What are good mastering plugins?

Plugins won't help with mixing. For mastering, there is a sea of plugins available, including those in Logic.

Which sample libraries are you working with for your orchestral realisations?

As GTB says - the Mix and the Mastering are 2 very different processes. During the mix you will apply the plugins (EQ/Compression etc) on individual channels and instruments. Mastering plugins will be applied to the (Master ) Stereo Output (or surround outputs). In its most basic form mastering will consist of EQ and Compression?Limiting as well - but because it's applied to the "Mix" bus the plugins will affect everything in the mix equally - but that's what mastering is about. Let's say overall your mix is great but when you check it on other speakers it sounds "dull" - then you might want to dial in some more top end using an EQ plugin. You will also probably want to actually reduce the dynamic range - which in effect will make the track sound louder overall - it will also help to "glue" the mix together more. Please understand I am simplifying massively here... You might also want to apply other dynamic effects such as limiting - or enhance the stereo width of the final mix.

In terms of which actual plugins to use - although in essence they are the same as for mixing, in reality there are many plugins which are far better suited to mastering, or even designed specifically for mastering. For instance, you would probably use a multiband compressor for mastering rather than a single band one. Equally you may well use a linear phase EQ rather than a simple channel EQ, but the priciples are the same. Logic has all of these built in - but I don't know any mastering engineer who uses them. Some of my favourites would be Waves LinMB, LinEQ and L2, Slate FG-X, UAD Precision Range and Manley Massive Passive. Alternatively you could just bounce the stereo file out of logic and then use something like Ozone or T-Racks.

I would just add that while mastering is in theory a separate task from mixing, performed afterwards - sometimes, particularly with todays super loud mixes, it can help to have some basic mastering style plugs on your mix bus as you near completion of your mix so that you can hear the effect the mastering process will have on your mix. BUT - don't put them on to early, otherwise you'll get the mix wrong, and turn them off once in a while to check what the mix sounds like. I sometimes bounce a rough mix with them on (in Logic) so the client can hear what the track will sound like and it's nice and loud - but once the mix is approved I will always bounce the mix with them turned off and master in another program - not because you can't do it in Logic - it's just a work flow thing for me and I end up with better results (though technically there is not necesserily a reason why this should be so)

Hope this helps... If in doubt - send your track to be mastered - it's so cheap these days there's really no reason not to...

I wouldn't say that a standard Pro Tools install would give you any better results than Logic - the plugins that come with Logic are actually very good. (and a ProTools setup will cost you loads and is IMHO pretty useless for composition/arranging like you are doing). Anyway, as with all things it's as much about the technique as it is the plugins - unless you are a skilled mastering engineer I would say get really good with the plugins that come with Logic before you spend out on yet more 3rd party plugins. A good mastering chain for Logic to put on the Stereo Bus would be Linear Phase EQ>Multipressor>Adaptive Limiter. If you want to experiment with the stereo width of your mixes use the Direction Mix plugin after the EQ (but be careful and check for mono compatability). If your room isn't great or you don't have really full range monitoring (down to 40Hz or so) it may be worth inserting a High Pass filter first in the chain set to about 45Hz with slope of 6n - this will filter out any sub bass frequecies that may be screwing your mix up. Be aware that if you are mastering inside Logic and will "bounce" the final output from there the Stereo Output fader will need to be at 0db. For this reason if your mix is overly loud or quiet insert a "Gain" plugin in the chain 1st, so that you have a good level without any distortion before the signal goes through the mastering chain. So belt and braces would be "Gain">"HiPass">"LinearPhaseEQ">"Multipressor">"Adaptive Limiter". Don't have too much limiting going on, I would suggest no more than 3db, get your EQ right 1st - rebalance individual elements in the mix if you have to, then do some of your volume gain with the Multipressor and some with the Limiter. You can also effect the EQ balance of the master with the Multipressor by varying the makeup gain of the different sections.

You should be able to get really good results with everything that comes built in to Logic. If you can't then your 300 dollars would undoubtedbly be better spent on tutorials and lessons... Only then spend out more money to get really excellent results, as opposed to just really good...

Good luck..

What he said .... 🙂

+1 Mark

Pay special attention to the bass as the number one fault I find with home brew masters is too much bass and/or too many sub frequencies messing up the compressor/limiter.

As Mark mentioned, the high pass filter setting is a good place to start although I tend to use a Waves parametric for that job.

Although mastering can be done in any DAW I tend to favor a stereo editor (Soundforge on a PC) for mastering.

p.s. Can't say enough about treating/tuning your monitoring room

Andreas, are you planning to buy the tutorials? if you are, another idea would be, to join the clob, so to speak, and watch ALL the tutorials on-line. There is a WHOLE WORLD of information there, on lots of music related areas.

You may possibly be at a similar stage to me in being able to produce the stuff but it just needs to be finished off so that it sounds a bit like a comercially finished thing. I tried T-Racks3 for a while - I liked the idea of using the software in stand-alone mode too (it just seemed like a different way of thinking about it and you do need a different set of ears for that kind of thing).

There are some great vintage compressor/EQ emulations in there, but I can't see myself using them for, well, my version of mastering, because stuff like that really colours the sound, I've found much better ways of using them on individual tracks, but this is the thing that made me realise the value of transparent processing when you're at that stage - you're just trying to bring it up to the right volume with only very minor tweaks to anything else by then, so I'm using this at the moment

I've got some really great silky bass sounds with the emulation of one of the vintage compressors, with both real bass and software instrument, so I'm not sorry that I invested in T-Racks, I've just gone on to using it in a different way to the one I originally imagined

It looks like nice bargain.

Yeah I use T-racks 3 as a mastering software Standalone. It is very effective also what I recommend in the TC Finalizer Express it is a fairly cheap outboard unit but it has a very warm sound and it gets the job done for me.

J. ShortKutt: The Engineer.

C-Man, thanks for posting the link to the Slate plugins, looks intertesting.

I defy anyone to not like the Slate FG-X, it's a truly amazing plugin - if I only had access to one plugin for level control that would be it. Sure sometimes I'll use a multiband as well - but you really have to know what you're doing with those otherwise you can go backwards... You can make the FG-X sound nasty if you go mad on the wrong kind of source, but it's very, very hard to...