Audiobus: Use your music apps together.

What is Audiobus?Audiobus is an award-winning music app for iPhone and iPad which lets you use your other music apps together. Chain effects on your favourite synth, run the output of apps or Audio Units into an app like GarageBand or Loopy, or select a different audio interface output for each app. Route MIDI between apps — drive a synth from a MIDI sequencer, or add an arpeggiator to your MIDI keyboard — or sync with your external MIDI gear. And control your entire setup from a MIDI controller.

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Audiobus is the app that makes the rest of your setup better.

Best Beginners Mastering App?

I have so so many sessions in AUM & AB3, but nothing completely finished ready to post. I want to start doing that more, but know very little about mastering. Other than mixing down in Cubasis 2, I’m not sure where to begin. I just saw the other thread encouraging more music sharing and I want to tackle this mastering thing and get some shit out there.

For a mastering beginner... What is the best iOS app to easily master a mix and produce a good final result? And why?

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Comments

  • Feed your mix into “Barkfilter”.
    https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bark-filter/id1257672871

    Select the preset “Tripleband”.

    Switch on the limiter (on the right hand side of the unit).

    Magic!!!

    Adjust input level if necessary.

    https://forum.audiob.us/discussion/34414/mastering-secret-don-t-tell-anybody/p1

    (I like to feed Barkfilter into TB Barricade instead of using it’s own limiter)

    ...or get Grand Finale
    https://apps.apple.com/us/app/grand-finale/id1294979704

  • Grand Finale. Perfect for schleps like me that usually do more harm than good when trying to master. The only thing it's missing is a better way of targeting a certain LUFS level. You kind of have to eyeball it.

  • Could you use Tb barricade alone to perform a similar function as the BF Triple Band preset or is that a unique ability in BF?

  • edited March 2020

    Final Touch

  • @Poppadocrock said:
    Could you use Tb barricade alone to perform a similar function as the BF Triple Band preset or is that a unique ability in BF?

    No, Barricade needs a really great mix to sound good.

    Barkfilter Tripleband can even make garbage mixes sound great.

  • @jolico said:

    @Poppadocrock said:
    Could you use Tb barricade alone to perform a similar function as the BF Triple Band preset or is that a unique ability in BF?

    No, Barricade needs a really great mix to sound good.

    Barkfilter Tripleband can even make garbage mixes sound great.

    He's not wrong. It's one of the best kept secrets here. And, Barkfilter is on sale.

  • +1 Final Touch

  • Grand finale is perfect for this task

  • @mlau said:
    Grand finale is perfect for this task

    Problems with Grand Finale are:

    • no AuV3
    • No indication about which frequencies are being controlled by each knob (multiband compressor and EQ)
    • Loops get extended with extra milliseconds of silence and then need to be cropped again in another editor app.
  • @Poppadocrock said:
    I have so so many sessions in AUM & AB3, but nothing completely finished ready to post. I want to start doing that more, but know very little about mastering. Other than mixing down in Cubasis 2, I’m not sure where to begin. I just saw the other thread encouraging more music sharing and I want to tackle this mastering thing and get some shit out there.

    For a mastering beginner... What is the best iOS app to easily master a mix and produce a good final result? And why?

    This is aum specific
    Sorry there is no quick fix .. if you have no idea about audio file.. ASSUMING you have decent MIx which is eqed well .. first place to check is from AudioShare.. this will early indication how loud or low your audio is recorded.. (I’m not getting into average loudness or rms levels here.. ).. first you would want to removed any spikes via compression (see circles)... and then you can bring up levels based and explore some of the solutions provided above .. else if you already have a great mix and compressed to taste .. you can use AudioShare Normalize function .. which will not color your audio.. this is a good starting point

    As for for mastering!
    I use pro q3 and pro L2 when my friends send some audio
    For my home recording .. I don’t use much .. just bring levels a little up

  • @Samflash3 said:

    @jolico said:

    @Poppadocrock said:
    Could you use Tb barricade alone to perform a similar function as the BF Triple Band preset or is that a unique ability in BF?

    No, Barricade needs a really great mix to sound good.

    Barkfilter Tripleband can even make garbage mixes sound great.

    He's not wrong. It's one of the best kept secrets here. And, Barkfilter is on sale.

    I think technically it’s not on sale, but back to the normal price it had before we discovered the magic mastering fire-and-forget preset :smiley:

  • When i use barkfilter it seems to bring out the highs and mids but sqiushes the low end.
    I spend time compressing drums in a mix then it seems to take it away when put through barkfilter.

