I think he needs a psychiatrist? He doesn't need any stinkin' ProTools! Folks like George Massenburg, Roger Nichols and others like Universal Audio offer a multitude of cool sounding plug-ins. Another piece of software he should investigate is the PSP Master Comp, not to mention some of the products by IK multimedia of Italy.

One thing to keep in mind is that to run anything under ProTools, you must have ProTools hardware.

I have always been a fan of ProTools as I have plenty of screwdrivers, pliers, soldering irons, saws, hammers, drills etc.
Ms. Remy Ann David

I'm not sure I understand why you said he needs a Phyc? That was a very rude answer, RemyRAD....I just said I was not familiar with ANY of the editing tools except Cool Edit, and I only use it to create Sound Tracks for my performance. I simply needed some feed back on what would work best for that system...

Software for mastering, huh? Well if he has an excellent hardware limiter, mulibandcompressor, exciter, master EQ, etc. that's obviously the way to go.

If you're looking for software their are a couple of nice plug ins to look into:

- waves plug ins for mastering (C4 multibandcompressor, L3 maximizer, Linear Phase EQ and more, check their website, good for almost everything)

- T-racks by IK multimedia (used extensively by electronic music producers)

- Sony Oxford plug ins (more for the classical and acoustic stuff) and you need Powercore for this

- Izotope Ozone3 (if you want the loudest master possible, this will probably do it!)

The last one is the cheapest and not bad at all. If you know what you are doing you can get some great results with the Izotope plug in alone, but it is also very easy to completely ruin your track with it. Use with moderation and try to stay clear of the presets as much as possible! They offer a fantastic guide to their plug in as well.

P.S.
also check Vintage Warmer by PSP and their new EQ Neon/Neon HR

all these plug ins work with almost any DAW like Pro Tools, Cubase or even something like Ableton Live. For Pro Tools you need their hardware as stated before but an Mbox is a cheap solution and you can go wild with the plug ins if you want, just load your mixes onto a stereo (or multiple mono) track in Pro Tools, insert the plug ins and start tweakin'!!

I really appreciate your help...however he does Live Recording, Drums, Bass, Piano, Dobro, Fiddle all are live even horns...the only synth would possibly be if the Piano added some effect, but what we see and he sees is my music is played both on the Radio and on the Internet Radio...at Mastering...and I can not recall the name fo the hardware he uses but it can be set to a Country Flavor or Southern Gospel Flavor and virtually an genere of music and it brings all of the instruments as well as the vocals to the front and pushes any sound that is too loud back in and levels it. The Mastered sound he is getting now is incredable...but when we move it to MP3 or Wave we seem to be loosing a lot of the quality, the original mastering had. Why he wanted to add the PC Mastering is to see if we could keep the same CD quality sound on our MP3's and Wav's as we have on the CD CDA...so were not actually wanting to create any electronic sound..just get the same quality on the MP3's and Wav's but If I used Plugins would we have to buy a Stand Alone Program to use the Plugins with? We were kind of shying away from Pro Tools because of the extra hardware issue...

I really do not want to offend anyone but it seems to me you really do not understand what mastering is! You say that he manages to create an incredible sound by using presets on hardware?! Well if that were really possible all mastering engineers would be out of a job and I would like to get that hardware myself (and I'd not be the only one!).

Mastering is not converting your music to wav or mp3, in fact it has nothing to do with it. "Pre"-mastering (final mastering is actually something else, pq codes and all) is the process of applying "effects" to your MASTER fader or as is usually the case: aplying effects to a final bounced mix. The usual effects are:

- EQ
- compression (multiband)
- exciter (or something similar)
- limiter
- dither / noise shaper

When this is done right you end up with 16 bit CD ready music, meaning you can burn this directly on any CD or you can convert it to mp3 without problems.

You state you have problems converting the music to wav.? Maybe you are forgetting to use a dither and are in fact trying to convert 24 bit files into 16 bit wav files; if so you are loosing a lot of sound information indeed. Again not to offend anyone, but if you do not know what a dither is my guess is that you have no idea what mastering is as well.

Also your question regarding Pro Tools and the plug ins leads me to think that you are problaby better of leaving the mastering to an experienced sound engineer. There is no high quality stand alone software for pre- mastering as far as I know so basic knowledge of a DAW is mandatory before you attempt to use plug ins.

Why do you think I was referring to an "electronic sound"? I was talking about T-racks sofware being used by electronic music producers to master their music, it has nothing to do with electronic sound!

Well maybe I just don't understand what you're talking about and I might be completely off with my "analysis". It seems to me like your friend is the recording engineer, so maybe he could ask the questions directly?

MP3 is a compressed format, Basically it has less audio data, and will sound different.

To make a higher quality MP3, encode at a higher bitrate. It will sound better, but a larger file will result. You have to decide what's more important download speed, or sound quality.

Probably what you are hearing is the difference between a 24bit recording and the 16bit audio cds.

I've allways paid for mastering of the final product, I think it's worth it.

He has a large treated room and europeon analog gear that cost more than my car. Takes him about six hours, in two sessions.

He does more than any plugin I know. What I'm paying for is his knowledge, experience, and the abiltiy to get it right the first time.

Here his gear list...
http://www.master-works.com/gear.htm

8)

Back on TOPIC

Best mastering software (IMHO) in order

Wavelab

Sequoia

Samplitude

Sound Forge

Audition 2.0

Pro-tools is basically good for tracking and mixing not for mastering.

This is in the FWIW department and is biased on my own likes and dislikes. Take it as such.

Mastering is something that is best left to a professional mastering engineer with the tools, the ears and the room to do a proper job. If you or your friend wants to do it yourself - have at it but realize that the best possible job will come with the experience and tools a professional mastering engineer will bring to the job.

Best of luck!