AAMS Auto Audio Mastering System V3 - www.curioza.com

[Lorenz @ XARC Mastering]

I did not mean to insult your product by any means. It is just what I experienced (and still experiencing) while evaluating it. If you wish I make some screenshots of the behavior I posted above, so you can fix it.

[dvdvelde]

Dont change the options analyzing settings , leave it alone while you are testing.
The audio analyzer accuracy is normally on AVERAGE, this means good analyzing times.

[dvdvelde]

I am sorry about my reaction, but an AMD machine can be quite confusing on programs. Specially realtime programs like Cubase and alikes...

First of all an AMD machine will be much slower because the AMD is not as fast on calculation big floating point calculations... You can read the differences between a real pentium and AMD and Celerons alike, their just a lot slower in calculations. Maybe more than halve the time or doubled, i dont know...

If you want to give me a screenshot , please post it in my mailbox, i will take a look at it.

Please dont get your hands on the settings , just do some testing with the settings that came with AAMS.

[dvdvelde]

And also , while analyzing , dont press any buttons or go checking around, it does not work quite as well then...

I will program a blocker later on, but pressing buttons and fiddling around while analyzing might have strange behavior. So wait out the analyzing time and save the *.aam file. Then you are in BUZZ.... I would suggest , leave your machine alone and get a good cup of coffee, read the manual , check my site. You have a greater understanding how it works, or how it does not work.

Thx for your comments anyway....

[Lorenz @ XARC Mastering]

You have a nice aggresive attitude! I do not see me commenting on your "you don´t need ears" comment, as it speaks for itself.

Believe me, I was seriously interested to see what your program can do, but if this is the way you talk to your customers and when you do not believe me that there are errors in your program... Maybe the other mastering studio wasn´t so wrong as you believe?

Anyway, best of success to your product. If it helps people to improve their work, then more power to it.

[dvdvelde]

The time AAMS says its analyzing might also be some awkward, specially in the first minute of analyzing Chunks of audio. I just did not program a realtime timer cause it will be blocking calculations, the time AAMS gives is an estimate and will show better result while analyzing is busy longer.
So you might get 10 minutes in the beginning of analyzing, if you stopwatch it , you will see its only 6 minutes or so. Sorry for the sloppy programming on my side, its only an estimate of time.......

Keep it up guys....

[Lorenz @ XARC Mastering]

Ok, our posts crossed.

Measurement-wise (SiSoft Sandra) the FPU of the Athlon64 is not any slower than the Pentiums in this range.

However, let me look into your program some more when I find the time.

[dvdvelde]

PLEASE DONT CHANGE THE SETTINGS UNTIL YOU READ THE MANUAL, LEAVE THE ANALYZING ACCURACY ON AVERAGE SETTING! (until you know what this means)

The Average setting is very (very!) good. Posts about long times are surely because U use the BEST setting, while the AVERAGE setting is just as good and gives good results. As a fact ALL styles are done with the BEST setting , but this tool weeks to compile and i had to disregard my computer cause it was only crunching numbers...

[mooter]

From a layman point of view with mastering, I can see where they're coming from.

Would it be like me asking an experienced architect to update the blueprints on my house so it would fit more into a style of my choosing? Even though those styles are just an average of what the architect has in his records?
And if I don't know much about the blueprints, yet try to rebuild it all myself, it could just be a total waste, when in fact, I could just have the architect look at my house, and then hire reconstruction.

I loaded an industrial track as a source, loaded an eloctronic/industrial reference, applied the eq settings, got the multiband as close as I could interpret, set a limiter and gain, and while it sounded more balanced, sonically it was bland. (too much mid)

In the end unless I KNOW technically and have mastering hardware and experienced objective ears I would leave it up to them.
But like I said originally I just wanted to learn some.

[dvdvelde]

Hi mooter, it can be it sounded blunt.
You could try to make your own preset, just collect some other material (5 to 8 commercial recordings wil do fine if they are reflecting your material good). or masters that you would sound like your recording) and read the manual , you can make a nice reference style preset yourself. Just kick some audio material into the batch routine (read the manual or my site) and make a new style, then use it on your recording...

