What's your most important piece of mastering hardware?

  • Thread starter Thread starter jamesl8
  • Start date Start date
J

jamesl8

New member
I'm looking forward to using the computer as a tape recorder and routing all my channels out of the AI into my mixer.
I can think of many hardware fx boxes I'd love to have for my mixes. But what mastering hardware should i be saving my money for?
 
Monitoring and room treatment trump everything -- E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G -- so that's the obvious place to start. After that, the AD & DA should be considered (not counting the ultimate DA controlling the monitoring chain) before bothering with any particular outboard gear.

What's your current situation in that regard?

AFTER those are all handled, I suppose the next obvious piece would be a compressor. Some would argue EQ and they shouldn't be ignored. I've just found many decent digital EQ's over the last several years. But no substitute for GR (and additional gain) in the analog realm (assuming, of course, that the DA & AD are up to the task and the difference can be easily noted through the monitoring DA and chain).

*Which* compressor is open to debate. Personally, the only one that gets used on --- really, just about every single project that comes through the door, is the Crane Song STC-8M. Followed by the Variable Mu (probably on 10-15%) and then the goofy stuff like the SSL (maybe on 1 or 3 out of 100 mixes). That thing (the STC-8M) is freakishly flexible, amazingly clean - Very powerful unit.
 
Last edited:
The-Suck-Button.jpg


G.
 
+1 on what John said. monitors, room, conversion first.

Most used hardware, although in small doses = compression.

One that's slightly affordable = API 2500
 
Yours doesn't go to 11, G? I'm surprised.

I hear what your saying, john, about treatment. There are lots of things i know that i need (i have material lists and blueprints for future bass traps with room mode calcs, etc.). But I love to imagine all the pieces I'll eventually put together. And some of the foggiest at this point are for mastering. I had imagined compression would be there. I also wonder about master summing units.
 
jamesl8 said:
Yours doesn't go to 11, G?I'm surprised.
Click to expand...
Hell no, mine's a vintage 60s RCA pre-Spinal Tap suck control. Nothing but the best in external iron for me ;).

As far as real gear, you want a second pair of loudpeakers more detailed and accurate and far easier to translate than what you'll probably choose to mix on, along with a second engineer/pair of ears with the talent you can trust and the honesty to tell you when you've gotten too close to the mix and are missing something important in the mastering.

G.
 
My bad. i think i did bring some mixing talk into the master section. and it's right there in the name of the forum, too..."because mastering is not mixing."

But i've read some talk about people using some of these analogue summing amps/mixers in the mastering process. i was just kinda curious what some people people might say they use.
 
my main piece of mastering hardware would be a mastering engineer.
 
You won't find to many summing boxes used in mastering because there is not much to sum. Instead you will find mastering consoles such as Crookwood Console or Manley Backbone, or the Dangerous Mastering Console etc that are used to route/assign/switch the analog inserts as well as the option to use an analog m/s or parallel processing configuration.
 
The most used hardware in my studio is the DAC, speakers and amplifier, actual processing hardware is easily followed by the equalizer.(Some projects do not even see a compressor) It is incredible what an effect an equalizer can have on music and all the more reason why the room and response must be in order before one is used.

cheers

Barry
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top