  • @Small_paul1976 said:
    When i use barkfilter it seems to bring out the highs and mids but sqiushes the low end.
    I spend time compressing drums in a mix then it seems to take it away when put through barkfilter.

    Taking a guess, but maybe your monitors have a weaker lower end compared to the mid/high and you are compensating with extra bass which is then taken down by Barkfilter.

    Or maybe, like me, you just like heavier bass, but the bass heavy mix won’t sound good on most sound systems and also lowers headroom significantly.

  • Thanks for the reply mate.
    It makes sense.

  • I’m in largely the same boat and have been (slowly) working my way through this playlist:

    I was using Grand Finale but I’m not totally sold. I’ve found myself disabling everything except the limiter and I think I could get the same results in AudioShare with the Normalize function. The various compressors tend to “pump” in a very distracting way.

    Thing is, I compress the daylights out of my mixes as-is. The OP-Z has a master compressor that gets very squashed and I use TBReelBus or RoughRider 3 on my AUM master buss for colour. So I’m not mixing my songs with mastering in mind. Very curious to try BarkFilter since I can make adjustments a lot easier.

    Also though, don’t stress too much about mastering. It’s easy to focus on perfection and worry about what you don’t have, what you’re doing wrong, what you don’t know, etc. but music is so, so subjective and most listeners won’t be able to identify any deficiencies. If you’re feeling ready to share some songs, build a mix you like and get them up onto Bandcamp ASAP — you can always release a “remastered” version down the line.

  • Are you listening is an excellent series that shows what we mastering engineers do, and how sometimes it's very subtle.

    If you're already in AUM, I would just get a limiter you can put on the master and focus on that for now. Pro-L would be my choice personally.

  • edited March 2020

    Thanks for all this info. I grabbed a Bark Filter while it was on sale and will probably try grand finale next time it gets discounted.

  • @Gravitas Thanks for the links I’m reading that guide now. Cheers

  • I’ll watch me some “Are you Listening” too.

  • For my most recent track, I exported the stems and loaded each track into AUM via file player, making sure they had headroom before exporting. I put TB EQ on each channel with the compressor preset with AI and HQ on, adjusting the bands as needed. I bussed them all to a master channel and threw TB Barricade on that. I used the limiter for overall loudness and added just a touch of compression to reign in my peaks.

  • I know it's not a fashionable thing to say here, but I really hate what BarkFilter does on the master strip, it completely messes up the frequencies. And on a track with vocals it's horrible.

    Barkfilter is fine as an effect on an individual track, great for comb filtering and other special effects, but as some kind of secret sauce for mastering it's not for me.

  • My current mastering chain looks like this:

    1. TB EQ just as a highpass filter at 40Hz to remove very low frequencies
    2. TB Reelbus for suble tape compression (slightly modified Master Tape -30IPS preset)
    3. TB EQ with the Widening Template preset
    4. TB Enhancer for subtle low and high enhancements (modified Mix Maximizer preset)
    5. TB Barricade for loudness with Loud Master preset

    I insert all effects in a channel in AUM and load the audio file via Auditor file player (AUM file player is fine too).

    I find that these presets are a good starting point, but I guess it depends on your music style.

    If I hear something that I don't like after I master a song I rather go back and fix the mix than try to fix the problem with mastering, that's why I basically use the same mastering setup for all of my songs.

  • @richardyot said:
    I know it's not a fashionable thing to say here, but I really hate what BarkFilter does on the master strip, it completely messes up the frequencies. And on a track with vocals it's horrible.

    Barkfilter is fine as an effect on an individual track, great for comb filtering and other special effects, but as some kind of secret sauce for mastering it's not for me.

    Got to admit that I agree with this Richard.

    I bought Bark Filter today to see what all the fuss was about. It looks to be a really nice tool for some serious sound shaping but will turn your music into a big shouty mess if you place it on the master bus with that triple preset.

    Which is ok if you want that kind of effect but it will result in losing a lot of subtlely in your sound.

  • @Jocphone said:

    @richardyot said:
    I know it's not a fashionable thing to say here, but I really hate what BarkFilter does on the master strip, it completely messes up the frequencies. And on a track with vocals it's horrible.

    Barkfilter is fine as an effect on an individual track, great for comb filtering and other special effects, but as some kind of secret sauce for mastering it's not for me.

    Got to admit that I agree with this Richard.

