An even better deal (IMO) is the 1-year license for $25 ... you can upgrade to the lifetime license later if you want, but since there's always something better coming out, I opted for the year-long deal. If nothing beats it by the time my license is up, I'll be upgrading for sure. This seems like a pretty good arrangement. BTW, the free demo is fully functional and not time-limited -- it just mutes every 30 seconds or so.

 
Nice... thanks for that!   $25 isn't much for a year's worth of use. 

I have a "by hand" method for increasing loudness at the mastering stage. I export the full mix to a stereo pair, then open it in Sound Forge. There I inspect the wave form for the loudest cycles, and run the Statistics tool to check the Max's and average levels.

If there are a just a few peaks significantly higher (and there usually are), I go in and either compress or even Volume Reduce **just that single peak*, until my reported Max is down to -7db, -10db, whatever. Depends on the tracks in question.

Then I Volume Increase the entire track by a uniform amount. The result is a finished stereo pair that is volume maximized, but which also preserves 99.999% of the original dynamic range.

When Mastering a group of songs into an album, I check that the final result matches first by ear, then by Statistics, for average levels, and tweak as necessary. The above procedure guarantees me plenty of room to work with.

Not a one-button solution, of course, far from it, but I prefer the control I get from going through all these steps.

Jeff, i am interested in your comment and your opinion is shared by many top engineers. My question, though: what is wrong with automating your mix, listening to it, coming back to it later, and then putting a mastering chain on your master bus? I don't understand what exporting the wave first contributes. I understand the value of taking a mix to a mastering specialist, but if it is the same person doing the mix and the master (or pre-master), what is the advantage of the extra step? There must be one since so many people agree with you, but I am missing it. Thanks!

I agree with everyone who says that no Mastering should be done at the time of Mixing. I personally try not to unless there is a problem with a particular instrument, but then, that's mixing. 

With that in mind here's what I recommend: Have a project Mastered professionally at least once and SIT IN with the engineer. Ask questions, let her tell you what you should be doing or not doing. Let her give you some guidelines to work in. Then, most importantly, ask what she had to do to get your mix polished off. Ask what could have been done better. Ask what common mistakes they find and use that information to your advantage. After all, you're not in competition with this type of engineer. You're a mixing guy. 

Educating yourself and learning the mastering process to the fullest extent you can is a must. Bob Katz has an incredible book. After going through that and sending a few more onto the Mastering engineer, and you'll learn way more that way than any book or forum could ever teach you. It may also help to try different Mastering houses. 

Now, with all of this said, here's my highest recommendation to ANYONE who wants to become the most proficient at mixing. Not only learn from watching other mixers do their jobs, but you may even have the Mastering engineer come visit you at your studio, so they can hear what you hear and see what you DO. I've done this a couple of times, and holy cow the things I was changing after that! Night and Day! I know this may be expensive, or not even possible in some cases, but if you live in a city where they exist, like I do, it's worth it to try.

Hi konradh The reason I prefer to master sometime later is simple really. The main reason is that after a long session of mixing your ears are just not in the right space to be making important mastering decisions. I can guarantee if you apply say overall EQ to your mix at the time of mixing and then do it a week later the overall EQ setting you end up with will be different to the EQ setting at the time of the mix.

If you read the books 'Behind The Glass' I and II many great engineers in there say when they mastered an album either at the time of the mix or the next day it was a big mistake. It was due to pressures from record companies and the like.

When you send a mix to a mastering engineer they are fresh in the morning usually and they have never heard your mix before so they tend to approach it from a very fresh perspective. If you are mastering yourself you can sort of do the same thing by leaving it a week before mastering. When you hear it again it all tends to sound a little fresher and you tend to approach things like EQ, compression and limiting from a different angle. I do anyway.

Another good reason too is it is great to live with a mix for a week. I listen to it in the car, at home while having a dinner party, on various speakers etc. (not my main monitors so much though during that week) All sorts of things pop up when you do this and you inevitably change a few things about the mix. And if you don't then obviously you have nailed the mix which is great because it also means no further work.

Gentle two buss compression over a mix can be good and it is possible to setup that compressor to just change things very slightly. I sometimes do that if I am aiming for a very loud master at the end of the project. It can help towards that a bit. It is like applying that very thin coat of compression paint first. 

