Loopy Pro: Create music, your way.
What is Loopy Pro? — Loopy Pro is a powerful, flexible, and intuitive live looper, sampler, clip launcher and DAW for iPhone and iPad. At its core, it allows you to record and layer sounds in real-time to create complex musical arrangements. But it doesn’t stop there—Loopy Pro offers advanced tools to customize your workflow, build dynamic performance setups, and create a seamless connection between instruments, effects, and external gear.
Use it for live looping, sequencing, arranging, mixing, and much more. Whether you're a live performer, a producer, or just experimenting with sound, Loopy Pro helps you take control of your creative process.
Download on the App StoreLoopy Pro is your all-in-one musical toolkit. Try it for free today.
Mastering Track
So...... I am getting ready to master a couple tracks. I realized, that I haven't really done a lot of that. Mostly just the mixing stage of things.
In Auria, I assume I go to the mixdown under the main menu. Then, should I pick Import as new track? That creates a new track under the existing tracks on the song. If I didn't choose that, Auria did a mixdown, but I'm not really sure what it did? Mixed the song down, and I can't find a mixdown version when I have import as new track clicked no. So I assume yes for that.
Then, what do I do with the track to master it? Transfer it to a different project? Or master it right in the original project folder? With it under the original mixed tracks? If I want to use Audiomastering, or Final Touch, I can just open the track up IAA, or copy/paste it?
Sorry, I feel like this is such a basic thing I should know how to do, but I'm not understanding the correct way to go about this.
Thanks
Jason
Comments
I use Cubasis, not Auria, so I'm unsure if this will be helpful or not. Basically, I create a mixdown of the song in WAV then I use the Open In feature in iOS to open the file in AudioMastering. I don't use Audio Copy cause it can only copy 16 bit audio files so if the WAV file is 24 bit it will be compressed down a little. The difference is like... Nothing ...but still XD
Sorry if this didn't answer your question
Hey Thanks for that! It does answer it. I have audioMastering, so that is deff. an option for me. I wonder if I plan to keep it in Auria, if I would then move it to a new project folder to master it. And how I do that to ensure it is a wav at 24 bit.
Thanks again.
In Auria's Mixdown window you can specify the bit depth for the mixdown as you can see in the attached image. If you don't import it back into the project as a new track, it will just be in the Auria folder that you can access with app file sharing in iTunes next time you connect it to your computer. Of course you can also export to Dropbox, Soundcloud, etc too.
It really doesn't matter if you bring it back into the same project, or if you start a new project when you get to the mastering phase. Largely it will depend on your preferred workflow and how much CPU you have left when you're done with the mix. Personally I use the Fabfilter plug ins when mastering in Auria, so I just place those on the master track directly in my project once I'm done mixing it. That way when I render the mixdown, it's really rendering a master.
Nothing wrong with using something like Final Touch or Audio Mastering too, horses for course.
I master audio for a living, feel free to reply here if you have any questions on the process you want some help with. Here's a basic guide too:
http://innerportalstudio.com/articles/Mastering.pdf
@Tarekith Thanks again for sharing this PDF...
@Tarekith
Thanks for the reply! I appreciate the info. I have most of the FabFilter plug-ins, except Pro-MB, so I will prob. go that route. Those little plug-ins are pretty dang goooooood. At a fraction of the DT price.
@Tarekith I've been doing some different Google searches for info on mastering workflows in the Musician/Producer/One-Man-Band DAW age.
This thread came up in one of the searches and it has made me curious to try the "Mastering on the Master Bus" method Erik describes.
His mastering & mixing guides are excellent too, really check them out. I try to learn everyday, and avoid the bighead of thinking I got it all down. I used that theory as prompting to take a recording technology course throughout 2009 to 2011. It was great. It was after years if working in my home studios making demos on PortaStudio's & playing on project studio sessions & meeting several career engineers. I'd learned a lot but I thought I'd take it for the certification & some friends who'd taken it recommended it.
I had set in stone afterwards what I kind of suspected anyway: you will get 100 different theories on what to do and given what the particular situation is 99 might work... translation: take hard & fast rules with a grain of salt.
I'd been told you mix your session (bounce the project, whatever your parlance) then take that stereo .wav to a real mastering engineer who's ears aren't colored by hours & hours of intimacy with the track. IF you can't swing an engineer or you want to try mastering yourself, the same process but the file goes to isotope, or in our iOS sphere of app's Final Touch, Audio Mastering.
I was told putting a limiter, comp, EQ, etc on the master fader made any remastering attempts a hassle, better you printed a copy of just the mix & then have just a master. Jumbling everything may be overload, better to get a good mix, rest your ears for a day & then master in a dedicated app/plugin/process.
I have held on to that a long time but now I am going to experiment with mixing in Auria Pro (my preferred DAW) and simultaneously mastering with Pro-L, etc on the master. Thanks again Erik for the info.
One last question: I have heard lots regarding 16bit vs. 24bit for recording, mixing, even mastering. An old gruff engineer told me once since it's all going to 44.1/16 anyway for mass distribution, or worse if compressed for streaming, etc., just do everything in 44.1/16 to keep the bit stream clean, avoiding multiple convertions.
