what's the best software to use for mastering???

[TonyB]

Originally Posted by Ruzz

......
Brandon - can we please have an AAMS sub-forum?

Ruzz

Well, one thing's for sure. I think we ANSWERED this question.....

"what's the best software to use for mastering??? "

[brandondrury]

Alright. Here you go:
AAMS Mastering Software - Home Recording Forum

It'll need quite a few posts in the very beginning to get it started. I don't know ANYTHING about AAMS yet so maybe you guy can fill in the blanks for a whille.

Maybe you have some AAMS buddies you can direct this way.

I'm downloading the demo now so I'll give this stupid thing a try. I have my old school tendencies too, but it's possible that there could be some really benefit to this.

Brandon

[TonyB]

Originally Posted by brandondrury

Alright. Here you go:
AAMS Mastering Software - Home Recording Forum

It'll need quite a few posts in the very beginning to get it started. I don't know ANYTHING about AAMS yet so maybe you guy can fill in the blanks for a whille.

Maybe you have some AAMS buddies you can direct this way.

I'm downloading the demo now so I'll give this stupid thing a try. I have my old school tendencies too, but it's possible that there could be some really benefit to this.

Brandon

Brandon,

Thanks.

It won't totally replace the "old schooler" process, but I think for some songs it may definitely help. For some (as I stated before) it'll be overkill, and actually kill the song.

[Bigduggieface]

What's the best software to use for mastering? A digital limiter.

Traditionally when dealing with tape and vinyl, mastering engineers needed to overcome a whole host of physical hurdles order to transfer a mix to the final media (vinyl, cassette, 8-track). Only a few years ago, artists were forced to pay the mastering suites big bucks to manipulate the final mix in order to compete with the professional releases of the time.

Today's ubiquitous digital media is nearly infinitely manipulatable. Even an inexpensive modern software limiter (along with eq and other effects set correctly) can emulate $2,000 mastering jobs.

Don't get me wrong. Pro mastering houses use the cutting edge technology and acoustic environments.

If you're on a budget and you're forced to master your own mixes, strap a limiter onto the main output's stereo insert.

Let me know if you want more info. I could go on forever with this...

[ego229]

hi im new and all i want to know is what is the best mic for home recording

[Bigduggieface]

Welcome to the wonderful world of recording, ego229.

Since this particular forum thread is specifically about audio mastering, I will not get too deep into the subject of microphones.

I suggest you go to the main forum page by clicking the 'Forum' link at the top of this page. On the main page you will see a thread called 'Gear Selection Help'. Click there and start a new thread. Pose your question again so that the rest of the forum community (including myself) can discuss possible microphone choices for you.

Be sure to include details like: How much can you afford to spend? What styles of music will you be recording? Which instruments will you be recording?

These factors will help to determine which microphone to buy. Good luck.

[brandondrury]

Today's ubiquitous digital media is nearly infinitely manipulatable. Even an inexpensive modern software limiter (along with eq and other effects set correctly) can emulate $2,000 mastering jobs.

For the record, the modern tools (plugins specifically) do a great job of emulating the high end gear, but the knowledge it takes to use them is still required. So if it were me, I'd re-word the sentence about gear emulating $2,000 mastering jobs and change it to gear emulating $2k gear.

[TLTD]

I like to use Cakewalk Music Creator, it is cheap and comes with a lot of nice stuff. You can get all the VST plug ins you want and try them. The parametric eq and compressor are really good if you know how to use them. The nice thing is you can create an fx loop without applying it directly to the wav and it is just a matter of right clicking and adding things. You can just right click on a wav and apply it and undo. You can work with 24 bit files too and record in 24, automate volumes, etc.
If you have the money, Sonar has a lot more stuff and is probably the best. I downloaded it once and recorded a song and just used presets and it turned out better than I can do. But I did not own it and made a conscious decision to only use what I have and not downloaded programs with cracks and things. It really cleared up my mind so I could feel good about what I can accomplish on a budget.

[craw]

So if i'm sending my tracks out to get mastered, is there a rough idea of cost, say for an 11 track album (11 tracks, 60 min)

[String7th]

Most "Mastering" software is simply wave-editing software. You take a wave file or whatever file from your mix-down, and do some stereo editing on the file or create a new file under any format you want.

I use Wavelab and if I didn't have mastering plug in's it would be useless. The freebe's it comes with are a joke and don't do much besides ugly compression, and a cheesy chorus-sounding thing. I choose to take my mix and bring the volume up with Wave's L2 Maximiser (instead of in Cubase post-master fader). But before that I use Timeworks Mastering compressor, PSP linear masterEQ, and maybe another something special if it calls for it.

In the end, it's all wave editing software and is optional. Major label mastering is usually done by a separate mastering studio.