What's your freeware mastering chain in 2021?

[SparkySpark]

... plenty of amateurs and PRO mastering engineers alike have destroyed the dynamic range of the music they mastered since the late ‘90s with loudness maximizers. And they actually thought they were making it sound BETTER!

Hear, hear!

BTW, got to ask: your byline, I've seen it on a CD sleeve sometime... Disintegration? In any case, it fits this topic.

Back on the thread topic, i like Melda's free EQ (for some reason, I use it more often than TDR Nova) and iZotope's Imager, which I really like. ...though I don't use a freeware mastering chain as I rely so much on iZotope.

[sambaji]

Back on the thread topic, I like Melda's free EQ (for some reason, I use it more often than TDR Nova) and iZotope's Imager, which I really like.

I also like to use Melda's free EQ, if I want to EQ during a recording session since it is light on the CPU and has zero latency--not so much for mixing/mastering. For that, I rely on TDR series of plugins.

[Funkbungus]

As I sat behind my Barrel Aged, Small Batch, Organic Old growth Neve mixing Console, dusting my Universal Audio DSP thingabobs, and pretending I can tell the difference between Mic pre-amps, I come across a thread that... Whats this.. Free mastering FX chain?! my god, the peasants are restless these days.

lol...

on a serious note, everyones already said it better than me, but Tokyo Dawn's shit is top shelf, its crystal clean, smooth, and so good that I felt guilty enough using it that I finally became a gentlemans gentleman, and bought the .. gentleman's edition.

[scalawag]

Fircomp v1 (free; v2 is paid...)
Acustica Audio Baxter, Tan, Coffee the Pun
lkjb Luftikus & QRange
TDR Nova, SlickEQ, Kotelnikov
VladG Limiter6

[heavymetalmixer]

... plenty of amateurs and PRO mastering engineers alike have destroyed the dynamic range of the music they mastered since the late ‘90s with loudness maximizers. And they actually thought they were making it sound BETTER!

Hear, hear!

BTW, got to ask: your byline, I've seen it on a CD sleeve sometime... Disintegration? In any case, it fits this topic.

Back on the thread topic, i like Melda's free EQ (for some reason, I use it more often than TDR Nova) and iZotope's Imager, which I really like. ...though I don't use a freeware mastering chain as I rely so much on iZotope.

Even though the MEqualizer is supposed to be a clean EQ, it actually has a subtle agressive tone to it, maybe that's what you like about it.

[SparkySpark]

Even though the MEqualizer is supposed to be a clean EQ, it actually has a subtle agressive tone to it, maybe that's what you like about it.

Well, actually that could be it. Or I just like the UI (then again TDR Nova looks amazing for a freebie ).

[adl]

Fircomp v1 (free; v2 is paid...)
Acustica Audio Baxter, Tan, Coffee the Pun
lkjb Luftikus & QRange
TDR Nova, SlickEQ, Kotelnikov
VladG Limiter6

This can give you some serious results. Great list!

[jamcat]

BTW, got to ask: your byline, I've seen it on a CD sleeve sometime... Disintegration?

Ding!

In fact, it is a reference not only to a great album, but also to the way albums used to be mixed, when the listener turned it up on their home stereo, instead of the engineer doing it for them.

[sambaji]

Fircomp v1 (free; v2 is paid...)
Acustica Audio Baxter, Tan, Coffee the Pun
lkjb Luftikus & QRange
TDR Nova, SlickEQ, Kotelnikov
VladG Limiter6

This can give you some serious results. Great list!

Just tested out Acustica Audio Baxter, Tan, Coffee the Pun. They are some large plugins, heavy on the cpu. Definitely better suited for mastering not tracking.

[SparkySpark]

BTW, got to ask: your byline, I've seen it on a CD sleeve sometime... Disintegration?

Ding!

In fact, it is a reference not only to a great album, but also to the way albums used to be mixed, when the listener turned it up on their home stereo, instead of the engineer doing it for them.

Oh that was a nice way of putting it. I guess the problem since the advent of Spotify has been the lack of conceptually thinking in "albums". No wonder all need to follow the same EQ curves and loudness ratios if tracks are played mixed up with others' tracks. In a way, I guess iZotope's Tonal Balance Control wasn't as necessary in last millenium, when we all listened to whole albums.

(Streaming also made for boring music composition-wise; all tracks need the hit music formulas, rather than being of different shapes and forms. That comment is quite OT though. )