Considering to replace my Mastering plugs

[vitocorleone123]

Mastering the Mix Reference plus iZotope Tonal Balance Control are invaluable to me. Powerful duo.

I didn’t find Unisum worth ~$150 more than K.G.E. but many people seem to love it.

[Sciurus]

DSEQ. At least it improves my crap mixes more than any other plugin. I don't know how valuable it is if your mixes are actually decent, but like Unisum most people who have tried it seem to worship it. In addition the developer deserves everyone's money for being so responsive. I'm also a heavy user of Tokyo Dawn and Tonal Balance Control.

[GRUMP]

Me personally - I don´t want to live without Acustica Plugs anymore. They´re Time Savers. Secret Weapons.

AA Plugins are not made for cold digital Mixes. They do fortunately not sound technical clean. I never touched my TDR EQ after Installation btw. There are others, Linears, that seem more attractive.

Concerning your Intererest I´d recommend to specify your Needs and your Targets, because otherwise Recommendations aren´t worth a Penny.

There´s slight Difference between mastering Heavy Metal or celestial Harmonys :/

[Fleer]

FabFilter. Done.

[bk]

Buy the izotope music makers bundle for $49. This includes the elements suite which is already a great start for mastering tools. If you need more, upgrade to Tonal Balance for $199 which gets you Ozone Advanced, Neutron Advanced and Nectar 3. Or if you have any paid Izotope product, just go straight for the Tonal Balance bundle.

[christian f.]

Compression : Weiss DS1 and Unisum
EQ : Weiss EQ 1and Maat Orange
Limit : Weiss MM-1

Not cheap, but well worth it.

[bmanic]

@bmanic : would you use Saturn 2 during a mastering session ? Genuinely asking

Very very unlikely. Unless the project is a completely "hands free" thing and the client asks me specifically to do absolutely radical changes to it. Then I might consider it.

I've used Saturn 2 already several times in my own productions on the Mixbus (so kind of on the master) but this has been "mixed into" and thus I have much more control over what it does. It's a whole other matter to use it in a mastering context on other peoples stuff. I feel like it's just too drastic unless I very much baby sit it all the time.

[heavymetalmixer]

Leaky 2 and Skyline from Noisebud, very good plugins for managing all kinds of phase issues, and can be downloaded for free:
https://www.noisebud.se/?download=leaky-1-0
https://www.noisebud.se/?download=skyline

[MogwaiBoy]

Compression : Weiss DS1 and Unisum
EQ : Weiss EQ 1and Maat Orange
Limit : Weiss MM-1

Not cheap, but well worth it.

[plexuss]

I also wouldn't use Saturn 1/2 for mastering but my approach is maybe a bit different than many: I typically avoid "saturation". Reason: what are you "saturating" with? Distortion. Why would you want to add distortion to audio? Typically I find the use of saturation creates too much audio "haze" and reduces the audio quality (primarily PLR). I use saturation for specific colouration applications on tracks, but sparingly. My mixes and masters have dramatically improved by not slavishly (irrationally) using "saturation" and rather avoiding adding additional distortion and using other techniques to get the sound I am after.

[_leras]

I think there are lots of options for plug ins, but perhaps think about the different tools you may want/need, some you may not need so much if you are mastering your own music and can revise the mix.

essential?
surgical EQ, clean - you may want this both pre and post any compression - bx_digital v3, pro eq3?
broad EQ, more coloured/character full for 'nicerisng'
clean bus compressor, ideally with a mix control
character compressor - can perhaps be useful to add some tone if used carefully, in parallel can be very effective
saturator - mix bus saturator, again a mix control can be very useful here
limiter - final step in getting level right

and maybe
nice tape emulation, also in the saturation category to an extent
multiband compressor, but better to make such fixes in the mix if you can