I try not to fool myself into thinking I can do anything remotely as good as an actual mastering engineer. So the only thing I might do is slap L1 on a demo to smash the level all the way up in order to compete with the commercial CD's that the a&r idiots will be comparing it to. Yes, I too have been in situations where they send it back at the demo stage saying "It's not as exciting as my other cd's." And after smashing the level so there's no more dynamic left whatsoever, the wallet magically opens up and po's start flying. But I wouldn't want to get it sounding so hyped that the mix would never get accepted without already being "smash"-tered. If the Renn/L1 combination is working for you, don't try to fix it.

If you're actually attempting to do real mastering, forget the plugs and buy some nice outboard stuff, and high quality ADC/DAC's to get the signal in and out of em.

Depends on the music. In my opinion mastering rock, a/c, country is good use of mult-band and overall compression in whichever domain your working in. 10+ years ago we did this with analog dividing networks and multiple compressors. I switched to digital years ago, mostly because I'm tired of reading my notes, looking for the right cables and 1hr plus to get a mix back. With ProTools I often go with the C4 in front of the L1 and meter with the PAZ in last position. Start with the C4 Electro Mastering pre-set. Next adjust the C4 x-over points to 100Hz, 1.5KHz, 5KHz. Set the threshold's to get a few db of compression and widen the range for about 6 db in strong passages. Listen/focus on each band and tweak as required. Next set the L1 to 16 bit with noise shaping, pull down the L1's thresold to the point of an average of around -6 on the PAZ. Tweak around on everything (individal C4 band gains & comp settings, more/less L1 comp, release times to reduce any flutter etc. . .) until it is really working for you. . . I must mention, I do try and get the right distortion on the individual tracks especially on bass and vocals (and guitars of course) with aphex on O/Hs and HHs as well as a little rectify on the kick to ensure subs. Be sure to hold back on the Bass guitar and cymbals during mixdown. They will come up a bit during mastering.

Have fun in 2002!

Howard

I agree with Ang1970 (I don't try to compete with mastering engineer, but where I live there's no option so....)

I use Master X and Mcdsp EQ Before it.

Anyway there's so much mistery behind this mastering issue, sometimes i feel lost.

Before MAster X i were using Focusrite d3 and Maxim and MCdsp eq but with masterX I get better results.

Anyone know something about Apogee UV22???

Is it better than dithering with Master X or Maxim????

JFA

I too use the C4, L1 and Spectra Foo during "budget mastering". I prefer the PowR dither to th UV22 in most cases but not all. The waves dither workes on somethings as well. It has nice shaping.