VIRTU online mastering from Slate Digital

[satya]

https://slatedigital.com/virtu/

Slate Digital have announced the launch of VIRTU, a new web-based assisted mastering service. Available exclusively via their All Access Pass subscription package, the service promises to give mixes the clarity, space and depth they need to compete with modern chart-topping hits.

https://www.soundonsound.com/news/virtu-online-mastering-slate-digital

VIRTU is live now, and is available exclusively via Slate Digital’s All Access Pass subscription service. Members are provided with three mastering credits per month, and can purchase additional credits for $2.99 each. Pricing options are as follows:

Monthly with no commitment: $24.99 / month

Annual paid upfront: $149 / year

Annual paid monthly: $9.99 / month for six months, $14.99 / month thereafter

A 30-day free trial is available, and trial users will also be provided with three mastering credits for use with the new service. Additionally, anyone who subscribes to the All Access Pass before 26 August 2023 will receive six credits at no extra cost.

 

[jude77]

I seem to remember that about eight or nine years ago there was a shootout on this forum between different mastering services.  As best as I recall the winner was a professional mastering engineer, but only by a nose.  I think second place went to an automatic service (maybe it was landr?).  Does anyone else remember this and might be able to provide better details or more correct information? 

[treesha]

2 hours ago, jude77 said:

I seem to remember that about eight or nine years ago there was a shootout on this forum between different mastering services.  As best as I recall the winner was a professional mastering engineer, but only by a nose.  I think second place went to an automatic service (maybe it was landr?).  Does anyone else remember this and might be able to provide better details or more correct information? 

This is a post I participated in in 2020, sorry I didn't know how to link the post here at the moment. Heading was

On-Line Mastering Thoughts by William W. Saunders, Jr.
February 15, 2020 in Cakewalk by BandLab

 

[Simeon Amburgey]

7 hours ago, treesha said:

This is a post I participated in in 2020, sorry I didn't know how to link the post here at the moment. Heading was

On-Line Mastering Thoughts by William W. Saunders, Jr.
February 15, 2020 in Cakewalk by BandLab

 

Try this:

 

 

[Carl Ewing]

13 hours ago, jude77 said:

As best as I recall the winner was a professional mastering engineer, but only by a nose. 

What does that even mean? "Winnner".

Took me over 10 years to find a mastering engineer I liked. It's not about good or bad, or winning or losing, it's whether the mastering suits the music and improves it (this can mean many things to every artist). On a large project - like a soundtrack or album - it's also whether the mastering engineer can find the through-line of all the tracks and either correct inconsistency problems, or find a cohesion that brings everything together. Particularly across large projects that have been produced and mixed in various states of exhaustion, mood, conditions, and sometimes with different gear / monitors. A mastering engineer should be commenting on the mix and overall project, and there should be a back and forth if there are issues that can be corrected in the mix. This isn't expensive - mastering is relatively cheap. I paid for mastering on my first album on a bus boy salary making $2 / hour. You can find exceptional human mastering today for $60 a track.

Mastering is extraordinarily important. There's a huge range of philosophies and techniques - you can give a track or album to 20 different mastering engineers and get 20 totally different results, that all have a strong impact on the final sound. And these are differences that are obvious to even the most casual listener - especially on long projects, like a soundtrack, where a listener may be listening to that project for an hour +.  Poor mastering can make something exhausting to listen to. Like the endless submission I get of people mastering through Ozone presets - this shit is awful to listen to. Or like any of Arcade Fire's releases - possibly the worst mastering I've heard in popular music in my life -- and they paid a lot of money to have great mixes rammed through tape and vinyl to give it whatever BS "warm" characterstics they thought they would get, which basically meant "smashed to shit and unlistenable on high quality monitors".

Seriously listen to this sonic awfulness: 

 

 But, digressing. It's so strange to have this critical step in the music process reduced down to some kind of "final sheen" or whatever weird thing people view it as today. This shit can't be automated, unless the music so damn generic and dull that it likely gains nothing with or without mastering. 

I've put my music through these AI programs - they are terrible, treating the music like some kind of product in an assembly line that can either have a blue or red or yellow filter placed on it to make it "mastered".  Every algorithm, every single service I've tried sounds like shit. Period.  Which isn't surprising, when it completely misses the whole damn point of mastering. Stop treating your music like a product on an assembly line. Your listeners will thank you for it.