Another great reason is, it is very handy having a full mix with no processing applied in your backups. It can still be 24 bit etc. Then if you don't like how you have mastered something you can also go back and change it. I like listening to a mastered track(s) too for a while after. You sometimes pick up some places where you may have overdone a process here and there. If you have that unprocessed mix available it is so easy to just recall everything and readjust.

I usally do mastering in Soundforge, using Waves L2 or L3 and some good linear EQ first...somewhere I read that Sonar have certain " limiting" or distortion avoid technology(sorry about my english) implemented into the audio, track, bus engine...

bitflipper: While I do have a fair understanding of limiters, I certainly would never claim to be an expert on them.
In my experience, once I turn a limiter on on my mix, frequency relationships tend to change a bit. So, I have gotten into the habit of mixing through a limiter at about midway in my mix process so I have an idea of what's gonna happen to things. Now, I will A-B limiter off - limiter on, just so I'm not just mixing blindly , only to face a big surprise after I finish mixing and turn on the limiter.
In my world, for the music I tend to mix mostly, a limiter is a neccesary evil.
Obviously, different limiters have different "sounds". Analog emulations, "warm" settings, etc. So, each imparts a different feel to the mix.
I have used Waves L3 and wasn't fond of what it does in the top end.
I have used the Sonnox Oxford Limiter and love it but, not into the iLock thing.
I tried the Sonar Tube leveler and whatever that other limiter is that comes with Sonar and found them to be too dirty/muddy sounding
So, I'm curious as to what other folks are finding as solutions.
Didn't mean to start a war over what's right and what's wrong (as so often seems to happen on these forums), just curious, that's all. 

I think if you want an excellent limiter I recommend the Concrete Limiter for the PC from CW.
   

I always track into slight stereo bus compression (like 1.5/ ratio setting at 2db reduction max) followed by Fab Filter (transparent setting) Limiter set at -.05 db peak and touching 1db reduction sporadically to whack stray peaks.  Good realtime limiter showing RMS and peak so you can see as you go the trouble areas. This way I have an "idea" how everything is gonna gel together...and it usually reveals low frequencies bandits I didnt catch earlier. 

@bitflipper: I just included the Redbook label to indicate where the 44.1 kHz/16 bit spec came from. With "only" 16 bits to work with, that's 32768 bits discrete signal strength steps for positive voltage, 32768 for negative. For strong signals that's fine, but for very soft portions or tracks recorded at low levels, the A/D converters don't have enough bits (steps) to record a waveform accurately. http://www.recordingmag.c...esourceDetail/336.html

So signals which cover a small amount of the available dynamic range are not accurately recorded, resulting in quantization artifacts (the correct term--I couldn't come up with it above and used "stairstep" instead).

As for what it has to do with limiting, I was just going into too much detail over choices about setting levels. I recorded a lot of classical music back when my CD burner cost me $600 (Cakewalk Pro Audio 4.5, 1996!), and I tried to record my performers as hot as possible without distorting, so that I didn't run into these quantization problems at pianissimo passages. Sopranos especially could get really loud, and really soft. Then these tracks with high max values didn't leave me much headroom at mix time (thus limiters).

I know, it probably doesn't speak much to the original post, I just like talking about these musical choices. :)

Whats the CCL? 

Slate fg-x for transparency, t-racks brickwall for a little color if needed. I have Ozone 5 too, but have yet really dive into it much, some online reviews say that the limiter is sterile and harsh and others swear by it. I really ought to use Cake's CCL more too so I can learn it's "sound" (or lack of), but out of habbit I just reach for Slate most of the time.

+1 on Limiter No.6 Excellent feature set, sound and free. Donations accepted on the website.

Just downloaded/installed Concrete Limiter. Just gave it a quick try and it sounds pretty good. Will have to wait til the weekend to put it through it's paces.

rodreb


Curious as to what final limiter folks are using on their mix bus? Looking for something brick wall that sounds really good. Suggestions?

Depends. Ozone 5, PSP Xenon, Concrete Limiter, UAD Neve 33609, UAD LA3A, sometimes Boost 11