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antler

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Everything posted by antler

  1. Interesting. This gave me pause for thought. I took a recent project that I had the bounces for during the (raw) finished-mix and master stages. I dragged them both into a new project - one on each track - and put an instance of Tonal Balance Control on both. During a full section of the song, I did a screen capture and overlayed the two to see the difference. This is the result: With some post-image colour manipulation, the raw mix is shown in the original white colour (slightly blue from the overlay), and the mastered version is yellow. Though bear in mind my typical mastering chain isn't too heavy either:
  2. Isn't QuadCurve the EQ that's built into the Pro-Channel?
  3. Right; I understand. To be honest, I hadn't thought of it that way. Personally, I wouldn't use this type of tool at the mixing stage. At mixing, the main aim is to make sure that all parts of the song are as balanced and audible as they should be (e.g. muffled backing vocals probably shouldn't be made clear enough such that they compete with the main vocals). And that's it. I don't really see a point in measuring levels at mix time. The only thing I would do level wise is make sure that nothing is clipped. I'd even say don't put a compressor on the master bus at mix time (but if some pro says otherwise, feel free to go with their advice). Mix-wide (potential multiband) compression, EQ, stereo width adjustment, and limiting belong in the mastering stage. As they'll modify the frequency distribution, the graphs will look quite different pre and post mastering. All of this is to say that these types of tools might not be that useful at the mixing stage. I definitely use them when mastering though. But that's just a reflection of how I use them.
  4. IIRC, Insight is just a metering suite - I don't think it makes comparisons to anything. Possibly you might mean Tonal Balance Control, where you can choose different genres and see a relative frequency curve? I'm not sure I follow. If we're using mastering tools to master our unmastered tracks, I don't understand why we'd not want to compare against a mastered track. It's true that we probably wouldn't want an exact match to the reference curve - every song is unique and different instruments/arrangements lead to different frequency distributions - it's useful to know if we're approximately there. For example, an EDM track would probably sound quite strange if it had the same relative frequency distribution as a violin concerto. But while we wouldn't want it to have the exact distribution as <insert the name of an EDM track here>, it's nice to know if it sounds roughly the same.
  5. antler

    NI Feel It!

    It's new (and came out after KCE 14); it'll (most probably) be in 15. I think NI have figured out they have two types of customers: the more studio-experienced ones, and the newcomers to music. I think their subscriptions are targeting the latter. Unlike other subscriptions that include every product in their catalogue for a recurring fee, the NI one is different. It includes instruments more towards the 'instant gratification' end of the scale. It doesn't include Kontakt, and I think someone who Komplete Now is targeted at wouldn't fully appreciate it. To be clear, I'm not saying any one group is 'better' than the other; just that there are different types of users and that NI are trying to cover all the bases.
  6. Apparently, this is a 'goodbye' sale, and it won't be available for purchase after the beginning of June (I think). However, the email I got noted that existing owners will still get to redownload via Pulse, and still get support. Seems interesting, but I think I'm covered for drums with Toontrack.
  7. Kinda sad that Audiomodern seem to have completely jettisoned their Kontakt instrument range, e.g. Opacity
  8. I remember this issue coming up the last time this plugin was on PA_EXT. If I remember correctly, the explanation was that the developer would update their product at least once in 10 years, meaning the licence would get refreshed anyway. Or something like that...
  9. I think the problem is more with the recurring payment. If someone's a pro and they're doing this day-in day-out, it's undoubtedly a great deal that can be classed a business expense. If someone's a hobbyist and they only make music occasionally, the recurring payment might not seem worthwhile. In addition, being locked out of your old projects if a subscription expires is a bit of a turn-off - though I know there's the possibility of bouncing the track.
  10. Interesting - I thought they'd fully abandoned Kontakt as a platform. In any case, a tad too pricy for me right now.
  11. Yup - the current one works, but it is quite cramped.
  12. In my case, someone with little free disk space and a DAW plugin scan that takes a while. Don't worry - I'll probably get round to clearing it up and then I'll be back wanting every deal again soon. 😁
  13. I like it. Whether it's the 'right' one for the job, I like to use this for my drum sends (though it's also good for other uses too). Load up to five IRs and tweak the levels as you like to get the sound you're after. You can even use your own IRs if you have any.
  14. I know... that 'new-ness' is niggling away at me too. I'm just trying (my best) to be sensible 😁
  15. Does anyone have smart:EQ Live? Is it really only useful for live performances, or can it help out in studio settings? And if so, would smart:EQ 3 be a better choice for studio anyway?
  16. Same. I think I have enough mastering plugins such that I can wait.
  17. Thanks - I didn't know about that one.
  18. If you're talking about the pro-channel modules, I believe they're a cut-down version of TapeDesk; when Sonar was announced as discontinued, Overloud offered a crossgrade price.
  19. For lighter tape plugins, e.g. Overloud Tapedesk, I'll put one on each track/bus as the last plugin. For the IK ones, I'll just put one instance on the main bus as a finishing effect - usually after compression and EQ, but before the limiter.
  20. Sounds pretty good. Hopefully, IK can do something similar one day and make MODO DRUM fully modelled.
  21. Sounds great! I love the main Ethera series (featuring Clara). Ethera Gold 2 introduced a male vocal (Daniele), which offered some nice variety to the tonal palette. Prometheus might be in response to positive feedback from that.
  22. Looks interesting. Wish they had a few more videos of it in usage, though there is a demo.
  23. Can't imagine how many files there would be if the compressed library of silent files totals up to 5TB.
  24. The guy has some quite interesting ideas about how to modify a piano. In one video, he wired it up so that there were electrical sparks every time he played a key!
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