Originally posted by fourk:
Given the budget I would use Tony Cousins at Metropolis every time - he always makes the difference.

Yes, Tony Cousins at Metropolis is very good imho.

Jon

I pretty much do what Ed Hamilton does.

Jon Attack sold me on the idea of listening to the Comercial CD's you aim 'to beat' via the SAME converters running on the same clock.. I see Ed does this in a way as well..

good stuff.

:)

Playing beat the pros is a nice bonus but by pulling top name tracks into the session you really get to find out if you were buggin!

Plus the occasional client that "want mo bass" than you know is right, pop over to a track that HE thinks is slamming and show him what "right" is.

Since all mastering should be done in a 24 bit session, even if the mixes where 16 bit Barbabatch saves the day. cool tool.

ah hem, oh jules ???
how many sony eqs can you get on a mix farm??
come on, youve got tons of free time to test this for me dont you???

So, er... is it 4 per chip? So how many chips per farm?.... 6 is it? So 4 x 6 = ?? 24 minus mixer plug in and 2 deducted as a penalty for daydreaming of a Christina Anguilera 'plug in' and there's your figure!

Seriously I am too dumb to figure it out, er I will get back to ya on that one! Skipping the filters either side of it saves chip space, I know that much.

:)

Jules said: Sony will go to TC Powercore for Mac, Powercore will soon work on PC... ALL GOOD!

Are we to understand Sony is porting their plugs to PowerCore? Sweeeet! :D :D :D I love a good news leak now and again!

I just use Nuendo in 32 bit mode and use theirplug-ins Sounds pretty good to me.
I am getting more and more scared about having someone else compress the shit out of my masters. I'm sick of it. So, I'd rather do it myself, than pay someone who has printed up cards that say "Mastering Engineeer" to screw it up. I can do that pretty good, all by myself.

Mark

Today I used the following to master up a track:

Cranesong Hedd tape/valve simulation
SSL compressor
Sony EQ plug in
Waves L1 Maximiser & dither

It worked well.

:)

my own demo-mastering chain is all in PT:

waves c4
waves q10 (would like to have Sony but i should sell my body to get it!!!)
L1
apogee mastertools plug

yup, I'm with yuppie.

I went throught the same search and ended up with the Avalon 747. Class A or tube path with the push of a button, great 5 band eq, opto compressor with the controls needed, and built in side chain for around $2000. It seems to be the best deal in anolog. I considered digital but for investment purposes anything digital is going to drop drastically in price a soon as the new word legth or what ever comes along. A good piece of analog gear will always be a good piece of analog gear.

Hi,

I am doing alot of in-house mastering in my studio as well, since most of the stuff I am recording/mixing (Alt. Rock, Metal...) don't have the budget for high-end mastering. However I am quite satisfied with how my masters sound these days (in the beginning they sounded awful I admit - too much of everything).
I have worked out the following chain in the last weeks.
Finalizer A-D, Multiband Compression (very mild) and close to none limiting
a little bit of Magneto
Waves Q 10 or Ren. EQ
L1 + Dither

It sounds quite good and my clients are happy too.

Good day.

UTS

Originally posted by Henchman:

I am getting more and more scared about having someone else compress the shit out of my masters. I'm sick of it. So, I'd rather do it myself, than pay someone who has printed up cards that say "Mastering Engineeer" to screw it up. I can do that pretty good, all by myself.

Mark

I know that feeling, many CD's I did were 'mastered' and ended up sounding very different from the studio mix, sometimes even bad.

I can not go to every master session but if I can and I have the choice who is going to master it I always master in Amsterdam at the same masterhouse whitch is the best IMO.

Mastering is special profession and needs skill and much (expensive) gear.

A 'musicians union' in the Netherlands let a production 'master' at 17 'masterhouses' and released the results on a CD.

This was unbelievable, some so called 'master engineers' just plain suck and totally spoiled it.

I advice you to find yourself a good master house and stick with it. An extra pair of good trained ears will not harm.

Just got a compilation Cd mastered.
he was happy with my sounds although he told me a few places to tweak. More room Acoustics.
So I put the files thru a analyser, and reverse engineered the EQ. Now I use Dad Tape ,two Sony EQ's and Duy Max. Of course I will still say to go proper mastering, just good to get some of the room probs sorted out.

Anyone here used a Speck ASC over the 2-bus?

I have a single Daking eq as well as a Speck and am trying to decide if I should buy another one of either units othave a stereo pair for mastering/sweetening.

Also Julian have you had much success with your fatso over the 2-bus? I had soem problems with gettign the levels to match which scared me off.

