Andy's mastering (finalizer)

[Aaron Smith]

Andy, I understand that you use a finalizer to essentially master things as you mix them. Do you keep it digital and use some kind of finalizer plug-in on the mix bus? If so which plug-in? The Sony Inflator plug-in for Pro Tools LE is only about $200 and I'm wondering if it'll do what I want it to... Or do you have an outboard finalizer, such as the TC Electronic one?

 

[cobhc]

yeah, i've been wondering for a while what plugins/outboard units professionals use when mastering

 

[Aaron Smith]

By the way cobhc, remember that "Bring The End" song of mine? I gave up on mastering it a while ago, because no matter what I did, the snappiness of the snare seemed to die. Last night for some reason though I decided to have another go at it, but this time I first bounced the drums to their own stereo track and then bounced the rest of the entire song to another stereo track. Limiting the drums at all with an L1 or L2 (without even touching the threshold) made the snare immediately worse, so I left the drums untouched, with the snare clipping, and instead ONLY smashed the rest of the mix (limiting it to -0.1). I mixed and then bounced them altogether, then processed that file to be at -0.1, re-bounced, and guess what? The master sounds badass...no noticeable clipping, and is as loud as any album that I've heard. Is there anything terribly wrong with this discovered process of mine, because the results are certainly far from terrible!

 

[cobhc]

not as far as i can see, so if i'm reading that right, you basically used the L2 on everything bar the drums?

Edit: Check out the sonic timeworks mastering compressor if you get the chance.

 

[Aaron Smith]

Yep, L2 everything but the drums.

 

[cobhc]

hmm i guess that would be ok, but not the ideal situation as obviously the idea with mastering is for it to apply to everything, what DAW to you use?

 

[Gomez]

Ok here we are again!

I have never used the finalizer. As far as I know, it has multiband compression and a very good brickwall limiter which can be pushed a lot and make things very loud. So I guess it makes sense to use this as your final processor. I heard very good and very bad things about this unit. I guess it's down to taste. I would really like to give it a go.

yeah, i've been wondering for a while what plugins/outboard units professionals use when mastering

All sort of stuff. You find people mastering with waves plugs all the way and some people get very good results this way.

I'm more of a "high end addict" and "Analogue fan" when it comes to my mastering chain.

First thing to worry about is the AD/DA converters. I wouldn;t recommend average converters for mastering. why? Blurry stereo image, you loose depth, detail and in most cases the top and bottom end will be affected. I recently got myself a Lavry Blue setreo DA/AD and I'm loving it. Other popular converters are: Weiss, Prism, Pacific Microsonics, Crane song, lavry and so on. It's all very expensive, but I hear the difference.

You can find all sort analog of eq's and comps in a mastering suite. Most places ususally have a "surgical" eq and a "broad/sweet/whatever" eq. Same goes for comps, it's good to have different flavors. I got a Manley massive passive and I absolutely love it. It takes a bit of re-thiking at first but it's great. I normally borrow/hire a Cranesong stc-8 compressor (love it). Mine arrives late this year.

I also use pluggins sometimes, for the more surgical stuff and effects. The Waves C4 has been great a few times.

A good DA and good monitors are a must.


Dunno what else to say..

 

[Aaron Smith]

I'm running Mac OSX Pro Tools LE 6.7. And I understand that the idea of mastering is to apply it to everything, but I don't feel at all that the drum sound is missing out on anything here. The clipped snare sound is actually what keeps it sounding good.

 

[cobhc]

I'm running Mac OSX Pro Tools LE 6.7. And I understand that the idea of mastering is to apply it to everything, but I don't feel at all that the drum sound is missing out on anything here. The clipped snare sound is actually what keeps it sounding good.

are you running any compression over the whole drum mix?

 

[James Murphy]

Do you keep it digital and use some kind of finalizer plug-in on the mix bus?... Or do you have an outboard finalizer, such as the TC Electronic one?

you can do both.... keep it digital and use the outboard finalizer, that is. the hardware finalizers have digital i/o.

 

[chadsxe]

The single most important part of mastering is a new and very well balanced listening enviroment. This includes ad/da converters, moniters, and sound treatment.

 

[Andy Sneap]

James and I were quite surprised to find Ted Jensen using waves plug ins at Sterling Sound. I asked him what I should look at if upgrading and his reply was, don't bother, what you are using sounds great. Quite a refreshing reply.

 

[carl@laruso.com]

woah.....and if Ted says you sound great...

 

[chadsxe]

. I asked him what I should look at if upgrading and his reply was, don't bother, what you are using sounds great. Quite a refreshing reply.

That must of made you day...

 

[greyskull]

ted jensen IS the mastering king!!! he sure wins the loudness war!

oh yeah... speaking of mastering, Andy whats your rate for a three track single?
think it might have to be done for my band,
engineering and mixing the whole thing has made me lose almost all perspective on how it sounds, and besides youd do a WAAAAAAAAY better job!
ta

 

[James Murphy]

James and I were quite surprised to find Ted Jensen using waves plug ins at Sterling Sound. I asked him what I should look at if upgrading and his reply was, don't bother, what you are using sounds great. Quite a refreshing reply.

indeed

Ted and Andy

Ted and myself

Ted's room

Ted's Poweramps

super nice guy too. he recently mastered a mix i did for Roadrunner Records... their band Still Remains doing a cover of the Nine Inch Nails classic "head like a hole", and he will be mastering the DAATH album i'm finishing up for Roadrunner right now.

 

[freakkguitarist]

holy crap, are those huge things powersupplys/backup systems? they are big and cool lookin!

 

[James Murphy]

holy crap, are those huge things powersupplys/backup systems? they are big and cool lookin!

try reading the captions i put at the top of each picture.

 

[A Toolish Circle]

james , any idea what sort of monitors (brand) he's using ? they look really odd

 

[James Murphy]

he just called them "the robots" or something.. maybe Andy recalls better.. i was focusing on his racks and software tools.