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Final Touch
Well, May I say: I am not an audio engineer, hard to estimimate myself how good or bad my mixes are :-)
And how much do I actually know about mastering. Well, I have read about it and I saw videos on YouTube. But at the end of the day, I still don't know whether the vocals in my last tune sit nicely in the mix and whether they should have more or less reverb or deduction of the mid range.
Now that you know all this about my "knowledge": I still say this is a great app. There are a big number of presets, that make sense to my ears.
What are your xperi necessary with this one. Are there other ones out there
- which are better
- which contain better presets?
Comments
I use the same...still don’t really know what I’m doing, but the results don’t totally horrify me
I use presets as a guide only. Find one that is closest to the sound I want and tweak it.
I don't think there is much between final touch and audio mastering.
One thing I'd say is to feed it a good mix. Well balanced, not too much bass! (that's my tendency). If mix is skewed towards low end it will drive master meter to red but won't sound loud at al, just bassy. Of course it will depend what instruments are in the recording.
Also when using maximizer type compressors and compressors in general try to let the mix breathe i. e. make sure the master meter goes between at least 75 to 100:% otherwise you'll end up with a brick waveform and a lot of lost dynamics. I'm sure others here will elaborate with more technical terminology
Here’s a couple other options for mastering on iOS with comparisons:
http://innerportalstudio.com/ios-mastering-apps-comparison/
That’s a really helpful run through @Tarekith. Thank you. I would love to hear your thoughts on the DDMF EQ and compression tools one day as another alternative.
I haven't used the iOS versions of their tools, but I have used the desktop plug ins a bit in the past. I think they're a great value for the money, though personally I like a little more flexibility in my tools for mastering. Though I admit my needs on that front are likely different than your average musician or producer since this is what I do for a living.
Even though that comparison is a couple years old, I think I would still prefer the Auria and Fabfilter route for iOS mastering myself. Especially now that v2 of some of the Fabfilter plug ins are available.
I like it.
I try to pretty diligent as I am recording/putting down tracks/mixing/etc., and I have found that a handful of its presets serve very well for me with very little tweaking.
Does Final Touch have fade in and fade out control? I see them in Audio Mastering and would have thought for a mastering software it would be a must.
Final Touch is a nice app. It reminds me of a poor mans iZotope Ozone. But with any track, if you haven't got the final mix right, then there is little the software can make better in a the final Mastering. However I'm not a Mastering Engineer, & I'm learning as each track I make(with mistakes included)....... But it's fun to learn.......
I have never encountered fade in/out control in Final Touch, but I always do my fading in Twisted Wave or even AudioShare before sending to Final Touch.
No, no fade outs or editing. Should not be called a mastering app, should be called an effects processor. My experience beta testing that one was disappointing at best, they didn’t have much interest in my suggestions about adding editing, fades, etc. I doubt they’ll ever develop it further anyway, they were on to other projects pretty quickly.
I use audio mastering, it doesn’t look pretty but I think it works well. I do have auria but don’t master in it, just mix.
Preamble: Okay, so when it comes to mastering, you need to lock down the mix first as @studs1966 said. In other words, garbage in, garbage out. Get that mix locked down. EQ in mono, use the pink noise method to set the volume faders. Pan things, etc. Get it locked down.
Main Section: From my beat-based music standpoint, if you want a really good-sounding master, don’t bother with Final Touch or any of these other “specialty apps”. It’s a waste of money. Use a DAW instead. You could use your PC/Mac, get Ozone 8 with a one of those rent-to-own subscriptions off of Splice (rent-to-own subscriptions being a good thing). Or you can use Auria Pro and buy all the Fabfilter plugins peacemeal (starting with Pro-Q 2 and Pro-L at the bare minimum!)
To paraphrase @studs1966 once more, Final Touch IS a poor man’s Ozone. Final Touch doesn’t even have spectral matching EQ capabilities like Ozone and Pro-Q 2 have (where it automatically EQs your track in relation to a reference track, adjust the amount to taste), its multiband compressor is nowhere near as flexible as Pro-MB, and Final Touch’s maximizer is nowhere near as transparent as Pro-L. Final Touch doesn’t even have a multi-band saturator like Saturn, and when I’m mastering beat-based music like EDM, Hip-Hop, etc, multiband saturation is absolutely vital to my shaping the final sound!
Another reason to use a DAW is automation, automation, AUTOMATION! Sure, it’s tempting to take an EDM track, slap on a bunch of FX, and call it “done”. However, it’s just gonna sound like over-compressed shit. Where are the dynamics?! Where are the contrasts?! When I make a final master of a beat-based track, of course I want the exciting sections like a chorus, a drop, etc to be brickwalled hard. However, what about the other sections where there is no lead, no chorus, no drop? Why should the less exciting sections be brickwalled the same as the exciting sections? So yeah, that’s when I turn the volume down to let the mix breathe a bit! In my mastering workflow, one method I always do is I automate both the IN volume and OUT volume knobs on Saturn since Saturn is the first in the mastering chain. I also automate other things like the Saturation knobs, those little “dynamic” knobs, per band.
Bottom Line: Mastering is an art and process all of its own. Make your mix good enough, or the mastering process won’t be as smooth. Don’t bother with gimmicky apps like Final Touch. Invest your time and money in professional tools if you want professional results. Subscription pricing sucks unless it’s rent-to-own (or cloud storage). Do what you want, and good luck!
@jwmmakerofmusic I want to move 100% to iOS. I have 3 iPads. iPad Pro as my main rig. I have Auria but it SCARES ME lol. So if I am going to stay on iOS, I will produce most all in AUM and BM3. What order would you recommend for the Auria plugins. Right now they on sale. I could grab about 50$.
