The Song Fight Bulletin Board

I am curious as to how many people use mastering software outside of their sequencer software(e.g. Wavelab).

What are the advantages of doing this?

What software do you use?

Steve

Check out Ozone mastering software at: http://www.izotope.com

The free demo is good for 2 weeks, I think. It can do crazy things to your final mix. But you need a gentle hand, because it's easy to get too carried away. You'll see what I mean.

Thanks Melvin,
I have Ozone and I use it as a plug-in to my sequencer. I was just wondering if there is something special about using a separate mastering program.

Steve

Using a seperate program for mastering is great for masochists and people who find using plugins too easy.

I have wavelab, but since I mostly export to mp3 for songfight, I just put a mastering compressor on my master bus. I used Voxengo Elephant, which I absolutely love. I sometimes add some EQ as well, but only if I think my mix is lacking something.

These days I only use wavelab if I don't have enough processing power to master at mixdown.

Ken

I use ozone as a master on my final mix, in soundforge after I export the song to wav. is this different from what you do? Doesn't seem like it. But I do like to keep around the raw and mastered files separately (I save everything like a packrat).
-bill

HeuristicsInc wrote:I use ozone as a master on my final mix, in soundforge after I export the song to wav. is this different from what you do? Doesn't seem like it. But I do like to keep around the raw and mastered files separately (I save everything like a packrat).
-bill

Recently I have been using it on my master bus and not on a mixed down .wav file. It works just fine this way. I use Sonar.

Steve

Ozone rocks.

I master the best I can on Logic and then use ozone for final sweatening in Audition. This gives me two final mixes much like Heuristics.

Ozone has a really nice mastering reverb and other bells and whistles.
They also have two really good guides, one on Mastering and one on Dithering
http://www.izotope.com/products/audio/ozone/guides.html
I never understood dithering before reading these, and it's something you really need to know.

I master [with ozone] in Sound Forge because I usually wait a while after the mixdown to do that stuff. Well, who knows what I'd do if I actually had the VST version of Ozone instead of the Dx one.

Regardless, I appreciate this distinction of steps in the process.

Furthermore, my overall process requires the use of Sound Forge:
I usually render my projects from Ableton Live at 96k / 24-bit. Then I master this with Ozone as a plugin in sound forge, without using the dithering component (I guess I could theoretically do that part in the host).

With this mastered, hi-quality file in hand, I resample it to 44k using Sound Forge, and finally run the Ozone ditherer on that file to make the 16-bit version. I have noticed a much higher quality final product following these steps.

-craig

My sequencer doesn't allow plug-ins so I have to master any individual tracks before importing, and then master the final file once it has been exported. On the downside it's a pain in the arse timewise but it does mean I am a little more sparing on piling on the exciter and other effects onto each and every track.

Why would you master individual tracks? What do you mean?

Ken

Well, for instance, within Ozone, compresing vocal tracks, adding a bit of sparkle to guitar tracks, makes the mixing-as-you-record approach easier.

I track and mix in Cubase SX and then mixdown to a stereo pair and run those in WaveLab to master a final MP3. Typically I do that so I get another chance at running my UAD-1 card against the final mix. I find that if I have used up several compressors on tracks in the mix I can't squeex much more in the final stereo out in Cubase. But mixing down to a final WAV pair at 96Khz into Wavelab I then can add reverb (UAD-1 hungry) as an overall sparkle to the mix (yes I do use too much reverb )

I could just reimport the mixdown tracks back into Cubase and do it there but I find the alternative envirnment in Wavelab lets me focus on the task in hand. The visual metering helps in there too and seems more focused to a final stereo-5.1 mix.