Mastering in BANDLAB'S and LANDR'S online services.

[Waldemar Pawlik 11]

I just mastered a song in Bandlab's free mastering service, and to my ears, I think it did a reasonable job.

I had tried mastering the song myself but was not impressed with my own efforts. I then tried LANDR which only gave me a low resolution MP3 which was I thought was still better than my own effort. However, it requires subscription for higher quality masters for which I'm not ready yet. 

I then found that Bandlab offers free unlimited masters in CD quality, and I'm already signed up anyway via Cakewalk. I then made a CD quality and a MP3 master and imported them together with LANDR's version, into Cakewalk to compare the differences. The LANDR version was just a dB or so louder, and perhaps just slightly darker than Bandlabs, but apart from that I couldn't determine much difference between the three versions.

So, has anybody else here tried these online mastering services and what are your thoughts?

[Gswitz 457]

Yes, I've tried them and think they are pretty good.

Craig Anderton did a blind test with us comparing professionally mastered with landr. Many could detect the difference.

I think it is great for quick efforts, but if you really love your song, you might try both.

 

Edited October 20, 2020 by Gswitz

[Waldemar Pawlik 11]

The particular track is part of a client's project and will be going to a mastering engineer when finished. I was just "kicking the tyres", so to speak. But I did like Bandlab's effort.

[Philip G Hunt 472]

I passed a couple of tracks through Bandlabs Mastering service.

It did wonders to one track, but overly maxed out others.  The track that worked well was dynamically lower as I hadn't tried to peak everything to -1, whereas the others were already dynamically quite near the mastering limit so Bandlab just crushed them and maxed out the sound. 

So, a hit and a miss - not bad though.

[mark skinner 644]

Check out Izotope "Ozone" mastering software. It's automated but you have full control over the results. A lot of times when they roll out a new version they'll give away  a previous light version for free. 

[treesha 289]

I tried bandlab a month of cloudbounce and landr. I prefer ozone mastering where i can adjust many aspects of the process. I remember reading an online in depth comparison review that went into details of the differences but it was a while back and i forgot where. I am new to mastering been learning a few years now so not an experienced opinion, but i like ozone best

[razor7music 248]

I do my own mastering in Wavelab. I tried the BL mastering options before and was underwhelmed with the end results. I can do better.