SONAR for Mastering - the Future?

+1 Craig. I already do a lot of my mastering functions in Sonar, and though I also use Sony Sound Forge 11 for the final bits, SF11 is actually a 32bit dinosaur and an insult to consumers IMO. BUT it has some good analysis plugs and the iZotope stuff is great.
 
But to me mastering in a DAW makes a lot of sense because you can so easily compare tracks, plus set up parallel compression and automation for FX etc.
 
Love to see if the Bakers .. err.. bite :O)

Hi Craig,
 
I am another that tends to "master" (I use that term loosely) outside of Sonar. I do, however, finalise the EQ on the master bus using an instance of Pro-Q, simply to carry out a low and high cut and use the old "smiley face" curve to drop the mids silghtly.
 
I'm wondering how I would "normalise" in Sonar though... I know I can use a multitude of compression tools, but I like to see the wave file itself. Mainly because I know, now, what sort of overall shape to expect of a lightly, or heavily compressed audio file.
 
So for me, at least, I like to export my wave file, open it in Sound Forge, and then normalise (or compress) within that, and while I am there I will crop the track to length, and fade out if needed. And then finally create the finished MP3 file for uploading to SoundCloud.
 
 

synkrotron
I'm wondering how I would "normalise" in Sonar though... I know I can use a multitude of compression tools, but I like to see the wave file itself. Mainly because I know, now, what sort of overall shape to expect of a lightly, or heavily compressed audio file.

 
I'm actually a big fan of Boost 11.  It's always the last stage of my master bus, I can see how much is getting chopped off, it shows a preview of the final wave, and sounds fairly transparent.  Like most plugins, if you don't abuse it and limit the crap out of your mix, it works great, IMO.

Hey Craig, submit a feature request and we can vote it up 

To a certain extent I already "master" in Sonar as the ability to split one stereo  track in several stem parts or make parallel processing is far easier than just be stuck with audio file to work from. Although I will say, mastering is a bit of misnomer of a  term considering a lot of it can be dubbed pre-mastering.
 
Many people will argue it's not proper unless you pay Bob Katz or somebody in a professional environment which is completely neutral from the original location it won't be good enough for commercial release or to the higher echelons of superior reference playback equipment.
 
I know my stuff could be better and someone else could make it sound far better; at least,until I manage to kit out  a room with all the mod cons of audio wizardy 

stac
I say: Less focus on content, (much) more on workflow!
 
In other words: I don't need any more plugins (most of us have a big arsenal of third-party plugins anyway), but a mastering suite like in Studio One (or better) would be nice, as would freely moveable bus channels in the console, interrupt-free editing in the tracks view while the song is playing, a greatly improved bounce dialog, track versions like in Cubase (aka playlists in Pro Tools), macros, etc ...

A big +1 to this.  I currently use Wavelab 8, but I really don't care for it and would love to have an integrated/dedicated mastering environment built right into Sonar ala Studio One.  As for content, I think it would need a suite of nice metering tools to really be usable for most people.  Personally, I would stick with my Flux metering system.

Hi Craig,
 
I like the idea.
 
For Mastering purposes, it would be nice to expand the "per-clip" control/processing options...
Something similar to the Object Editor in Samplitude.  (Object in Samplitude is a Clip in Sonar).
More advanced fade curves would be really nice (ie: Cosine for a smoother fade).
 
You've got all the basic layout fade/cross-fade capabilities.
If we could have an "Auto Index" feature... and burn straight from the Timeline... that would be perfect.

Thank you, Craig. It really would be nice to have some dedicated mastering tools tossed in. I may be wrong but did my Noise Reduction thread inspire this thread? Either way I would absolutely LOVE to see something like an Izotope Sonar Suite included as an LE promotional type thing with the option for discounted upgrade to their full versions like we have gotten with other great tools.
 
The guys at Izo MUST know that Sonar fans are Izo fans. I think it would be an excellent marriage and from the algos that still exist within the program I can only imagine there is a decent relationship there waiting to be expanded. Considering what the Baker's have done and now the involvement of Gibson it could be very worth everyone's time to get this train rolling in that direction.
 
Again... thank you for pushing this. With everything else that has been going on some serious mastering tools could really seal the deal for Sonar becoming a threat to be reckoned with to the other "industry standards".
 
Let's do this shiz!

boost 11 is not the greatest limiter around, if you're looking for one try https://vladgsound.wordpress.com/plugins/limiter6/
i also use an external audio editor for mastering, i would rather sonar focused on sequencing

Also... get the Guitar Pro guys in there somewhere. That would be slick.
 

cryophonik

stac
I say: Less focus on content, (much) more on workflow!
 
In other words: I don't need any more plugins (most of us have a big arsenal of third-party plugins anyway), but a mastering suite like in Studio One (or better) would be nice, as would freely moveable bus channels in the console, interrupt-free editing in the tracks view while the song is playing, a greatly improved bounce dialog, track versions like in Cubase (aka playlists in Pro Tools), macros, etc ...

A big +1 to this.  I currently use Wavelab 8, but I really don't care for it and would love to have an integrated/dedicated mastering environment built right into Sonar ala Studio One.  As for content, I think it would need a suite of nice metering tools to really be usable for most people.  Personally, I would stick with my Flux metering system.

I have for a long time coveted the mastering section of Studio One. I would give this a big plus 1. We have already took the Melodyne feature introduced first in Studio One, so we might as well adapt the mastering feature into Sonar. Lets not forget the wave editing features too while were at it. It's not stealing, just good features to have.

Thatsastrat
 
I have for a long time coveted the mastering section of Studio One.

For me, Studio One's mastering section is really a "CD assembly" section, which it does really well. It doesn't quite hit the same editing functionality as Wavelab or Sound Forge. I'd rather see SONAR go in more of a Wavelab direction, if for no other reason than because CD assembly is becoming less important in "the age of singles."
 
I always thought Studio One's integration of the mastering page with the multitrack page was really slick, but I think that would need to be integrated from Day 1 of the code spec...I assume retrofitting to an existing program would be difficult at best. However, I must say Mix Recall is not only the next best option, in many ways it's better, like being able to export multiple mixes and plug them into a CD assembly program without having to go back and forth between two program sections.

I would like to see this feature set.
 
By the way, in reference to the Boost 11 comment, I find that tool to be very program dependent: for me, it works great on some songs and destroys others.

I tend to opt for Universal Audio's Precision Limiter which is pretty transparent, yet shows no sign of break-up even with lots of gain. If you need to add around 10dB of gain to get a recording at a commercially acceptable level then you need to look back at the mix process.
 
Also I have Precision Maximiser which turns your harmonics into something more musical if this is the aim of your finishing process. 

Anderton

Beepster
I may be wrong but did my Noise Reduction thread inspire this thread?

Yes, but I wanted to be polite and not hijack yours.

You have free license to do whatever you want in and to my threads but I'm glad this is being discussed.
 
As far as Boost11...  it is a cool plug but it is NOT transparent or gentle in any way. It's good for increasing volume and touching peaks but once it starts limiting it is quite hard and crunchy. This can be a good thing and desirable if you want rip shiz up. If you want smooth/gentle/transparent limiting... it ain't the tool. The Blue Tubes limiter was a very nice freebie addition and the Concrete Limiter has been worth the dough I tossed at it. Of course the Sonitus Suite has limiting options as well (and the CA2A can be set to Limiting but I've never really used it for that). Then of course there is all sorts of other third party stuff.
 
Kind of strange how such a seemingly simple process (turning things up without breaching a threshold) that in theory should not cause different results yet somehow does with different tools. Stupid 1's and 0's making me feel stoopid.