I would be happy to see people come with their own presets @*.aaam files.... Ill even open up a database for it on my site..
Try it, or try another preset.

(The RMSall.aam preset is quite sufficient also.)

[dvdvelde]

Even though it states Auto Mastering, it means trial and error, you will get better at my program once you did some more mastering with it, i am sure.
The first time i used it i did not get the results i wanted because my home system did not play it very well, aha no base and yes more mids! But i learned from that while a was doing some more mastering...
It has some learning curve , but once you get the hang of it , you get good results.

[Lorenz @ XARC Mastering]

It´s ok, I see what you mean. I do not say your system cannot give useful results, but I think we don´t need to deny that a mastering house with an experienced engineer can deliver pretty different results, as mastering is not based on numbers and universal EQ curves, but capturing and gaining the emotions, the message and the smallest details of the music and this is what a computer can´t know / do.

And I say, feel free to grab some before / after demos from my site at http://www.xarcmastering.com/demos/ and try to replicate the "after" parts with the AAMS.

Again, I do not say it your system won´t work, but it is in someway like the "Auto Composing"-programs that are out there. They do their job mathematical right, and yes, it is music that they are creating. But do they replace or are as good as human composer? If the answer would be yes, the charts would right now be filled with auto-composed music, right?

I hope you understand what I am trying to say and that I am not insulting you.

[dvdvelde]

Testing Equipment Behavior;

Another nice trick is to test your mastering plugins or equipment. I learned that using a loudness maximiser can make the mids kinda harsh sounding.
If youd like to know what behavior your equipment has, you can import audio material without the loudness maximiser as a source preset. Then use the loudness maximiser on your audio material and import it as a reference , now you will see there is an equalization difference (even though you'd only wanted to boost gain). Specially a loudness maximiser would boost some frequencies you might not expect it to do... You can test your equipment and learn from its behavior to do even a better mastering job.
My program gives only information 'how to master' it wont suggest on using equipment, but you can test your equipment with it and see if your equipment might boost frequencies you dont want it to do..

[Lorenz @ XARC Mastering]

Thanks for the idea, but I use an external analyzer for this that measures the impulse response as well, which is most important. You *have* to know your equipment, monitoring and each stage of your setup in and out. I wouldn´t even bother trying to do my job at another studio after not listening to the system and chain for a while to get used to it first.

[dvdvelde]

HI , Lorenz @ XARC Mastering

Your right about that one.
I think my program is more suitable for people who dont know much about mastering as you, as i stated in my post above, you must have some understanding about frequency behavior and mastering and there is a lot more to consider a 'rightfully mastered piece'.

But as far as i go, i am not a mastering engineer , but musician. But i do like the mastering process and learned some things even though i was a complete noob before. My mixes are pretty BAD, and my sound (specially the Bottom end) was worse. AAMS will tell me (you) what differences there are against the reference. Specially that i was using way to much BASE while i was not hearing this at all though my speakers...

I think its a suitable program for everyone who doesn't want to fiddle around with settings the whole day listening and checking A/B mixes, and still come up with a crap mix or master. (like me)

Even though i think the more experienced users would have a pleasant ride also, the most pleasant ride is for the people who are not experienced.
Call it mastering for dummies if you want!
For them and me, the Master would sound a lot better with the settings AAMS gives...
It does not say AAMS is spot on every single time, sometimes i just do some EQing of myself.
But AAMS will give you allways i nice estimate settings and information, what you can refer to.

Yes , Mastering is a matter of taste.
It allways is!
And i am hoping that people will come around using my style presets or make their own presets.

Your can even MIX the style database , by batching the styles into a new reference preset.
So there is enough in the pond for everyone.

Yes it has a learning curve, once you get the hang of it, i think even you as an expirienced mastering engineer will take a quick look at what AAMS is informing you.

Thx , and keep up the posting.