Orphaned at Birth
Yes Alex could be annoying, but he didn't really do anything wrong, unless you count pointing out Cakewalks and Sonars issues and deficiencies, which of course aren't welcome here, so they seized the day and silenced him.

Well, that's one interpretation.
 
Another would be this: There are people here day in day out, talking at length about Sonar issues and deficiencies as they see them, often fairly bluntly and harshly, and they don't, as rule, get banned.
 
So you know, maybe it was the "being annoying" part that led to the ban.

Sorry - I do not have time to read this whole thread.  Does LANDR affect eq or mostly dynamics?
THANKS.

John T

Orphaned at Birth
Yes Alex could be annoying, but he didn't really do anything wrong, unless you count pointing out Cakewalks and Sonars issues and deficiencies, which of course aren't welcome here, so they seized the day and silenced him.

Well, that's one interpretation.
 
Another would be this: There are people here day in day out, talking at length about Sonar issues and deficiencies as they see them, often fairly bluntly and harshly, and they don't, as rule, get banned.
 
So you know, maybe it was the "being annoying" part that led to the ban.

Anyone who thinks that people aren't allowed to say negative things about SONAR in these forums either can't read or can't think. 

deswind
Sorry - I do not have time to read this whole thread.  Does LANDR affect eq or mostly dynamics?
THANKS.

I've conducted some tests to see how LANDR would affect the parameters under test. So far I've identified EQ, multiband dynamics, and imaging. The extent to which it processes depends on which "intensity" you choose. I think LANDR's biggest user error issue is having the  High intensity one be the default. A lot of people don't realize there are options.

Thanks Craig!  I am interested to find out how it changed eq.  For instance, does it have a preferred eq layout and then measures the eq of the song submitted and applies the changes.  Would be interesting.
 
Eq is my most difficult tasking in finalizing or mastering.  What is the reference.  Everytime I figure out a CD for a reference, I hear a new one - and think - wow that one is awesome.  So much to balance!

For those interested and may not have seen, I created a feature request to ask that LANDR and all third party solutions be available as a separate install on CCC
http://forum.cakewalk.com/Make-LANDR-and-other-3rd-party-options-always-seperate-in-CCC-m3376857.aspx
 
Go ahead an vote if you're interested.

Well I've done several tests with LANDR to try and reverse engineer what it does, mostly by trying to fool it  Long before there was any discussion at Cakewalk about LANDR, I wrote a column about online mastering for Pro Sound News (IIRC correctly it was in September). I basically detailed what I thought were the pros and cons, which over time, have been shown to be correct.
 
Probably the test of greatest interest to you was I mixed two files, one with too much emphasis at around 400 Hz, and one with too much emphasis at around 1.5 k, then fed them both into LANDR to see what would happen. LANDR reduced the 400 Hz in the first file and the 1.5 kHz in the second file. It was not reduced as much as I would have reduced it, but I assume that's because LANDR thought the peaks must have been mixed up that high for a reason, whereas I would have just assumed someone didn't know how to mix .
 
One element of mastering that has been consistently overlooked is there is not one and only one "correct" way to master a song. All mastering engineers make value judgments. The best example I can give is of a mastering job where I got the files just before the client went off to Italy. Normally I do a lot of back-and-forth with clients, basically interviewing them to find out what their vision of the music is so I can enhance it as much as possible. But I didn't have that opportunity because she was out of contact.
 
The song could have been mastered as a more "chill" piece by pulling back on the kick a kit a bit and bringing down the highs where the percussion lived. Or, it could have been mastered as more of a club mix by bringing up the kick a bit, especially the beater, highlighting the high end a bit more, and speeding up the tempo by 2%. I had no idea which one she wanted, so I did two versions. When she came back, she said it hadn't occurred to her it could be done both ways...she ended up using them both, one as an alternate mix.

But, can a mastering engineer make EVERYTHING louder than EVERYTHING else or is that the eminent domain of the mixer?

So that sounds like spectral analysis is happening.
If a LANDR-processed file is re-submitted, I would imagine LANDR then does nothing?

In theory that should be the case, but they specifically request headroom. However, one could get a master back from them, normalize it down to the headroom they specify and resubmit it to see. It would be interesting to see the results of that - whether they simply bump it back up so the masters match, or process it further.