Hello--
 
As I try to have to do less and less when I master by doing more and more while I'm mixing, I find that I could really use a spectrometer and some of the other visual meters in Sonar that I have in my mastering software.
 
I spoke to another forum and one user said he uses the Waves plug-ins in Logic to monitor the entire mix.
 
What do you use and do you recommend it? I'm mainly looking for a spectrometer that I can apply to the entire mix in Sonar.
 
Thanks!

I use Wave Lab for mastering. It has a very good meter. 
Because software shares vst plug ins, it's available to me in Sonar too, I don't use Sonar for mastering as it lacks any Wave editing tools. 

 I do check my mix frequency balance with the LP64 Multiband compressor on the master buss. It divides into 5 ranges and will show you which is hot or cold. 
I use my ears for 90% of my assessment of a mix. The meters only tell part of the story. 

Cactus Music


I use Wave Lab for mastering. It has a very good meter. 
Because software shares vst plug ins, it's available to me in Sonar too, I don't use Sonar for mastering as it lacks any Wave editing tools. 

I do check my mix frequency balance with the LP64 Multiband compressor on the master buss. It divides into 5 ranges and will show you which is hot or cold. 
I use my ears for 90% of my assessment of a mix. The meters only tell part of the story. 

That's very cool. I have Wavelab but how do I use it's analysis tools on an entire mix in Sonar when there is no plug-in insert on the master bus(es)?

The spectrum meter only tells part of the story and in many cases it tells you nothing in fact. 

I am working with a female vocalist right now and we are producing 4 songs together. I recorded a scratch vocal the other day for one of the songs. On playback I could hear that although the vocal sound was very smooth and clear and nice it still had some prominence in the upper mids somewhere. Thinking I might put a spectrum meter over it and that would tell me so much as to where that might be. No so. Every time she sang the whole area from about 1K to about 6K moved up and down on the spectrum meter. It was useless at pinpointing the area I was hearing.

In the end I used my ears to identify the area of importance. I had to create an EQ curve with a sharp peak and sweep the area and sure enough I found the narrow band of frequencies pretty fast. At that point you can either emphasise that part of a vocalist's sound or attenuate it as well.

The analyser did not help a bit in that situation. It can help in other situations though. It is handy for looking at broad low and high end shapes on commercial discs for example to get an idea of how the extremes of the spectrum are shaped. I was working with a male singer once who also had some prominence in a certain area of the spectrum and the analyser did help in the situation. It showed the area quite clearly. It depends on the program material as to how useful it is to a certain extent.

Don't get bogged down in it though. Often it is useless in what it is showing you, other times it can be helpful.

Jeff Evans


The spectrum meter only tells part of the story and in many cases it tells you nothing in fact. 

I am working with a female vocalist right now and we are producing 4 songs together. I recorded a scratch vocal the other day for one of the songs. On playback I could hear that although the vocal sound was very smooth and clear and nice it still had some prominence in the upper mids somewhere. Thinking I might put a spectrum meter over it and that would tell me so much as to where that might be. No so. Every time she sang the whole area from about 1K to about 6K moved up and down on the spectrum meter. It was useless at pinpointing the area I was hearing.

In the end I used my ears to identify the area of importance. I had to create an EQ curve with a sharp peak and sweep the area and sure enough I found the narrow band of frequencies pretty fast. At that point you can either emphasise that part of a vocalist's sound or attenuate it as well.

The analyser did not help a bit in that situation. It can help in other situations though. It is handy for looking at broad low and high end shapes on commercial discs for example to get an idea of how the extremes of the spectrum are shaped. I was working with a male singer once who also had some prominence in a certain area of the spectrum and the analyser did help in the situation. It showed the area quite clearly. It depends on the program material as to how useful it is to a certain extent.

Don't get bogged down in it though. Often it is useless in what it is showing you, other times it can be helpful.

Yes, I rely on my ears but do use meters to help with mastering for commercial standards. I just wondered if there was a way to use the same or similar meters in Sonar that I master with so I don't have to wait and correct something that was overlooked or underheard in the mix.
 
I just can't get my head around how I would apply a meter to the entire mix if it's not inserted into the master bus of Sonar?

Ya the wave lab meters and tools are not plug ins, they are part of the software. 
Did you try the LP64 multi band,, it works for me in the same way, quick overview of what's up. It often catches low mid over for me so I go back and EQ a little more on offending tracks, Easy to find them, just solo each track with the input on the LP turned up a little more. 

 I think there are a few free spec  meters if you go to the KVR site.  Bitflipper has one he likes I downloaded but I am on the road so I can't tell you at the moment. 

Ahh there you go I see he has posted the name below. Span. 

"Use your ears". Duh, of course. But it's not so easy using ears alone to judge if your song's loudness is falling into the range you normally shoot for. That's where SPAN's greatest benefit lies. Getting a visual on your overall spectral balance is just icing. 

It's also not easy to judge what's going on in the extreme low end of the spectrum. Unless you have an extremely well-trapped room and a top-notch, perfectly calibrated subwoofer, the visual display is a must.

Yes, the plugin must be at the very end of the master bus fx chain, after the limiter. It's the only time you put something after the limiter. If using SPAN, put it into Mastering mode, set the integration time to 600ms and select the K-14 meter. SPAN will tell you everything you need to know about what's coming out of the master bus, including whether your limiter is allowing any clipping to occur and alerting you to mono-compatibility issues via the correlation meter. 

Thanks for that bitflipper... can you explain why you suggest those settings (for relativley newbies)

Thanks. I wasn't aware of mastering mode. --never used it.

Mastering mode presents a smoother view of average levels over a longer period of time. This is more useful for mastering than seeing every little dip and peak in real time because in the mastering stage most equalization will be broad strokes.