Why shouldn't you master in a sequencing program?

[Kriminal]

Sod that, mix in ya host, master in Soundforge with Waves. Its the only way folks.

[topaz]

I (fwiw) bounce a mixdown to stereo
load into soundforge, top and tail (trim)
check there are no problems, then load it back into SX load up mastering plugs on the master out.

mixdown.

[spaceman]

Sod that, mix in ya host, master in Soundforge with Waves. Its the only way folks.

I guess if you've payed for waves you have to say that

[jouni]

One problem using hosts to master is that they can't most likely handle proper dithering at all (keep the audio 100% unprocessed after dither process!). Of course this affects only if you run 24-bit or 32-bit.

I don't know if Cubase does have special slot for effects like dither or that it does it internally already for all output on mixdown. Orion doesn't do this.

And cropping the audio, adjusting levels to match other songs (eg for album) is much easier to do in audio editor instead of your seqeuencer.

[headquest]

Sod that, mix in ya host, master in Soundforge with Waves. Its the only way folks.

Why?

[headquest]

I (fwiw) bounce a mixdown to stereo
load into soundforge, top and tail (trim)
check there are no problems, then load it back into SX load up mastering plugs on the master out.

mixdown.

so do you basically only use Sound Forge for topping & tailing?

[spaceman]

Sod that, mix in ya host, master in Soundforge with Waves. Its the only way folks.

Why?

because he sold his kidney to buy it so he might as well use it

[headquest]

One problem using hosts to master is that they can't most likely handle proper dithering at all (keep the audio 100% unprocessed after dither process!). Of course this affects only if you run 24-bit or 32-bit.

I don't know if Cubase does have special slot for effects like dither or that it does it internally already for all output on mixdown. Orion doesn't do this.

And cropping the audio, adjusting levels to match other songs (eg for album) is much easier to do in audio editor instead of your seqeuencer.

Cropping and normalising are both one click operations in my host (Tracktion) so I don't think this persuades me to buy Audition (etc) although I am seriously considering it... but reading this thread I'm actually going off the idea. I've been asking myself what Audition can do that my sequencer (T. and I have Live as well) can't do.

So can you explain more about dithering...?

[headquest]

Thanks for the reply...

...using your mastering plugs on the master outs of your sequencer as youre working on the track in realtime

Right... that's what I do at present...

(i should add here that i use VERY little live recorded audio - im mostly a MIDI / loops / offline rendered audio type of producer)

Okay, so that makes sense. I'm more of an audio man...

...i tend to render the whole track from whichever sequencer im using and just take a stereo file into auditions audio editor page to apply the mastering plugins

- i dont really use the multitracker part of audition at the moment

I see... thanks again.

I think I had been looking at Audition's features that clearly go beyond the standard audio editing paradigm. I had actually been thinking of it not just for mastering in the sense you describe, but for the audio recording itself, and bringing in MIDI tracks individually in the multitrack area and mixing from there.

In that sense I was looking at Audition even as a replacement to my sequencer (although I hasten to add that I love my sequencer and have no need to replace it anyway!!)

Paying more than £200 for a programme that you only use a small part of seems to me a bit of a false economy, and since the recent introduction of FinalMix in Tracktion I'm rapidly pulling back from my interest in going the Audition route...[/quote]

[griels]

SX2 has the Apogee UV ditherer built in. Not that I use it much as my music is mostly destined for an mp3 encoder, which would just be confused by the noise dithering adds. Additionally, as far as I know, dithering is only of any use for music containing very quiet passages.

As far as I know if I leave my master channel at 0dB it shouldn't process the sound after the dithering plug, should I choose to use it. I doubt if it wasn't an exact bit for bit replica of the output of the dithering plugin it would be in any way discernable anyway, but I'm open to persuasion

[topaz]

yes, and checking for any problems, fades, scanning for peak RMS, clipping.

but that not all I use SF for, if thats what your thinking

so do you basically only use Sound Forge for topping & tailing?

