meng
Sorry to all who are fans of it - it won't be included and we do see it as bloatware and dislike the fact that it is only properly usable with an expensive subscription plan.

Yippee, and how ironic! LANDR was installed automatically with Newburyport without any heads up to what the installer was doing. After fuming on that for a bit, I backed SONAR out to Manchester2 and let my membership expire. If I had wanted LANDR, I would have gotten it myself.

mettelus

meng
Sorry to all who are fans of it - it won't be included and we do see it as bloatware and dislike the fact that it is only properly usable with an expensive subscription plan.

LANDR was installed automatically with Newburyport without any heads up to what the installer was doing. After fuming on that for a bit

I think a lot of folks felt the same.
It didn't bother me much but I can understand how one might not want it auto installed.
I believe after the griping, Cakewalk made it a separate installer.

I checked out LANDR when it first rolled out with Sonar. Didn't care for it myself.

My 1st post on THIS seems to have....?
All of you describe my feelings about it FAR better.

Wow! This has turned into a real Landr bashing. 
Come on guys! There's enough space for everyone.
 
I know that AI cannot replace engineers (yet!), but I also agree that the 'budget' home studio musician doesn't want to always fork out on a mastering engineer.  Personally, I'm a 'mix fiddler', I never leave my tracks alone, going back to them constantly. If I had to professionally master each mix I did, I would go mad. Landr may not be the perfect solution, but it does offer me the chance to see what an AI might pick up on in a mix. For example, I often tend to mix with too much bass - with age my hearing has changed and I sway on the side of bass rather than treble (I might also be losing hearing in one ear, as my mixes tend to be lopsided) - Landr usually mixes more treble into my master, allowing me to go back and rework the original source. Ideally, I'm happiest when my final mixes already sound mastered - If I run them through Landr and the only thing the AI does is so minor it is almost unnoticable, I know I'm on the right path.
 
So, sure, call it bloatware - but a tool is only as good as what you use it for - Don't use a hammer to screw in nails.

Yeah, for someone like me who is a musician firstly and barely a sound engineer......mastering software is a good option for demo recordings i guess......but i actually recently came to the conclusion that recording my music in a proper studio with an experienced sound engineer and paying a real bloke to master my album through tape was definately the way to go.........and getting it printed on vinyl just to make it all even better.........still love sonar though for the writting process

I hope not.

meng
p.s sorry if I come across too strong on this for some!

Nope! I thought your post was to the point and didn't harm anyone. Explained well and love the fact that "options" are there...........Thanks for the post

Be aware LandR only claims genre recognition is done using AI.
Internet research reveals the know-how was bought in, not developed in-house.
The mastering process itself is almost certainly algorithmic, too.
 

LANDR is not _bad_ but there's one thing Landr site does not give any information: it can deliver masters to various online music sites but does it match adjust loudness levels optimal for the various places? Loudness war is over in iTunes, Spotify and Youtube and it's no use to bring levels up to the maximum anymore.
 
Quote from Landr site:
 
---clip---

Loudness

The last process in the mastering chain is usually a special type of compressor called a limiter. Limiters set appropriate overall loudness and creates a peak ceiling. Limiting makes the track competitively loud without allowing any clipping that can lead to distortion.
 
---clip---
 
As far as I know, competitive loudness is not required in most places, exluding Bandcamp. Personally I prefer -14 LUFS level; it's loud enough for any phone, tablet, pc or hifi system but it still has enough headroom for peaks. Last time I used Landr it was not possible to set desired loudness level by numbers, only verbally. I don't know if they have improved the interface since then.
 
$299/year (Pro account) - not cheap but maybe it's worth $$$ for someone if you want not only master but also release music in iTunes, Spotify, Google Play etc.