Thanks for another update, Bakers!!! Looking forward to trying it out.
 
Keep up the GREAT work!!!!

mudgel
I mostly make up my own mind about things but in an area where I have no experience I'm inclined to rely on the expertise of those I know in a particular field.

I have no experience with Auto mastering software so short of trying it myself I'm inclined to listen to people that have credibility in my world. When Craig C. Says that there can be benefits apart from the purely mastering side, then I'm inclined to give his opinion some weight until such time as I've examined the service for myself and form an opinion of my own.

 
Just to be clear, I would not use LANDR to master my recordings or anyone else's. I know how to master and I often do surgery, not just processing. 
 
However anyone who has spent hours generating MP3s of rough mixes for clients after a long session will see the benefits immediately. Being able to deliver something that's closer to mastered, without having to spend time mastering (even if it's a cursory job) something with a lifespan that's measured in hours or maybe a few days, is invaluable. That's why I think the people dumping on LANDR simply don't understand all the ramifications of having this tool available.
 

But whether you need LANDR or not, I can't understand the negativity being dumped on Cakewalk. Som folks seem to have a real need to dump on Cakewalk no matter what. Apart from whatever discussions took place to come to some agreement about implementing a connection to LANDR, all the time Cakewalk have spent is about similar to what any of us can do to include another codec in the export audio menu by using the supplied External codec configuration tool.

 
Well to be fair, they also wrote a press release about it. And I had to spend about 25 minutes describing how it works and typical applications for the eZine, although it appears not a whole lot of people read it to understand exactly what it was they were complaining about 
 

ill add my voice to the LANDR hate train. 
 
had they kept their unlimited low-res plan that I demoed in the past, it would have been a painless addition. but only getting a preview and a 2 mp3 dl limit is just rotten advertising

The "LANDR Master" still shows as an export option even with it first removed manually, and with a rollback to Manchester followed by a manual installation of Newburyport (and deselecting its installation). If functional without installation (and I didn't test), I am also now very curious why their software has been baked into the installer for SONAR? Running from the CCC would not make a user aware of this, and it didn't occur to me until I saw the "bloatware" comments either.
 
For those who haven't noticed, SONAR began last year as a 312MB download (just Splat, mind you). Newburyport is now 515MB - nearly 80MB higher than Manchester alone - and includes "LANDR" which expands to something like 145MB. Because of the rollback feature, I assume this will continue to be baked in going forward, which also makes no sense if their software changes and a SONAR user rolls back. Everyone is now forced to download this each month even if they do not want it?

Some people like it and some don't. Fair enough. I can't figure out why Craig and the Bakers are giving it such a hard sell. There's nothing to defend and it's not even a Cakewalk product. Seems to be a lot of bandwidth devoted to a product that they didn't develop.
 
Does LANDR pay companies to embed it in their programs?

Anderton
Just to be clear, I would not use LANDR to master my recordings or anyone else's. I know how to master and I often do surgery, not just processing. 

Translation: this is crap for those who don't know what they are doing. That's exactly what I said. The suckers have now heard it straight from their master salesman's mouth: "I would not use LANDR to master my recordings or anyone else's".
 

AndertonHowever anyone who has spent hours generating MP3s of rough mixes for clients after a long session will see the benefits immediately.

Translation: "LANDR is good for those people so inept they spend HOURS generating MP3s, instead of slapping an eq/limiter on the master channel in 10 seconds".

Anderton That's why I think the people dumping on LANDR simply don't understand all the ramifications of having this tool available.

The only 'ramification' is that we are getting bloatware masquerading as a "feature".

Funny details about LANDR:

They conducted a demo and it turned out to be Reaper with a couple of plugins doing the "mastering". TRUE - unbelievable as it might be. The developer admitted it and offered some lame excuse for the fiasco. Check it out:

https://www.gearslutz.com...mixgenius-landr-3.html

I'm sure Cakewalk knows what's going on - the question is why are they pushing this monstrosity on their loyal customers? Maybe they didn't have enough "features" for this month? Honestly, I'd not mind a few months of bug fixing and code optimization, without these "features" that do more harm than good.

ampfixer
Does LANDR pay companies to embed it in their programs?