[headquest]

having your mastering plugs (which are usually quite cpu hungry) in your sequencer with the rest of your tracks can be a bit too much on the ol' puter. But having said that, I often import my mix-down back into a new project in Cubase for mastering (and/or in Har-bal )

Hi there Spaceman!

You can guess what I'm going to say, but...

I;ve not had any CPU issues when mastering in Tracktion because you can Freeze all the VST instruments and effects (unlike SX2) with ust one mouse click per track.

This is useful for obvious reasons, and in this context it leaves you a pretty full CPU grunt for your mastering plugs, etc.

This is one really good strength in Tracktion (as is full PDC, the other thing which particularly attracted me to leave SX1 and move over, although I thing that's sorted in SX2). I realise there are weaknesses too, of course, and no programme is perfect by any means!!

[original flipper]

HI

What do people mean when they talk of mastering?

Mastering to me is (and we had this debate a while back when I asked for mastering plugs!) preparing a track(s) for conversion to a 'Master Acetate' for vinyl pressing or transfering a CD to 'Red book' format for duplication.

I get the feeling that people are talking about polishing a mix or simply getting a tonal balance to their product.

If you are 'Mastering' for a 12" vinyl release then you would be concerning yourself with how much more 'BASS' you might get away with (important for the white label club scene release) or a Vinyl album would require you to put more mellow tracks towards the centre of the record due to smaller grooves being cut by the lathe (less bass can be handled here-unless you want to risk having a tonearm jump out of the track!)used in the acetate/mastering suite.

In fact if you don't get it right (your mix's tonal balance) the mastering engineer is likely to freak you out by making radical tonal changes to meet his needs of cutting an acetate or duplicating a CD to redbook standard.

These are my experiences of using quite a few 'MASTERING' suites and having countless acetates cut and it is usefull information to be aware of - that crossing over from producing a nice mix for pleasure to thinking about how far you can go yourself with mastering for a releaseable product with the hope/intention that an engineer will not have to 'interfere' with your 'Masterpiece'!

Flipper.

[headquest]

Mastering to me is (and we had this debate a while back when I asked for mastering plugs!) preparing a track(s) for conversion to a 'Master Acetate' for vinyl pressing or transfering a CD to 'Red book' format for duplication.

These are my experiences of using quite a few 'MASTERING' suites and having countless acetates cut and it is usefull information to be aware of - that crossing over from producing a nice mix for pleasure to thinking about how far you can go yourself with mastering for a releaseable product with the hope/intention that an engineer will not have to 'interfere' with your 'Masterpiece'!

Flipper.

Agreed, and I understand where you're coming from in terms of history / legacy and all that.

This takes us towards using A.N.Other to do the mastering, and in many contexts I agree that this might be required.

However...

Many people - and lots on this forum - want to be able to produce professional or near-professional results in software themselves, whether for a small independant CD release, demo, promotional, or to use in with video, etc.

You're right that people shouldn;t confuse mixing and mastering, and that technically they are quite seperate processes. ANd yet working exclusively within the software paradigm they generally do take place together, as others have explained above. This is largely an issue of workflow, rather than professional standards, and debatably there are good reasons for mixing and mastering at the same/similar time, and within one environment - which for most people will be the DAW.

Two questions for everyone:

1. What CD burning software do you use (as this is surely related to, and was one reason I have been looking at Audition... although I think the CD burning in this is fairly embyonic, to be honest...)

2. What mastering plugs do you recommend that can be dropped on the master chanel of a standard sequencer (e.g. Tracktion, Live, Sonar, SX2, etc)

[chagzuki]

Many of the functions that dedicated wave editors have aren't necessary for most electronic musicians. Audition has good noise reduction and click removal - useful for live instrument recording and transfering from vinyl to digital. Scanning for average RMS is very useful, but not a necessary thing. Wavelab has great CD authoring facilities.
Only if you need this type of thing do you need the software. Otherwise there is no reason not to use a sequencer.