Do you use the Inflator?

Use a dual channel FFT and measure it yourself.

save your energy and use an L2 instead... sounds better

But the point of Inflator is it can (theoretically) make even an L2 mix sound louder

And the harmonic synthesis (curve <50) can add valve/tape texture to sounds generally.

Plus it's a damn site cheaper than an L2 if you can't afford one Wink

I agree the Waves L2 sounds great and with minimal effort - but until I finish my tests with Inflator, my favourate mastering is still UAD-1 and TC Finaliser.

The Sonic Timeworks MC also "arguably" has a much nicer and wider range of tones than the Waves L2 anyway and can sound equaly loud - if not louder.

Personally I'm not after 112% perceived loudness (I don't specialise in club remixes), so I guess the Sony Oxford Inflator was a strange choice for me, but it's claim that it doens't compress, so hence doesn't pump is highly attractive. Cos lots of thing sound way over cooked these days IMHO - so much so that you can realy hear it.

But it would be nice if Sony'd telll one enough to get more out of it
:roll: I didn't spot butt clenching as one of its features....

JMTCW.

So how do you like it?

Hi Reggie,
it will take me a few months to form a real opinion! Especialy now!

I need to try it on several real world projects and do some A-B tests to see which chain of process techniques are best.

It undoubtedly does something.

The question for me is does the final result "sound" better or worse - not just louder. I have more hope of what it will do on individual tracks like drums....

I did mastering tests with a whole variety of gear including the TC Finaliser, Waves L2, Sonic TimeWorks MC, Steinberg ME, lots of the Voxengo stuff, Elemental Audio Neodynium (very interesting), BBE Sonic Maximiser, the UAD-1 and some other bits.

(The Mackie maximiser and the Elemental Audio Finis wasn't out back then and I haven't tried them.)

The Finaliser nearly always made it sound the loudest, but the panel didn't always prefer the sound!

A proprietary method I used of a "chain" of gear usually sounded the best and was almost as loud.

Of course the Finaliser is quite a complicated peice of kit with lots of inter related options and side effects which should be fine tuned to each project. The presets are just a starting point IMHO. I'm still learning its inner secrets and it might take me another 12 months till I always get it spot on!

The Inflator really only has one knob (curve) but I'm still totally p*ssed off with Sony Oxford for being so anal about saying where the preset band splits are in multi mode.

Sony don't seem to appreciate pro audio at all! They could save me a lot of time by giving me some starting points with the band splits info. And my time is very precious to me.

When you band split signals you get lots of side effects issues and I have several other band splits in my chain. The last thing I want to do is make them congregate and cause wider or stronger smearing!
Yes I need to let my ears be the final judge, but a scientific starting point would save LOTS of emperical time.

So now, just because Sony won't say, I have to spend weeks of my time totally empericaly testing how best to overlap the band splits.

Cost of ownership just went up twenty times :-( so it's a really BAD VALUE plug-in even at the discount price!

With that sort of attitude, no wonder Sony are banging them out.

It will probably be the last piece of Sony kit I ever buy.

Buying/using pro audio gear also needs to be a relationship between the user and developer. In the same way (good) engineers and producers work WITH their artsits. And IMHO Sony just SUCK at that!

I'm sure most of you are confused why I'm upset, but hopefuly some of you will understand.
When you spend your hard earned cash on gear, you don't expect the details on how to get the best from it to be a frigging secret.

Obviously subject backgroung & product/user experience is something a manufacturer can't give you in a tin. But (metaphor) you expect the knobs to be frigging labeled and ideally described if they're non industry standard.

People who just slam the slider up won't be affected. But when you're trying to do something a bit special, push the envelope and use it uniquely (as we're "supposed" to) in a chain of gear - actually it hurts.

My new slogan is "Sony took the P out or Pro audio".
Do you think they'll use it ??

P.M.A ;-)