I don't know anything about this particular relationship, and Cakewalk probably won't disclose that.  But it is certainly a common practice to do a revenue split.  For example, if you are on the "pay as you go" plan and you pay $10 for a mastered WAV file, I'd certainly expect that to be split between Cakewalk and LANDR.  Otherwise, why go through the trouble, considering that Sonar already has mastering tools and there are lots of other features and bug fixes that the Sonar user base would like to see?

irvin
They conducted a demo and it turned out to be Reaper with a couple of plugins doing the "mastering". TRUE - unbelievable as it might be. The developer admitted it and offered some lame excuse for the fiasco. Check it out:

To be fair, that was over a year ago.  They now claim to have something a bit more custom.  But this outfit strikes me as a bit sleazy.  The idea of running a sham demo two days before the public launch when they didn't actually have any of their automation working seems a bit strange to say the least.  Then when you look at their website proper, they provide no useful information about what they even purport to do.  They seem to fall back on "just try it and you will be amazed."  I found some examples that were not easy to turn up on their website, as well as the examples that have been posted here.  I also tried a few of my own files.  The impression I get from all of these data points is that they mostly are just doing a multiband compressor and cranking up the gain as high as it will go.  If so, that is a parlor trick, and really not a good basis for comparison.
 
What I find most off-putting is that there is no control over the process at all.  In one case, it took a fairly balanced track and made the crash cymbal jump out way too loud, and it sounded like whacking a pie tin.  What does one do when their process doesn't work?

irvin

Anderton
Just to be clear, I would not use LANDR to master my recordings or anyone else's. I know how to master and I often do surgery, not just processing. 

Translation: this is crap for those who don't know what they are doing. That's exactly what I said. The suckers have now heard it straight from their master salesman's mouth: "I would not use LANDR to master my recordings or anyone else's".

 
You are totally distorting what I said because you didn't bother to find out the facts before you made up your outrageous claims and "translations" - like the last time you got into a fit because you said you were paying for "low quality, generic stuff" yet when asked to specify the low-quality generic stuff for which you paid...
 
Crickets. You were incapable of backing up your claims, you had no facts, so you just disappeared from the thread.
 
You have no idea what kind of mastering I do. I primarily do ALBUMS. An album is a collection of songs that flow together as a cohesive whole. They can involve crossfades, transitions, level matching among cuts, making artistic decisions about the best flow for cuts, avoiding having two songs in the same key follow each other if possible, and trimming intros and outros of songs so they work together. My album mastering ranges from classical to country to EDM to rock. Only someone who is completely ignorant about the mastering process would state "LANDR is crap" because it can't do that kind of mastering.  
 

irvin

AndertonHowever anyone who has spent hours generating MP3s of rough mixes for clients after a long session will see the benefits immediately.

Translation: "LANDR is good for those people so inept they spend HOURS generating MP3s, instead of slapping an eq/limiter on the master channel in 10 seconds".

 
I said: hours generating MP3s of rough mixers for clients. Note the "s." Plural. Multiple people over the years. Not spending hours generating an MP3 for a client. If I'd had LANDR, I could have exported and walked away to do things like annotate the session, put away cables, do backups, etc. while LANDR did its thing and gave the client a choice as to which version they wanted. You're comparing slapping an EQ and compressor across the master bus to generating three different MP3s and giving clients a choice about which one they want, as well as getting clues about how they're going to want it mastered in the final analysis based on which one they choose.
 
Maybe the way you would do business is to slap on EQ and a limiter, hand whatever comes out to the client, and say "take it or leave it." That's not my style. I try to give a little bit extra.
 

irvin

Anderton That's why I think the people dumping on LANDR simply don't understand all the ramifications of having this tool available.

The only 'ramification' is that we are getting bloatware masquerading as a "feature".

So you still haven't read the eZine to find out what it can do.