    I bought Bark Filter today to see what all the fuss was about. It looks to be a really nice tool for some serious sound shaping but will turn your music into a big shouty mess if you place it on the master bus with that triple preset.

    Which is ok if you want that kind of effect but it will result in losing a lot of subtlely in your sound.

    Try lowering the source level.

  • edited March 2020

    I use New Fangled Elevate on desktop, it does the 26 band thing and has some voodoo with spectral overdrive etc but needs very careful setup to get good results.

    You might get very lucky with a preset that just works perfectly but it’s never happened here.

    Years of practice, a good understanding of acoustics and psychoacoustics, the ability to communicate with an artist (about things that are very difficult to put into words) and an excellent listening environment are the minimum spec for a mastering engineer imo.

    I don’t believe there’s any magical shortcuts for this stuff.

  • edited March 2020

    @Jocphone said:

    @richardyot said:
    I know it's not a fashionable thing to say here, but I really hate what BarkFilter does on the master strip, it completely messes up the frequencies. And on a track with vocals it's horrible.

    Barkfilter is fine as an effect on an individual track, great for comb filtering and other special effects, but as some kind of secret sauce for mastering it's not for me.

    Got to admit that I agree with this Richard.

    I bought Bark Filter today to see what all the fuss was about. It looks to be a really nice tool for some serious sound shaping but will turn your music into a big shouty mess if you place it on the master bus with that triple preset.

    Which is ok if you want that kind of effect but it will result in losing a lot of subtlely in your sound.

    Yeah, I get where you're coming from. I use Barkfilter a lot when I'm doing quick 1 or 2 hour challenges and I'm looking to master something ASAP, after basic mixing. Plus, having a compressor and limiter customizable at specific points increases my efficiency.

    Although, I just did a project with Reslice (which I recently got yesterday and tried the BarkFilter. It was really really loud. Either I need to adjust the settings for Reslice and BarkFilter, or I might have to be smarter with how I handle my songs.

  • @Samflash3 said:

    @Jocphone said:

    @richardyot said:
    I know it's not a fashionable thing to say here, but I really hate what BarkFilter does on the master strip, it completely messes up the frequencies. And on a track with vocals it's horrible.

    Barkfilter is fine as an effect on an individual track, great for comb filtering and other special effects, but as some kind of secret sauce for mastering it's not for me.

    Got to admit that I agree with this Richard.

    I bought Bark Filter today to see what all the fuss was about. It looks to be a really nice tool for some serious sound shaping but will turn your music into a big shouty mess if you place it on the master bus with that triple preset.

    Which is ok if you want that kind of effect but it will result in losing a lot of subtlely in your sound.

    Yeah, I get where you're coming from. I use Barkfilter a lot when I'm doing quick 1 or 2 hour challenges and I'm looking to master something ASAP, after basic mixing. Plus, having a compressor and limiter customizable at specific points increases my efficiency.

    Although, I just did a project with Reslice (which I recently got yesterday and tried the BarkFilter. It was really really loud. Either I need to adjust the settings for Reslice and BarkFilter, or I might have to be smarter with how I handle my songs.

    Don't get me wrong, I think Bark filter will come in really useful. And, like you say, for quickly pushing something out with a bit of a boost it's ideal. I used to use AudioMastering for that purpose but on the final wav file because AM isn't AUv3.

    But for any powerful plugin like BarkFilter, a bit of care is needed to ensure that we're not sacrificing too much quality for loudness.

  • tjatja
    edited March 2020

    @Poppadocrock said:
    I have so so many sessions in AUM & AB3, but nothing completely finished ready to post. I want to start doing that more, but know very little about mastering. Other than mixing down in Cubasis 2, I’m not sure where to begin. I just saw the other thread encouraging more music sharing and I want to tackle this mastering thing and get some shit out there.

    For a mastering beginner... What is the best iOS app to easily master a mix and produce a good final result? And why?

    Try to get the best and balanced mix first, including the required dynamic range for your type of music, then render that down to whatever bitrate and sample rate you need for your targets, add dithering for 16 bit versions.

    The only additional thing required is, to leave some headroom.
    Try to stay below -0.1 dB with True Peek Limiting / Oversampling when rendering down.
    Many Apps allow to limit in such a way, i mostly use Pro-L2.

    And for streaming targets, normalizing to -1 dB afterwards, is a good start.
    Hopefully, AudioShare will add this soon :)

    That's all, you're finished.

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