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What are current recommendations for a lazy man's mastering plugin?
Sometimes I think it would be nice to use one of these for my jams in AUM and for doing my vids. Just something to slap on the master that will do a decent enough job.
I know the old Triple Band secret sauce gets mentioned here a lot, but that is sometimes amazing and sometimes not, so then you need to try and tweak it. What are the simplest and best options at present that are suitable for a range of styles of music? Cheers
Comments
IMO, using mastering effects while jamming is not possible because of huge added latency though dynamics effects.
Very simple post jam solution however is IKMultimedia Lurssen Mastering Console. Very easy to use and gives great results. One knob for input, 4 knobs for 4 bands (EQ/dynamics at the same time). It’s a standalone app.
There is also Cubasis 3 new master strip effect, works quite well too and not too difficult to use, very graphic and complete tool. It has to be used inside Cubasis.
A good solution to use in AUM, is DDMF suite: 6144 EQ, NYC compressor, NOLimit. Harder to tweak but sounds good. There is also their MagicDeathEye but I haven’t used it yet.
Things like Magic Death Eye add color but don’t really do what I’m looking for here. You’re probably right though, it’s maybe just not that feasible. Best thing is just to pay attention to the right selection of sounds, or maybe accept the fact that a bit of quick EQing is necessary.
Perhaps just EQ and compressor like DDMF or Mani Consulting Limited which are very transparent. Both have very little latency and you can play instruments with them. But even if that can give you better sounding master, you will not have true limiting, etc. Limiter gives huge latency.
Your question implies an existing mix into a single bus. So, I'm hoping the tracks feeding into the mix have EQ to help them avoid a thick middle sludge that swamps the drums and buries the bass.
I'm growing very found of side-chaining the drums into a compressor to insure the drums
are distinct.
Once it hist the master I like Magic Death Eye for "glue" of sounds and it's special tube coloring qualities. Always see if Bark Filter adds that extra crispy touch (on/off - keeper/ignore). It just takes a moment to see.
I generally forget to add a limiter but I will learn someday and stop posting tracks to SoundCloud that clip. I promise.
But I suspect pulling off live music in AUM never really qualifies as mastering and it's my
go to workflow because I treat my music as generally disposable experiments. I never want it to become work. Maybe something will change and I'll want to leave something of me that endures.
Thanks McD, see what I'm thinking is that to some extent you can be careless about EQing when you put stuff through something like barkfilter triple band, it just kicks things into clarity. But it is definitely not for everything. But yeah, I'm probably looking for a quick fix that isn't really possible. The thing with live jams in aum is that sometimes you don't know what you're going to end up bringing in, and don't want to interrupt the flow to start EQing. But it's probably impossible to avoid, so, as I said, I do think you are probably left with the choice of either having to do some EQing or simply to be more careful in your choices. Still curious to hear what tips and ideas folks might have.
@Gavinski, how about you already set channels or channel groups with specific EQ settings. So you know how you would probalby expect from a bass, or a low-mid melody, a mid-high rhythm, etc.
Thinking of a hardware mixer for a jam band. You would expect each band member to plug his instrument to that specific channel and it is already setup so you don't have to meddle too much.
The new Multiband Compressor is super handy. Tripleband in Barkfilter is essentially a multiband compressor with three bands < 1200 Hz, 1200Hz-6k,>6 k followed by a master limiter/compressor
I have set up a MB Compressor preset like that and find it fairly quick to customize the crossover frequencies to the material being mixed. I am finding it a quick and dirty method for tightening up jams.
Get the Blue Mangoo Multiband Compressor.
Activate all the bands pressing the plus symbol 3 times.
On each band, set the Attack to 30ms.
That is all.
Secret sauce!!!
Brought to you by your friendly neighborhood Jolico
You may need to lower your pre / post fader by around 3 or 4 db, depending on how hot your source has been set.
Update:
Before activating the other bands, set the attack to 30ms.
@jolico @espiegel123 thanks guys! Hans did send me a code for this yesterday, I just haven't had a chance to check it out properly yet because I was working on my Rozeta video. Great to hear this.
And by the way Jolico, I respect your opinions on these things a lot, because your preset tip for the Magic Death Eye stereo was 💣!
😊
Update:
Before activating the other bands, set the attack to 30ms.
I would second this. An excellent engineering developer!
The 6144 EQ creates awesomeness even without adjusting actual EQ levels. Just read the description here:
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/6144-equalizer-by-ddmd/id1127457881
NoLimit could actually be all you need:
Well, that AND theglas 🥃
ohhhh. @jolico whats your MDE tip?
Oops, too much 🥃 before posting! 🙃
Wow great Tipp! Thanks for sharing! Immediately made a preset for that.
May I ask what the MDEstereo tip was?
I will cross my finger for some Black Friday Love and pull the trigger
NOTE TO SELF: click on Jolico's handle to:
see the number of comments.
1400 yikes. Click on the comments link:
Read comments looking for tips. Stop after maybe 5 and try them out.
There are 3-4 Forum members that I do this to pull out the pearls they are prone to drop in their conversations. (@wim, @_ki, @echoopera, @bcrichards, etc). "Get to know an ABF wizard - stalk them."
1400?!?!?! 😱 😆
Lurssen?
Here’s the post with the MagicDeathEyeStereo clipper settings:
https://forum.audiob.us/discussion/39719/magicdeatheyestereo-magic-settings
It clips the signal at -0.4 on its own, so you don’t need anything else, but only with oversampling switched off, so there will be aliasing.
Here’s a nice preset to use with your other favorite mastering tools:
For more of a pure analog sound without aliasing, try this in your mastering chain together with your favorite limiter etc.
4x Oversampling is recommended if your cpu can handle it. If not, use x2 instead.
I want an example of someone using this in Cubasis:
Magic Death Eye Stereo has side-chain inputs.
awesome, thanks! will try it out.