AI MASTER - Artificial Intelligence Masteringr Processor

[plexuss]

I added a track to my post earlier with no mastering processing (other than a final limiter, DMG Limitless set flat) for you to better compare.

[damayor]

I'm curious to this will demo tomorrow

[SparkySpark]

Really interesting. I'm just awaiting the first auto-mastering plug that actually works (like LandR or so I guess). The issue all hobby musicians face is the balance between treble and bass: we simply can't make those judgments in untreated and undersized rooms (maybe, maybe with iLoud's but that would be the exception I think). If this plugin could fix that, then it would be a winner.

[mgw38]

There is no magic bullet. These apps will give you good results only if the mix has a decent quality already. Garbage in, garbage out.

CloudBounce is coming out with an interesting mastering app that works really well and is far more immediate than their web based service. They have it in a semi public beta right now.

[bmanic]

This thing needs a lot of more development to be useful. I threw a basic hiphop track at it and it completely distorts it.

I do like the spectral balance it achieves, albeit it's perhaps a bit on the darker side of things but the compression/limiting or whatever it does to dynamics is sub-par.

Maybe allow for some controls? Would love to have access to only the spectral balance part without any dynamics processing.. that could be useful for a lot more tasks than simply mastering.

[Guy ExonicUK]

This thing needs a lot of more development to be useful. I threw a basic hiphop track at it and it completely distorts it.

I do like the spectral balance it achieves, albeit it's perhaps a bit on the darker side of things but the compression/limiting or whatever it does to dynamics is sub-par.

Maybe allow for some controls? Would love to have access to only the spectral balance part without any dynamics processing.. that could be useful for a lot more tasks than simply mastering.

Hi bmanic,

Sorry to hear about your experience with AI MASTER.
Under no circumstance should AI MASTER distort the audio.

I'd like to assist you in getting the most out of AI MASTER.
You are very welcome to send me the track you used to evaluate AI MASTER either publicly or privately, and I will examine it to determine the cause of the issue.

Cheers,
Guy

[datroof]

This thing needs a lot of more development to be useful. I threw a basic hiphop track at it and it completely distorts it.

I do like the spectral balance it achieves, albeit it's perhaps a bit on the darker side of things but the compression/limiting or whatever it does to dynamics is sub-par.

Maybe allow for some controls? Would love to have access to only the spectral balance part without any dynamics processing.. that could be useful for a lot more tasks than simply mastering.

Hi bmanic,

Sorry to hear about your experience with AI MASTER.
Under no circumstance should AI MASTER distort the audio.

I'd like to assist you in getting the most out of AI MASTER.
You are very welcome to send me the track you used to evaluate AI MASTER either publicly or privately, and I will examine it to determine the cause of the issue.

Cheers,
Guy

Guy,
Can you share any tips on modifying output by modifying input? For instance, if the output is too bassy, will feeding AI Master even more bass cause it to compensate, or over-compensate?

[Guy ExonicUK]

Guy,
Can you share any tips on modifying output by modifying input? For instance, if the output is too bassy, will feeding AI Master even more bass cause it to compensate, or over-compensate?

I would avoid trying to "trick" AI MASTER into behaving differently.
If you want to make further changes to the sound, you can simply do it after AI MASTER.

Please note however, that you will likely need to add some form of limiting after your "post AI MASTER EQ", as you're no longer allowing AI MASTER to dictate the final level.

[jamcat]

I checked out AI MASTER. Seems legit.
One major issue though:

I use both Windows and Mac, and open my tracks on both.
This is not normally a problem.

But since AI MASTER appears to only support AU on Mac, it means my VST instance does not open cross-platform.

[datroof]

Guy,
Can you share any tips on modifying output by modifying input? For instance, if the output is too bassy, will feeding AI Master even more bass cause it to compensate, or over-compensate?

I would avoid trying to "trick" AI MASTER into behaving differently.
If you want to make further changes to the sound, you can simply do it after AI MASTER.

Please note however, that you will likely need to add some form of limiting after your "post AI MASTER EQ", as you're no longer allowing AI MASTER to dictate the final level.

I don't want to make her mad. What's her name?

[Guy ExonicUK]

I don't want to make her mad. What's her name?

01001000 01100101 01111001 00101100 00100000 01001001 00100111 01101101 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100100 01110101 01100100 01100101 00100001

[jamcat]

I don't want to make her mad. What's her name?

01001000 01100101 01111001 00101100 00100000 01001001 00100111 01101101 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100100 01110101 01100100 01100101 00100001

72 101 121 44 32 73 39 109 32 97 32 100 117 100 101 33

Affine cipher (mod 26):
UXRSGVNFGTGWNWXH

ASCII:
Hey, I'm a dude!

So do I win a free license?

[datroof]

I don't want to make her mad. What's her name?

01001000 01100101 01111001 00101100 00100000 01001001 00100111 01101101 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100100 01110101 01100100 01100101 00100001

72 101 121 44 32 73 39 109 32 97 32 100 117 100 101 33

Affine cipher (mod 26):
UXRSGVNFGTGWNWXH

ASCII:
Hey, I'm a dude!

I'll call him Pedro.

[bmanic]

This thing needs a lot of more development to be useful. I threw a basic hiphop track at it and it completely distorts it.

I do like the spectral balance it achieves, albeit it's perhaps a bit on the darker side of things but the compression/limiting or whatever it does to dynamics is sub-par.

Maybe allow for some controls? Would love to have access to only the spectral balance part without any dynamics processing.. that could be useful for a lot more tasks than simply mastering.

Hi bmanic,

Sorry to hear about your experience with AI MASTER.
Under no circumstance should AI MASTER distort the audio.

I'd like to assist you in getting the most out of AI MASTER.
You are very welcome to send me the track you used to evaluate AI MASTER either publicly or privately, and I will examine it to determine the cause of the issue.

Cheers,
Guy

Sorry, can't post that track for you as it's a commercial track that has been released (I've got the mixdown version) but you can easily get similar distortion on any quite bass heavy track. I ran a few tests on some basic beats without vocals and it was a similar case. AI Master goes pretty loud and obviously has big trouble when it comes to low frequency bass combined with high frequency stuff at the same time.. basically a boom + clack + fizzzz transient.

Even on some acoustic singer + songwriter tracks I could clearly hear added distortion. Tracks, even though a bit dark due to AI's EQ setup, they got quite shrill and fatiguing to listen to.

This is why I think the plugin needs a fair bit of more control from the user, to finetune how aggressive the dynamics/limiting is. The frequency response corrections are usually quite nice on AI MASTER but not the dynamics and the way it squashes stuff. You also easily loose "the flow" of music with AI master, probably due to too fast dynamics processing. Longer release times would keep the coherence and groove of a track that is nicely "glued" in the mix. Short aggressive timings can easily undo this glue and thus make the flow worse.

EDIT: I have a bunch of rendered example beats from Maschine (the factory content) that I could send you. Most of them suffer the same problems.

[Guy ExonicUK]

EDIT: I have a bunch of rendered example beats from Maschine (the factory content) that I could send you.

Please do.