer.

 

[Lopp]

Re: hmmm

Im not paying 125 bones an hour to have my songs mastered if all they are is for hobby purposes only, Im looking for an inexpensive way to improve the overall sound, even if its just a little.

I'm in the same boat and can't agree more. I have the Finalizer Plus and love the ability to perform multiband compression on the mix. Regardless of whether I'm actually "mastering" or not, I enjoy being able to add extra punch and "round off the edges" of my mixes that are not going to be distributed to the masses.

That being said, the Express also allows relatively decent quality mutiband compression which is extremely useful for waxing and polishing a mix. That in itself justifies the price.