Master channel

[Mark]

I generally don't have anything on the master channel, but when I do I use my very own Expresso plug-in. On the master channel it acts as a limiter, but also has various distortion algorithms inc saturation plus high and low pass filters.

[Teksonik]

Master here usually contains T Rack's White 2A, Brickwall Limiter and sometimes Nomad's Cosmos.

[knechtodawas]

This is the master channel of one of my last tracks. Very weird .

Master.png

How about pics of the vst settings and some audio examples

The following clip demonstrates the master chain shown in the screenshot I attached to my first post. First half of the clip is rendered with an empty master bus, second half of the clip is rendered with all the plugins activated:

https://soundcloud.com/mopp-b/lobeholddemo/s-IigM5

[bones]

My Master strip always has PSP MixSaturator on it and, at least while I'm working, Tug-of-War Compressor (ToW) to give me a rough idea how it might sound after mastering. But when I render the mix, ToW is switched off. I master separately.

[Solid Technica]

This is the master channel of one of my last tracks. Very weird .

Master.png

How about pics of the vst settings and some audio examples

The following clip demonstrates the master chain shown in the screenshot I attached to my first post. First half of the clip is rendered with an empty master bus, second half of the clip is rendered with all the plugins activated:

https://soundcloud.com/mopp-b/lobeholddemo/s-IigM5

Cool, thanks for going through the trouble However the link isn't working. Did you take it down already?

[DaZoid]

I tell you how my master channel looks - ABSOLOTELY EMPTY!

not efx nor anything else. Maybe a bit of equing. There should never be stuff on the master in case you want you stuff to get mastered by a professional studio/engineer.

[Teksonik]

I'm sorry you don't have the skill to master your own material.

[knechtodawas]

Cool, thanks for going through the trouble However the link isn't working. Did you take it down already?

Still working fine here :/.

[DaZoid]

I'm sorry you don't have the skill to master your own material.

I bet my ass that there are hardly more than 5 people here on the forum who can master propperly. It s about focusing on the important thing. And I would also not use Orion for mastering. I sometimes master my suff with wavelab. But just to get an idea. I rather let a mastering engineer do it.

[ufo]

Probably doesn't matter so much for those of us who are not creating work intended for commercial release.

[Teksonik]

I bet my ass that there are hardly more than 5 people here on the forum who can master propperly.

Define "properly".................

How many times have you actually sent any material to a professional mastering house ?

[Steven_Blair]

That was one of the reasons I dropped using a Limiter on my final wave, because I was getting a few tracks mastered professionally, and they always told me to remove the limiter so they had some space to make my music sound nice.

After playing around with frequencies and compressors I can pretty much get the same volume out of my tracks now that I did with Elephant, although, it's more guesswork and just fiddling with settings til it sounds good.

[Teksonik]

it's more guesswork and just fiddling with settings til it sounds good.

Or you can use plugins to remove the guesswork and fiddling...........

What dd the professional mastering house do for your tracks that you couldn't do for yourself ?

[Steven_Blair]

The last time I paid for the mastering service, here is what they guys did (first snippet is my original)

https://soundcloud.com/steven_blair/sets/egyptian-style-mastered

I think my tracks sound a lot louder / clearer than back in 2013, but I don't think it's anywhere good as a pro.

I find it difficult getting the tracks sounding really loud and punchy, as well as having less muddy basslines (although you could argue final mastering might not cure that).

[knechtodawas]

This is the master channel of one of my last tracks. Very weird .

Master.png

Just a note: Of course the picture above shows my master channel when I do not plan to send the track to a mastering engineer . Otherwise I would not do any limiting and less compression.