Waves Dorrough Meter Collection plug ins

Waves released a new plug-in collection bundle that features models of Dorrough most popular loudness meters. Developed in association with Dorrough Electronics, they provide precision loudness monitoring for every conceivable audio scenario.

Displaying both average and peak levels and in a single readout, Waves Dorrough Meters are the only meters which actually let you see the density of the sound. Finally we can see a product that was missed from the waves plug-in collection.

Features:

• Superfast Peak Response
• Sum and Difference Energies for Optimal Stereo-to-Mono Compatibility
• Left/Right Phase Correlation
• Displays Number of Overs
• Peak and Average Level Relations
• Three Selectable Styles: Horizontal (280D/240D), Vertical (380D/340D), and Arc (40AES/EBU)
• Three Selectable Sizes: Extra Large, Large, and Small
• Selectable Reference Levels
• Switch Between Display Sizes and Styles with the Click of a Mouse
• 40dB Scale in 1 dB steps
• Mono & Stereo Components

Controls:

• Meter Style Vertical, Horizontal, Arc
• Meter Size S, L, XL
• Reference Level 20dB AES, 18dB EBU, 14dB
• Peak Auto, Hold, Reset
• Overs Display, Reset
• Meter Mode Phase, Sum/Diff, Left/Right
• Phase Error LED
• Overs Error LED

Dorrough Meter Collection is available in TDM, RTAS, VST and AU plug-in formats.

Mastering Tips Do It Yourself - Part 1

Mastering engineer is considered to be one of the most difficult jobs in the audio world. Today I will try to explain some basic knowledge about it, And why the hell it is such a difficult task.

The first thing I want you to understand, is that to be able to do a good mastering job, you need to be a very experienced mix engineer, and with a lot of studio hours in your pocket. The second thing that you may already concluded, is that you can’t do mastering yourself, and you better leave it to professional engineer.

Despite that, you can learn and understand the basic master channel strip settings. and with some practice you can get some nice result. Of curse, it will not sound like a pro finished record but, if you want to play your demo tape to some promoters, or you are a “DJ” and you have some big "gig" it will do the job.

Ok, Now one very important rule before we begin, we need to produce a good mix. remember, if you can fix something in the mix process fix it, don’t leave it to the mastering process. It will be mach more difficult to fix, and the result you can get in the mix is better and easier to achieve.

Another important rule I always try to follow on is that the final mix will always be at 24bit and at list -10db. Its is very important rule because if we bounce our mix at 0 db like many beginners do, we will be left out of db range, and will not be able to use our compressor in the right way. To solve this problem put your best equalizer plug-in in the master channel and lower the volume to -10db within the “Eq” and not from the master channel itself. This way you manage to preserve more of your bit depth and sound quality. Because generally, if you use a good EQ plug-in, it works at higher bit resolution than your “daw” software.

Now. Let me give you some examples of master channel strip settings.

Example 1:

1. Limiter
2. Compressor
3. Equalizer
4. Compressor
5. Multi band compressor
6. Limiter
7. Dithering

Example 2:

1. Compressor
2. Compressor
3. Equalizers
4. Saturation plug-in
5. Compressor or multiband compressor
6. Limiter
7. Dithering

There are truly no magic settings. Its really depends on your audio materials.

Now, Let’s begin to explain the first example.
Sometimes I put limiter in the beginning of the chain to cut some picks, the attack need to be fast and the release should be very fast. I want to achieve about 2-3 db of gain reduction.

After that, I insert my first compressor. The goal will be to reduce about another 2db of gain. The attack and the release settings really depend on what you are trying to achieve, pumping sound or maybe very gentle result. Anyway don’t compress it to mach; one of the objectives via the mastering process is to achieve loudness. And we will do it very gently, by dividing this task between several compressors.

The equalizer is here to fix holes in your mix and to add air in the higher frequencies.

After that we put another compressor to glue things together, I usually don’t compress more than 1.5db gain reduction, this time the release is slow and the attack is fast.

I don’t always use multiband compressor, but it can be very usable some times, I prefer regular compressors, the sound is more natural in my opinion. However, if you experience some frequencies problems, and you cannot resolve this issues with regular equalizers, multiband compressor can become very useful. It can compress only the frequencies you want it to, and not the whole spectrum. So again it really depends on the materials you master.

The limiter:

It is usually last one in the chain. The goal of the limiter is to achieve maximum volume, and no distortion in the audio signal. And at the same time not to Squash it to mach. remember to be gentle, and don’t go crazy with it. Take into account the following thing; if it sounds louder, that doesn’t necessary mean its sound better.
In the second part of this article I will focus on more detail explanation about each element in the mastering chain. Feel free to mail me with any question or post your comment here.