cheapest Mastering software ? T-racks

[IbanezFreak777]

Anyone tried using T-racks http://www.t-racks.com/
It seems like a good program. I downloaded the demo, but it inserts a terrible noise every few seconds, so that the final product is unusable as its a demo only. Is it worth the $200 or so dollars to buy it ??

Any other possible cheaper software for mastering ?

Also once I have mastered all the tracks, do I still normalize them all before burning on a cd, to make sure that all songs are the same volume or should this be done in the mastering process. Seems hard to match 10 tracks when mastering each track seperately.

Also any ideas on what needs to be done to a track so it plays well on all types of systems (car stereo, home stereo, ipod, tv etc....)

thanks for any ideas you can put on the table...

As far as getting a pro to master for me, Id rather learn this process myself.

thanks...

[540s]

Check out Izotope Ozone 3 before buying. It's about the same price. I have not spent much time with t-racks but Ozone is very easy to learn how to manipulate & gets great results.

You can d/l a free version of Ozone to try also. There are no noises in the Ozone demo, but you can only access a handful of the presets & none of the individual controls.... which is just the tip of the tip of the iceberg... but it should be enough to get an idea of what it can do.

[Wolfram]

I use T-racks and it is quite good. I like the factory presets to get you in the right ball park of the sound you are after and then you can tweak it to how want it to sound.

- Wolfram

[smurfdaddydog]

I got the mack daddy IK multimedia bundle, Amplitube 2, ampeg svx, classic reverb, sampletank, sonicsynth, mirislov philharmonic, and T-racks. I decided to get them in spite of the crappy LE versions that come bundled with pro tools LE. The only one out of the LE bunch I even liked, and remarkably still use is the t-racks EQ. I can tell you that I feel that the full version of t-racks is, IMHO totally worth it. I feel that if you got the $1,000 burning a hole in your pocket I think you should get the whole thing. Good thing about IK, they do a cross grade where you get to add stuff at less than full price if you already own one ore more of the things they make. Bad thing about IK, The tech support kind of sucks, but I think its worth it.

That white noise spurt is their way of fighting software piracy.

As far as getting your stuff to sound good on anything, home, car, etc. This is a phenomenon that lots of guys experience. Many will try to buy stuff to add to it or process the snot out of it but that most likely will not work.

What you want is for your mixes to travel well and that means you need to mix in a room that is not colored by room modes, standing waves, and reflections. In short you need to acoustically treat your room.

Bass builds up in corners and can give you the illusion that you have plenty of bass in the mix, then you get in you buddy's car and, no bass.

You can find first reflections by sitting in your mix position (with your monitors positioned correctly) and have a friend run a mirror along the side wall. look for your monitor and treat where you can see it, don't forget the celling.

The back wall is a great place for some diffusion.

It is important to note two things. 1. this is NOT sound proofing. 2. Carpet and egg cartons will not give you the desired effect.

Now I feel its important to point out that almost everyone gets really irrationally mad when people start talking about acoustic treatment but the proof is in the mix. Check out www.auralex.com for more info. Also there is a great book by Mitch Gallegher about acoustic treatment for the home studio, great read, check it out.

Also, if you are recording 24 bit use a dither to get it down to 16 bit before bouncing to disk.

[courtney2018]

I use FLStudio and I wouldn't use anything else.

[IbanezFreak777]

Wow thanks for great response, and info guys. I think I will be buying the standalone version of T-racks. I have played with the sound for while and switch between the t-racks and bypass and the sound difference is huge. Mastering makes a huge difference

Thanks

[IbanezFreak777]

Originally Posted by courtney2018

I use FLStudio and I wouldn't use anything else.

Does fruity loops have mastering software ? Cause I use fruity loops also, I just dont have the studio part. Just fruityloops 4.

[GP13]

izotope!

[courtney2018]

Originally Posted by IbanezFreak777

Does fruity loops have mastering software ? Cause I use fruity loops also, I just dont have the studio part. Just fruityloops 4.

It's no longer called Fruity Loops. It's FLStudio now. They've gone from having their software be used for rap and making hip hop beats, to being an all out digital music creation and mastering solution. I would put it up against ProTools anyday!

Mastering isn't about what 3rd party plugins you can get. FLStudio's default set of effects and options will allow you to master at the highest quality. However, you can also add in the 3rd party plugins if you already have them, or you just have to have them. I've got some of them, but for the most part I just use what comes with FLStudio. I paid $150 for the Producer version and it's really all I need.

I record directly to my Digitech GNX4. I then transfer the tracks to my computer using a Flash card reader. I drag the files into the appropriate FLStudio folder so that it shows up in the side-menu in the program. I drag them directly onto the timeline. From there I add compression, EQ, balance the way I want, maybe add reverb, delay, chorus, etc. and I'm done.

I also program my drum tracks in FLStudio. It's my complete mastering solution.....and it's all for $150. It would cost several hundred to do the same thing in ProTools.

[Petie]

I won a copy of Fruityloops 2 way back in the day, and even then, though it didn't have audio recording capability back then, I would use it for mixing and mastering by recording my guitar and vocal tracks in another program, then just dropping them into Fruityloops as a sample on the first beat of the first bar of the song. Then I used various plugins for compression, EQ, limiting, etc. I loved that system even though it was pretty out of date. But as of yesterday, I have Pro Tools and Drumkit From Hell.