What's your take Erik @Tarekith on the bit depth issue and if anyone else has an opinion please chirp up. Thanks...
I usually try and stay 24bit until the last step in the mastering process and then convert to 16bit if needed. Converting bit-depths in my experience is less of an issue than converting sample rates. Especially with all the dither options available nowadays.
It's perfectly possible to make great sounding music at 16bit too, but if you have the option and CPU for it, I still think that going 24bit gives you a nice bit of safety room above the noise floor to work in.
I appreciate it brother. I think coming from an analog background the appreciable difference between even 1/2" 15ips to 'standard' 44.1/16 was so big that 16 & 24 bits for me runs into the law of diminishing returns zone.
I've heard 96/24 stuff on really good monitors, in a good room, next to an A/B'd 44.1/16 source and I could hear a difference. 44.1k /16bit next to 44.1/24bit not so much... it's something like simultaneous mixing/mastering that I am gonna have to experiment with.
Thanks again...
Another vote for Fab Filter mastering plug-ins. Not cheap, but you will hear the difference.
I would be really surprised if someone could hear a difference between 16 and 24bit with most music. I can definitely set up some eamples that show it off under set conditions, but for everyday music listening the differences are minute. Still, good for keeping the noise floor down so it doesn't creep up on you unexpected, which is why I always say go 24bit when you can.
96 versus 44.1 khz is a different soundprint for the lack of aliasing.
Usually perceived as more clear/transparent it's not always for the benefit of the track.
Our listening experience also contains rough sound bits, like famous EMU/Akai 12bit stuff, or even lower... and tons of audio CDs.
With an iPad it would be easy to built some tracks on 96k sources only, as most (if not all) of the 'better' synths and processors feature an oversampling sound engine.
Those sounds are beautiful on their on, but I'd expect any such mix a boring piece of crap.
Full of sterile, clinic sounds - no grit, nothing rough... 50% of the spectrum missing.
24 versus 16bit only matters on certain sources, as Tarekith mentioned.
It's really important for low volume analog recodings (microphone), but any guitar amp is way too noisy, no electric guitar/bass exceeds a 70dB SNR, most are around the 55dB mark. All those extra bits beyond number 16 are plain noise.
24bit give you a significant amount of more headroom for dynamic processing, but keep in mind that heavy actions in that domain may come along with severe distortion - eating up the 'better sound' advantage
But to use 24bit generally doesn't hurt. Unless your iDevice is very tight on memory.
@Telefunky aliasing is something you worry about with certain effects and synthesizers. It has zero impact on recording. You literally cannot hear the difference between 96 and 44.1.
From what I remember of doing the math one time, 16 bit is plenty even for quiet analog sources. It's just that 24 bit gives you a vast amount of headroom so you never need to worry about redlining. But 16 bit still gives you more headroom than analog ever did.
I have John Bowen's Solaris synth as a DSP plugin and one day got the opportunity to check the hardware version (which has a 96k processing path throughout the engine).
Both systems share the same DSP architecture (chip type) and algorithms.
Not shure if the difference is worth the expense, but it was clearly noticeable.
I dont't see any difference to a full 96k versus 44.1k recording path capturing only analog sources, which are then played back at their respective sample rate.
Imho increased resources don't justify the result, but that's a personal estimation.
Doing math is a fine thing, but forgetting reality may end in a surprise.
If a low level signal is supposed to become 'hearable' to the listener it's must be lifted about 30db, which is effectively shifting 5 bits.
Decaying 16bit sounds will sound more grainy than the 24bit versions.
Again, no biggie, no showstopper, nothing to worry about.
I was about to share my insights on the subject, but then @telefunky said exactly, ipsis literis, what I was intending to post, so that’s it. Only would add this: if you can, work with the best bit depth you can, that is, 32-bit float in Auria, while adding FX etc. Why? Because you can! But after all the processing is done, just export to 16-bit/44.1Hz. Also, if you intend to do soundtrack for a movie, work with 48Khz from the beginning (that is, from the tracking phase) because the industry standard for filmmaking, simple as that. FabFilters should have you covered. I use, in this order, ProQ2 (sometimes doing the infamous bandaxall curve, 6db at 20KHz with Q=1), ProMB (but seldom turn it on), Saturn (for more high harmonics and tape warmth when the genre requires) and Pro L (I try not to get over 6dB of limiting). Cheers!
I'm not sure what I would do after Auria. I have all the FF plugins. The Limiter simply does beautiful things to the sound, and I'm not sure why. I have used Final Touch, but I'm not sure that it did anything more. I generally mix straight to Dropbox or SoundCloud.
After using Pro L, there's absolutely no sense in using Final Touch, or even Ozone/Lurssen/Neutron/whatever - it will only apply preposterous processing after what should be the last step. Conversely, you won't apply Pro L to an already mastered track. Makes no sense. If you know your way around the FabFilters, you have all your bases covered.