Mastering With Uad Plugins

I personally think the idea of "presets" on a mastering EQ is a bit absurd. How can a pre-set be made without any reference to what is happening in the track?

All that to say, some of the "pre-sets" in Logic's EQ's actually work relatively well...some of the time. I would suggest opening up one of Logic's EQ's, load a preset, see what is being cut, and what is being boosted, and see if you can apply the same type of curve to the UAD EQ.

At the very least, you'll get a sense of what works well with YOUR mixes, because in the world of mastering, there really can't be "pre-sets".

FWIW, when I "master" (and I'm using that term in the most generic of intentions), I utilize Logic's Phase EQ, and UAD's Fairchild and UAD's limiter. Those 3 seem to work very well together, although the source material always dictates the settings, and if additional plug-ins need to be used... or not.

I have a UAD, but have not got the mastering plugs.. yet. I loved the precision limiter, I was thoroughly impressed with it. the mastering EQ seemed pretty nice too, remarkably subtle and transparent, opens things up very nicely.

as for settings, the best advice I could give you is to A B.

here is some technique:

never do mastering at the end of a day's writing/mixing.

when you are ready to master some work.. take some time out to relax, listening to some CDs that you like that are in the same genre/style/vein of the music you are working on. listen to it for pleasure, maybe in a different system to your studio, in the car, and take it all in without trying to think too much about frequencies and dynamics. just get a feel for how it sits in the various systems.

then, in your main monitors, listen to this music again. set a good level and don't touch the master fader again. bring up your mix, and let yourself react to what it is lacking in terms of frequencies, punch and space compared to the tracks you are A-B ing. dial in as much EQ as you like, wherever you like until you are getting a similar sense of frequency spread and overall loudness as the commercial tracks. of course there will be a distance between yours and the bought one, depending on how close the tracks are in style of mix. but if you are listening carefully to a few tracks and they are well chosen as guides for where you want your mix to be, you should find useful similarities.
then, if you find that to make your top end as bright as your ref tracks, you are getting nasty harshness.. this may tell you your mix needs reviewing - there may be elements in your track that are getting over-hyped and may have been over EQ'd to start off with. same goes for bottom end - if stuff just gets boomy and muddy, it needs review at the mix level. as for mids, well there is no rule there either.. except that if you are finding yourself needing to go all notchy and zone in on stuff to pull characters forward in the mix, then maybe you have a problem with your relative balances.

if none of this is coming up as problematic, then you're on to something. the key is to not touch that master volume fader between your A B listens, so that you are not instinctively turning up (or down) your track to compensate for why it does punch as loud as the ref tracks, or alternatively, why it bottoms out your speakers in comparison to the others.

then bounce away, maybe do some alternatives if you aren't sure what you like.. and take it to your other stereo systems or to a car and A B with your ref tracks again. if your music is intended for vinyl ie, for playing in clubs, then you really want to be getting into a club and listening there as well.

anyway, it's general advice and not exactly what you were looking for, but hopefully useful all the same.

have fun.

Synesthesian,

I see that you're getting about the same response that I do whenever I ask this question! Before I give some guidelines, let me suggest you go over to the UAD website forum because you'll find a lot of answers there plus a lot of great folks to help (just like here). I have two UAD cards and use them for all stages of recording including mastering. I don't have the Precision Limiter (although I'd like to) but I do have the Precision EQ. First, many people use the Fairchild on the default setting on the main out. The only problem that we've noticed is that it robs the bass end of any punch. To compensate for that, you can then run the Pultec Pro and use one of the three presets at the end. If you don't have the Fairchild many people like using the La2a which gives a nice sweet sound. I find that if I use the UAD plugins as much as I can on the material that this pretty much takes care of any need to do much of anything at the end except limit and/or compress a little. By the way, check out the difference between the Pultec and the Pultec Pro. The Pultec alone has some great presets that are different from the Pro version (good vocal, guitar and bass settings, etc.). Also, like I mentioned, most people seem to use the Fairchild on its default setting and you have to be careful with it as it can either make or break your mix. Try these for starting points and I think you'll be quite happy with the sound you get. If you have any other questions, please feel free to email me. Cheers, John