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Quick question - what is the best mastering software out there? T-Racks?

What's the process for mastering in a suite? Just run a wav through it?

no, run your mastering suite through a wav.

seriously though, practice your mixing first and then later think about mastering.

you may want to read this, though: http://www.prorec.com/index.php/article ... kshop.html

Yeah in the same way you would run some lumber through a hammer to build a house.

Ive heard good things about Ozone...

But as said above, your neve going to be able to polish a turd, and these sort of things (mastering) are best left to professionals... if you get your mixdowns solid, and then gain up to match perceptive levels of professional tunes, youll do alot better then if you squish the fucks sake out of your tunes because you dont know how to properly work a suite the way an engineer would,

Thanks for that link Coma.

My mate says it's best to let other people master your tune, he's got a really weird way of doing it tho - he doubles up the tune in fruity loops and puts a high pass on one and EQs the second. It always sound much fatter!

ResetTheAtari wrote:he doubles up the tune in fruity loops and puts a high pass on one and EQs the second. It always sound much fatter!

that sounds like a bad idea. i've tried out a bunch of different plugs...t-racks, psp, nomad factory, waves, etc. and i'm actually most happy with just using Antress Modern VFME compressor and any old limiter to take care of slight peaks over 0db. will throw an analyzer on the master too to see what needs eqing in the overall mix, but generally don't eq the master. it's a 100% free fairchild modeled compressor. maybe it's just cause i've used it for awhile, but with the other plugs, i couldn't get the same perceived loudness without brickwalling the tunes. i was even doing a/b's with psp's vintage warmer last night, and it just wasn't comparable without squashing the tune. obviously i don't do professional mastering, but it's good enough for me to play the tunes out. thing with a lot of those other plugs is that they have eqs built in as well, which may or may not be useful...best to have it mixed and sounding proper before any mastering and just use a little compression and limiting to raise the overall tune like suggested and leave the real mastering to the pros if you want to do releases.

Basic A wrote:Ive heard good things about Ozone...

i've found it to be pretty good.

I never like to discourage people from trying anything. It's how we develop.
There is literally loads of software to demo, if you are going to be able to
do the job alone you have to hone your judgement skills and no better place by sorting out the
software chuff from the software gems.

Though do consider that good mastering is dependent on high res monitoring and
a balanced acoustic space where judgements have a reference base.

cheers

Izotope Ozone is my favorite mastering software that Ive tried.

For just mp3s n stuff,
1) Make sound good,
2) Smash with favourite limiter.