Hi,
 
I just saw Craig's video on "Mastering in the Daw".  Check it out on Harmony Central.  Very cool, thanks Craig for sharing!!!
 
I notice he used the Waves L3 Maximizer.  I do my own "Mastering" in the box.  I would like to shift from putting a single Limiter on the master bus to using a multiband compressor.  I would like to use the Sonitus or LP-64 MB Comps included with Sonar.  Should I be able to get similar results to the L3 Maximizer using the included MB comps??  Is this an apple to apple comparision?  What do youz guys use?
 
Thanks in advance,
 

The L3 is not a MB Compressor, so it really isn't an apples to apples comparison.
 
Regards,
Dan

L3 is awesome,
but is a brick wall limiter.
 
you want something more along the lines of the Waves Linear Phase Multiband comp:
 
http://www.waves.com/plugins/linear-phase-multiband-compressor#linear-phase-multiband-compressor-overview
 
but that's expensive...
 
another really good MBC is the C4:
http://www.waves.com/plugins/c4-multiband-compressor#vocal-multiband-compression-with-C4
 
which is on sale right now.
 
 
 

kzmaier
 

Which Multiband compressor do you use on your master bus?

i do not master in Sonar,
i master in WAVELAB.
 
 
i use the Waves LPMBC
with Q10
and  L2

I don't think that's entirely accurate, L3 is a multiband peak limiter. It has some intelligent stuff under the hood so I don't know if it is completely comparable but I think the closest of the plugs included with Sonar would be the LinearMB, perhaps followed by a regular peak limiter.
 
For any serious stuff I would totally recommend having someone else do your mastering. For quick and dirty stuff, I get where you're coming from. Even if I personally prefer a good LPEQ with a single band limiter, like L2.

Thanks for the feedback.  I'm thinking LP-64 MB Comp followed by a transparent limiter.  Although the Sonitus MB Comp has limiting features...  
 
Quick and dirty is what I'm thinking.  Don't tell my wife.  
 
Thanks, 

I don't think I've ever used an MBC in any of my projects.
 
I tried futzing around with one a while ago, think it was the LP64 but couldn't really see the benefit

I don't. Not yet anyway.
 
a) I'm not smart enough to use one properly yet and b) I'm kind of under the impression that type of thing is unnecessary if whatever is feeding the master bus is already sounding good so I'm trying to focus more on what comes BEFORE the master. Then on the master I just do some VERY light compression (to kind of glue everything together) and extremely mild EQing (like a slight hi shelf boost or cut as needed and mid range cuts/boosts to get rid of/accent stuff). For that I've just been using the PC2A (just because it's easy to use and sounds cool) and Quadcurve EQ (easy to use, right on the track strip). As I said it's SOOOO light all it's really meant for is a touch of sweetening and cohesion so I don't even want to touch those big bad buggers (and every time I do I don't like the results anyway). Then at the end of the chain is the Concrete Limiter to get things a bit louder and prevent overages.
 
But I'm not mastering and really at best I could only produce a half decent "demo" quality mix. From what I understand that type of multiband stuff at the mastering stage is to fix problems so I'm trying to learn to avoid those problems in the first place.
 
I actually think once I start getting into multiband compression stuff I'm going to use the Sonitus Multiband. It's lightweight and I'm really not certain those big fancy MBC's are going to produce much better results anyway. At least not at my skill level (which is middling at best).

Might be worth it to check out a Dynamic EQ (The one by Melda comes to mind). I've been using them more than multiband comps these days...
 
 
Dean

kzmaier
Thanks for the feedback.  I'm thinking LP-64 MB Comp followed by a transparent limiter.  Although the Sonitus MB Comp has limiting features...  
 
Quick and dirty is what I'm thinking.  Don't tell my wife.  
 
Thanks, 

The main reason to use LP64 is because it won't introduce any phase issues that regular equalizers or multiband compressors might. I'm not saying you'll always be able to tell the two apart but it's good to err on the side of caution. With its linear phase characteristics, LP64 is better suited for mastering but is more CPU intensive and will introduce some latency. So at least don't track with it on the master bus.