Audio Mastering - presets question

Coloobar

Is it possible to add and use additional presets other than the default ones? Are there any good presets out there for classical or metal styles?

Tarekith

Sure you can make your own presets, I don't know of any place with other ones available though.

Coloobar

@Tarekith said:

Sure you can make your own presets, I don't know of any place with other ones available though.

Since I'm a mastering novice, I wouldn't even know where to start making my own.

Halftone

you can add and store several presets of your own yes (cant remember exact number - maybe 6-10?). The presets sound good to me - they definitely add some punch and definition to whatever i put through it. But can't remember if there were metal or classical preset styles - maybe the itunes store info would tell you... I have no idea what I'm doing with the app though - i move sliders around and tweak things a bit, but I think sometimes i make things worse - so i usually just stick to the presets. I wish there was a good 10-15 minute tutorial video describing how to use this.

RedSkyLullaby

Even if you dont know what you are doing you can fiddle with knobs and faders until you get something that makes an improvement to your sound file when you compare. there are loads of resources on internet to teach yourself some basics about what is going on and what the thesholds, ratios, frequencies, limiters, compressors etc all mean

Coloobar

Yeah there's no classical or metal styles. I believe it's rock, pop/dance, easy listening, vocal, and ambient (whatever that is). I've been using the rock one for metal, and the ambient one for classical thus far.

StormJH1

I have this app, and despite having an untrained ear and basically no knowledge of proper mastering, using the presets made an immediate and drastic improvement in some of the tracks I had recorded. You could instantly hear how guitars and other items getting lost in the mix were popping out after mastering.

JohnnyGoodyear

@Halftone said:

I wish there was a good 10-15 minute tutorial video describing how to use this.

I agree. Hmmmm, If only there was someone who did that kind of thing...

mrufino1

Using the app is only a tiny bit of the issue. I used it to "master" a track, and I thought it was sounding pretty good. I do think I understand the principles, etc, fairly well in that I know what each part does and how to use it technically.

Then @tarekith mastered the same song. Quite different and quite better.

I'll continue to make fake masters for playing for band mates, however, a real mastering engineer will do a much much better job. Louder? Sure, if you want it to be. But balanced on every system I listened to and sounding really polished? I didn't quite get there.

Coloobar

+1 ^
I think it's not that there's anything wrong with the mastering app. But 5 presets aren't going to do justice to every situation and if you don't know what you're doing it's pretty effortless to screw up your tone. Igor Vasiliev's apps tend on the conservative side. With Altispace I usually have to crank the reverb setting way up on the presets before I can start to hear the app really make a difference. With Audio Mastering I can certainly hear the overall mix and certain frequancies getting louder, but by default it doesn't add any compression or space.

Hmtx

Regarding the OP, it has state saving. Anyone want to share your favorites by posting them here?

... or does it not work that way?

Coloobar

Igor says "the next version will try to make several presets with common direction for this style."

NoiseHorse

@Hmtx said:

Regarding the OP, it has state saving. Anyone want to share your favorites by posting them here?

... or does it not work that way?

+1 that would be awesome for us mastering-deaf newbies.