yep... wait till NAMM reports come in...

I went to the IKM room - they have a separate room rather than a booth on the main floor. I saw no PCs or Macs, just iPads. Lots of iPads. And microphones that look like crayons. Jam-packed with kids, er, young adults furiously jamming away while sqinting at tiny displays my old eyes could barely make out. May be a generational disconnect, but I found it about as inspiring as fans lining up for $100 J. Bieber tickets. Old farts like me can only shake their heads in befuddlement.

At least our farts are musical 

Voxengo makes some amazing plug-ins. Elephant has been mentioned, but I'll throw in Crunchessor as one of my favorite track and mix compressors. It behaves well, and covers a LOT of sonic territory. I use it frequently when I'm not in the mood to use an emulation, and being a dinosaur I do tend to lean towards emulations of gear I 'grew up' with, but that's me.

That said, I think Izotope makes perhaps the most easy to use, musically useful equalizers and dynamics processors! Their presets are usually great jumping off points.

I don't own Ozone (yet) because I have tools that do the same things, but maybe make me work a little harder - which is ok, since I've already invested in them. That can make a difference<G>!

That said, and I get flamed for this but I'll say it anyway - mastering is NOT about the gear, although there is gear (hardware and software both) that is optimized for mastering. Mastering is a process, and more to the point, it's about the  ears of the mastering engineer. The number one reason to send your tracks to a mastering engineer is their ears, and a close second is that they represent a second set of ears - ears that have no baggage with respect to the tracks.

I think that an awful lot of people are using the term mastering in ways that it was not intended, or rather in a very different context than the one with which I grew up.
 

wst3
mastering is NOT about the gear, although there is gear (hardware and software both) that is optimized for mastering. Mastering is a process, and more to the point, it's about the  ears of the mastering engineer. The number one reason to send your tracks to a mastering engineer is their ears, and a close second is that they represent a second set of ears - ears that have no baggage with respect to the tracks.

Hey Bill, how's it going?
You are 100% correct about the concept of mastering.
 
The OP did say that he wanted to learn how to master. He said that he thought he was doing good with his mixes and wanted to take his skills to the next level by learning how to master his recordings. In this case I think it would be  counter-intuitive for him to send his mixes to a professional mastering engineer unless he could sit in on the session and learn something.
Don't you think that it is great that someone wants to take on a new learning experience?
That said, the OP's original question was about acquiring equipment for mastering since he has none except that which came with Sonar.
What equipment do you think he needs in addition to the vst that came with Sonar? 
 
73
Mike
N8MIB
 

mikedocy
What equipment do you think he needs in addition to the vst that came with Sonar? 

 
While it's certainly true that the mastering engineer's ears and skills are more important than the gear, I'd say that the one thing you really need gear-wise is a good monitoring setup. If you've been to a pro mastering studio, you surely noticed the tuned room with large expensive speakers (usually more than one pair) and high-end hardware to feed them a pristine signal. That's the way to really know exactly what your music sounds like. Any colorations in the monitoring chain will impede the process of getting a truly mastered track that translates well to a wide variety of playback systems. 
 
There are relatively inexpensive tools that help those of us who don't have such a setup at home, e.g. Sonarworks calibrations, but these aren't replacements for professional monitoring environments. The best we can do is get the track sounding as good as possible on whatever different systems are available, as the OP described doing. Usually, it's possible to get pretty good results this way, although it's time-consuming and tedious. Having a buddy listen with a critical ear would also be very beneficial.
 
While it's certainly worthwhile to learn and practice the art of mastering, I'd still say that if you've produced and mixed your tracks and plan to release them commercially, having a pro handle the mastering is a very good idea -- after all, even the big-name mixers do it that way. You don't need Bob Ludwig (although if you can afford him, go for it) -- there are many reputable engineers who would be happy to handle your work for what may be a surprisingly reasonable price.  
 
Cheers,
Eddie
 

Yeah - I agree with everyone.  Most of my music is not going to be released commercially...  Some of it might be used with some independent films, and if the production company wants to budget in enough for mastering - great!  Typically I'm getting a few hundred bucks to put something together.  I also sell some rough CDs at my shows in exchange for tips...  I'm looking to get things as close to a 'real' master as possible.
 
Ideally - I would like to spend more money on treating my room and quality monitors, however there are other constraints to that.  Some day!  Building a quality studio is a process too.  Getting good plug ins is a part of that process.  I've gotten pretty far with the Sonar plugins - been using them for a couple of years.  Learned a lot - it was time to pull the trigger on something better.
 
I spend a few hours last night comparing Ozone vs Voxengo vs Waves...  Voxengo is the winner for me.
 
I just bought Elephant and Polysquasher.  $175 - I think it will suit my needs right now and that's the exact amount I was paid for a gig last weekend so BAM!  It works...  
 
I'll add a quality EQ soon - but it looks like the Sonar LP-EQ is getting an upgrade!  Might wait for that...  But that FabFilter ProQ-2 seems pretty snazzy!  

Oh god, keep me away from FabFilter. That stuff looks and sounds almost too good.

Fleer
Oh god, keep me away from FabFilter. That stuff looks and sounds almost too good.

I took a long look at Voxengo's Curve EQ - doesn't look as pretty, but it seems solid.  It has the same EQ match feature and I gave it a go against a commercial recording...  I had to adjust loudness and such before-hand.  It definitely improved my track.  Of course - it needed a lot of tweaking because my track had slightly different instrumentation and everything - but it was a great jumping off point.  For learning about EQ - it's a really cool feature.  
 
Futher - I actually made a curve in LP-EQ that matched the one from CurveEQ and the Curve EQ sounded much better.  Even after I went into LP-EQ to make adjustments...  Very smooth...  My original original post highlighted that there was an abrasiveness to my tracks that I just couldn't pinpoint.  The PolySquasher and Elephant have taken care of most of that and the CurveEQ seems like it will knock out the rest...
 
Voxengo's Curve EQ is about 1/2 the price of FabFilters...  Just sayin'

Another set of plugins that I find excellent: TokyoDawnRecords (TDR)
http://www.tokyodawn.net/tokyo-dawn-labs/
 
The Kotelnikov compressor is incredible, even the free one. I suggest watching the video.
 
Allan