Hello!  After thinking a lot, testing a lot and listening a lot (and asking numerous questions to both prof.  fulltime musicians/engineers and semi pro.  hobbyists), and reading some of bob katz recommedations too, i decided why not to purchase all of my mastering plugins as voxengo.

While my DAW does have plugins of course, i still find some of the featuers in these plugins quite nifty and non-standard.

Basically i need a limiter (allright own elephant), an equalizer, a compressor (i got marquis) more and probably a few funny things like the Warmifier.


NOW the questions.  I haven't had time to listen much to the demos of the things i mention here, but i still got loads of recomendations on it, and the people i asked have done quite a bit of mastering.


--EQ--

For the EQ: CurveEQ or HarmoniEQ.  HarmoniEQ seems interesting, but again curve-eq seems to be branded as the one for details.  Would you even recommend me BOTH and then use harmoniEQ for what its best at (seems to be rich boosting) and then finetune the whole thing with Curve EQ?

--limiting/maximizing--
i think elephant would be the only thing here.

--compressing--
Allright.  As said i own marquis which i use on channels too.  I was recommended Soniformer.  But soniformer seems to be an expander too, but should i then use soniformer alone as the only compressor, or would it be fine to add both soniformer and a touch of marquis if the mix needs it?
AND polysquasher - i guess i don't need it if i got marquis.

--non-general stuff--
Transmodder - dynamic filtering?  interesting.

Warmifier - i am sure on this one though, and found it interesting to use on tracks too.  Never tried it at my mastering bus though

LF Max and LF Punch: shouldn't i be able to get those effects by eq and compressing?


And finally, i haven't read my bob katz mastering book yet, but i will.  I have read numerous other guides and a book about it though, and i am aware that its the last step and there should be left as little as possible for the mastering step as possible :)

Thanks!

For mastering CurveEQ is the best choice.  HarmoniEQ is really a 'strange' EQ: it may produce a bit 'nervous' sound at some settings (there are neutral settings available, of course).  I myself think that HarmoniEQ should be used only if you like the sound, but it may not suit everywhere while CurveEQ is a more universal and neutral option.

Yep, as we do not have any other brickwall mastering limiters on the offer. :)

Yes, this is correct I think.  Applying Soniformer (to get a more even frequency amplitude response) and then Marquis Compressor (for some coloration and overall compression) sounds good to me.

Yes, this is true: there is little need in having both if you are not attached to the exact sound Polysquasher provides.

In my opinion, this can be very useful during post-processing, especially if dynamics are lacking.

Use it with care during mastering as it applies harmonic distortion: make sure settings you dial on it do not damage the stereo image.

No, this can't be achieved with EQ and compression.  LF Max synthesizes sub-frequencies and applies distortion if you want it.  LF-Punch exaggerates dynamics of the lower frequency band, and has various means to adjust/distort/compress it.  These plug-ins are not really "must buy" in my opinion, but can be useful especially with dance/club music.

Yes, it's true.  I myself strive to get the "right" sound during recording and mixing stages.  But on release you can't leave tracks that peak at -20 dBFS: you should compress them at the least and bring the level to 0 dBFS to utilize the whole bit range, and also to make sure track sounds good at about 80 dB SPL.  This is where mastering plug-ins help.  Beside that during mixing you may get an overall frequency response 'skew' due to ear accustomization to various incremental adjustments you do.  You can't fix that without a bit of multi-band compression and equalization.

(elephant)
Yep, as we do not have any other brickwall mastering limiters on the offer. :)

Oh yeah thats what i figured out, too hehe

(soniformer)
Yes, this is correct I think.  Applying Soniformer (to get a more even frequency amplitude response) and then Marquis Compressor (for some coloration and overall compression) sounds good to me.

Allright, i'll play a bit with that in the chain then

(Warmifier)
Use it with care during mastering as it applies harmonic distortion: make sure settings you dial on it do not damage the stereo image.

Allright.  Well, its usable for me anyhow on the seperate tracks; perhaps its better to use it that way instead of on the master unless i'm up to trashin' something :)

No, this can't be achieved with EQ and compression.  LF Max synthesizes sub-frequencies and applies distortion if you want it.  LF-Punch exaggerates dynamics of the lower frequency band, and has various means to adjust/distort/compress it.  These plug-ins are not really "must buy" in my opinion, but can be useful especially with dance/club music.

Okay.  Dance/club is going to be some of the genres this will be used on so i will check them out.



But on release you can't leave tracks that peak at -20 dBFS: you should compress them at the least and bring the level to 0 dBFS to utilize the whole bit range, and also to make sure track sounds good at about 80 dB SPL.  This is where mastering plug-ins help.  Beside that during mixing you may get an overall frequency response 'skew' due to ear accustomization to various incremental adjustments you do.  You can't fix that without a bit of multi-band compression and equalization.

Yeah sounds like i got it right then :)


Thanks for the detailed reply.  When this track is done (i just got a huge part done today, in terms of composing.  Next up is mixing then mastering), i will place an order on the plugins we discussed, and start reading the manuals and bob katz book for that sake (rule 1, learn your tools)

-A "little" side story on why voxengo-
I have spent a long time wondering what plugins to choose, and have been testing and listening to others too.  The choices fell somewhere around Sonnox Oxford, Voxengo, Izotope Ozone and Waves.  Since I figured on a danish producer forum that the owner of it (and also a known producer in denmark) placed Elephant above Waves L2 on his big testing list, and also heard by numerous others that Waves was actually not that brilliant in terms of mastering i thought i'd check a bit more out.  He also said people would be far better off with your plugins than Izotope Ozone (and he kinda made a joke about it being a "complete mastering solution"..  evil eh), but his only complaint was that your plugins wasn't usable for Mac.  Doesn't bother me luckily..  A german engineer then told me to choose voxengo for just about everything as that would suit me good.  And to spend time reading the manuals and learning the tools of course..

Sorry the story is a bit messed up, and i'm not even sure why i felt like telling it :)

Well now i know what i have to spend 339$ at next month :P
Not sure about R8brain of course (the light version is of course suffient here as i only mix/master at 48khz)

oh darn i forgot to ask about GlissEQ!  I think somebody actually put that on a master track (now this is not a common eq, would you then put something like CurveEQ afterwards?  or would you even go as far as not recommending this at a master bus).  Nevertheless also an interesting thing might add it to the list of plugs to get too.

So is glissEQ also a mastering plugin?

I do not think you should use CurveEQ together with GlissEQ - it will get messy if you do (my suggestion is to use as little plug-ins on chains as possible if you do not want to lose control).  But using GlissEQ instead of CurveEQ is fine - I myself have not noticed any problems with GlissEQ (and its dynamic behavior) when used for post-processing.

Guess i need to test them both to decide then :)

Yea...  I have all the Powercore stuff, (incl master 3 and 5, MD3 and Brickwall), the Waves L and C stuff...  last thing, always, always, always in my chain is the Elephant....

there's nothing like it...

And yes, Katz's book is the best.

my shop: http://ajawamnet.home.comcast.net/ajawamsm.jpg