Withthe inputs and outputs matched I was getting different output level in bypassed/engaged mode with no processing in (comp/warmth etc...)

Also I seemed to get a higher gain reduction reading on the left channel even with a "matched" input level.hen the compression was active. I know it summs both inputs for the threshold keying, so maybe the left side shows the sum after the right side has been added which would explain the higher level reading.

All in all it seemed a bit confusing as what was really going on. So I've just stayed away from it in this application.

Anyone used a SPL Vitalizer or Focusrite Compressor (the one with the bass expander)?

Jesse

Hi Jesse,

In many ways I would rather have a Speck for the 2-bus EQ. The Jensen will be especially beneficial in a DAW setup for thickening the lows. The Daking can be too colored for that application IMO...I would prefer something much cleaner. The FATSO shouldn't be compressing more on one side if your two bus outputs are truly equal. Hope things are going well for you.

Nathan,

Hi, I'm doing fine thanks. I 'll have ot look into the Fatso problem more then. How accurate are the input and output knobs? I read soemthign about there being a locked calibrated output levle. What does that mean exactly?

I think I agree on the choice of eq (other than the jensen which I have never used). The speck does manage to sound very nice, adding tone yet also sounding more neutral in a way, compared to the Daking. Although the Daking sounds very nice too. I guess it's a matter whether or not it would impart too much color after I've already used it for tracking and some pre-eq.

Jesse

You guys who are using EQ's on your own masters; are you making a lot of changes at this stage? I find that it's easier to treat the problems like a build-up of frequencies in a certain range, or a global boost, but I also feel maybe I just need to keep mixing.

What do you guys think?

I am only considering doing very minor gain changes, under 3db when applying an
eq across the whole mix. Anything beyond that probably needs to be taken care of at the source.

Jesse

Davemc,

What are you using to analyze the eq settings??
(PAZ, SpectraFOO or etc...)

Thanks,

Ozzie

"have you had much success with your fatso over the 2-bus"

No, I didn't dig it. I found getting compression settings & operating levels a PITA.

Dont get me wrong, I think it is a 'wonder unit' and it's analog warmth section, is saving my digital audio bacon daily - big time! But I had recorded everything to the DAW WITH THAT warmth, I didn't feel I needed it AN EXTRA time too.

At the time, I auditioned it against an SSL compressor which seemed childs play to set up in comparison...

I am impatient, and miss out on cool stuff because of it.I will twiddle more in future no doubt...(I am ecouraged by Fletcher's suggested use of it on electric gtr) But presently, the comp section on my 2 week old Fatso remains unused..

Bassmac - My mixes for over a decade in many rooms usualy need:

1) Gentle Sub boost
2) A trashy low mid narrow q cut (90Hz -100hz -200Hz)
3) Super slick HF boost or 'air'

I have learned that is just the way it is for me.. The "overall mix EQ" method is beloved by folk that dont feel adding these requencys on indavidual tracks works because:

The desk/DAW eq available - ain't good enough
The desk/DAW eq is busy - doing other frequency jobs

The GML 8200 EQ is a classic for this task.It is now modeled in plug in form..

Anyhow it IS a mastering issue!

:)

Originally posted by Jesse Skeens:
Anyone here used a Speck ASC over the 2-bus?

I have a single Daking eq as well as a Speck and am trying to decide if I should buy another one of either units othave a stereo pair for mastering/sweetening.

I have a pair of Dakings and a single ASC. I use the Dakings to master all the time and they are fairly colored but I don't mind that when I'm boosting. I'd like to get another ASC so I have a pair of them because they do the surgical/clean thing that the Dakings can't do.

I used Paz and wavelab/freefilter. I do not like to mix with them as I use my ears.
Just that the mastering guy found the same things in 13 tracks for 13 diff bands. So the cuts and boosts are things that I would like to think are room related.

In my PC days with limited eq on Cubase I was a freefilter mad user. Yes it phases a bit, if you know how to use it it does a good copy and paste EQ.
Since I went to mac I cannot find an app apart from Cubase demo that does not crash/or add white noise with freefilter. Just downloaded a demo of logic will try over the weekend.

It was a cool 10 minute end of the day master eq.

Does anyone know the XTA SIDD DP324 'mastering' hardware box?
http://www.xta.co.uk
compressing limiting gating eq unit from little known company in the UK (but XTA have been apparently exporting to the USA live scene for a while). There's a review in this month's Future Music which may be accessible from their website www. futuremusic.co.uk.
It looks interesting.

Renie