Thanks.
Auria pro is the best mastering tool you will find on IOS. With fabfilter plugins such as pro L and pro Q, you don't need anything else to make a loud and clear track. So you should get some courage within and try to figure out how to best use mastering in Auria.
I recommend you watch fabfilter videos about mastering and wickiemedia channel on youtube. These are just awesome and your knowledge will make a good leap in no time.
Thanks. Will do!
I use Final Touch and like it. I've also got the fabfilter stuff in Auria, but I haven't fired it up since the pro came out as the midi side was a big dissapointment and I went off it.
When I want a quick master for my own pleasure, or for my YouTube vids, I will always tend to use Final Touch. I know my way around it and what it's capable of and don't use presets.
If I was taking the track more seriously, I would probably crack open Auria again, but to be honest, if your track is going to be released, the label will usually want it mastered properly by a mastering engineer, so I wouldn't get too hung up about it.
I am not very fond of delegating to someone else when it's about music production personally. I think an ipad producer who knows what he/she's doing has all the right tools available nowadays to bring tracks to full without needing an external help. So many videos are out there explaining the theory of sound. It's just about getting the information and understanding what lies in it. But I guess it's because I am a computer engineer and it's kind of my job to understand how things work.
Anyhow, I made really good progress with such channels as wickiemedia and fabfilter (for ISP in particular). They are invaluable for the purpose of learning sound mastering. But there are so many others I am sure. It's up to everyone to find the style of teaching suiting their needs.
As for Final Touch, the app itself, I used it a bit but I consider it to be dead right now as it doesn't work with audiobus or as effect in Auria on my ipad pro.
@Norbert I think I can get a good sounding master, but it's not just having the tools. The room and acoustic environment is something most home producers will never have right.
From my experience, when a label takes track, they nearly always ask for the original mixdown, so as to pass it on to a mastering house to get it done professionally. Whether you think they do a better job is subjective I suppose, but if that's what the label wants, then that is fair enough.
To be honest, I enjoy mastering my own tracks more than I enjoy making them.
I understand your point LeeB. But nowadays, if we make the things right, we can get past the labels and produce ourselves. That's what they are afraid of actually and as such, they put some pressure on musicians so they always have to rely on studios. I believe ipad music and digital music in general is changing in the way it can be produced. And soon, self-mastering will become a standard for those willing to take the challenge.
I have been so bad in mastering myself for years. But gradually, I improve my knowledge and it's getting somewhere.
Anyone can make their own music sound nice and polished. The tools have been available for years for anyone to go for ir themselves. The real benefit of mastering from a professional (IMVHABO) is you get another opinion from someone who has specialized in it for years. Knowing the theory is a huge part of mastering, but being able to rule out things you might not even be able to hear accurately helps too.
On an artistic level, why would you need the opinion of someone else? If you are trying to fit to a genre by getting the best out of your track because this person knows better than you, what does it tell about your purpose in making music in the first place? The integrity of art doesn't suffer any opinions. Opinions are for politics or social questions. Only the author of a piece should be the one deciding on how it should sound.
Speaking from personal experience, get Pro-Q 2 AND Pro-L first and foremost. If you got some spare cash, also pick up Saturn (which is the multiband saturation unit, which can do tape saturation, hard distortion, and all the way to the extremely clean-and-gentle saturation I use in the mastering chain). I actually own all of the FF plugins in Auria, because I use Auria to mix stems I produce in other apps. You can mix down in any app you want, of course. However, Auria with at least Pro-Q 2 and Pro-L is the barebones of what you need to master beat-based music like EDM, Hip-Hop, etc.
OH I’M AN IDIOT! I also forgot to mention Auria Pro’s own meter (which has both peak and rms simultaneously).
Don't forget FabFilter Saturn can be used like an aural (harmonic) exciter, a replacement for the infamous Aphex boxes!
Because often the result of two skilled people working together can be greater than what either of them could do on their own.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that all music must be collaberative, far from it. Just that if you're talking about mastering, then that usually involves someone other than the artist. If it's just the artist polishing their mix, then it's just as valid a way of making music and might even sound just as good. Just not sure I personally consider that "mastering" per se.
Fair.
@LeeB
Then isn’t avoiding record labels the smarter thing to do? Their idea of “professional mastering” isn’t brickwalling a track hard but rather suffocating the everliving f-cking shit out of it. I enjoy Spinnin and have bought a few good singles of theirs from Beatport in .wav format, but most of their tracks hit between -3dB to -4.5dB in Auria’s RMS scale! My tracks could technically go that high without becoming garbled thanks to Pro-L’s transparency, but then the life and dynamics are squashed out of them. If I want a DJ to spin my record, I’d probably have to hit that higher RMS level, but personally I tend to favour hitting around -7dB RMS at the hottest points in my tracks and, as I said, use automation tricks to back it off during things like verses.
Yes, that's the way it is.
But when the author, like me, has limited capabilities in mixing and evaluating his own mix, it's good to have someone you trust in.
Thanks man. I bought those 3 last night. With my very limited experience in Auria and Pro Q, I threw it on an old mix and wow what a difference. Now like I told @Norbert need to learn this magic
@jwmmakerofmusic that hasn't t happened to any of my tracks, but I know what you mean. There's some real shit out there.
I think the loudness wars shed a bad light on what mastering is and hopefully is fading away.
There's definitely more to it than that.
I like the app, and it's fairly easy to use for what it does. I also use all the Fab Filters in Auria too. Lately, I had been mixing in Auria, and then Mastering in Final Touch. For no other reason than, just achieving better results. But, I also, despite a lot of reading on mixing and mastering. I have not perfected the arts, not even close......Pretty sure I suck at it.