'Finishing'/mastering programs

[paravrais]

Aah what you do is basically what I used to do. I'm just fed up of having two wavs and one mp3 for every song I make :\ guess there's no easy answer here really.

[thor_beatz]

Ok fair enough. I stand corrected. However by reading over your "question" twice I sort of understand why people might not get you at the first glance.

Right, so dude to the ridiculous fact that Ableton doesn't render to mp3 I have been for a long time exporting a naked wav to one folder then doing a quick 'mastering' job (usually just a limiter) then exporting a second wav to a different folder then opening that on in Audacity and then exporting that as an mp3

Why? Sure it sucks ableton does not export mp3, but why add an extra step and then complain about it taking too long? Using reaper would make sense if you exported your mixer tracks separately. Or if their mp3 encoding is better or faster then audacity.

I love the concept of being able to render one wav with nothing on the master then take that wav into another program to finish it off and export as my internet ready mp3.

Seems like you create problems for the sake of it. Why do you love the concept? You complain about something taking to long yet you love a process that inevitable will take you longer.
In any case if we are talking about music tracks, I don't see any reason why you'd want to bounce a mix dry and add limiting to 1 wav containing multiple mixer tracks.

Sound forge, wavosaur, audacity they are all pretty much the same. It's not realtime processing like a DAW. It's a audio editor.
I use soundforge for my work and limit/normalize my samples with it.It's ideal for batch processing, working with one shots etc. It's also useful for editing out clicks or digital glitch etc.

However it seems that you want to limit a source that's made up of multiple mixer channels. Obviously you won't be able to adjust things when the limiter is applied in sound forge on a per channel basis. So it must be because it's faster? Indeed, a bit of a contradiction.

Maybe you got a bit lost in the whole process and start to make it more difficult than it actually is,I have that problem too at times. why complicate a solution to a simple problem by adding a concept involving extra steps that are not useful? the only problem you have is that if you want to export a mp3 in ableton you'll need to convert it. You dont need a finsishing/mastering program, you need fast converter i'd say.

[thor_beatz]

This what I do:

mix the song. When finished, I save the project file as song name FINAL. Then I render out a stereo wav, name that song name PREMASTER, and open that in a new project, call that song name MASTERING. Apply my mastering fx and render out into a stereo wav, save that as song name MASTERED. Save that mastering project.

N.B. When I'm mastering I'll use a limiter to push everything up to -o.1 db just to be safe (hopefully no intersample peaks and general software funniness), so I don't need to normalize.

Then I open up my encoder, and mp3 encode the mastered wave file.

That's it, nothing revolutionary by any stretch of the imagination.

I guess your only issue with this workflow would to be actually name your project appropriately... no help there, just do it.

If you wanted to be cheeky, for no real reason, you could buy image line's edison audio editor, and put that as a vst fx on ableton's master channel, record in the audio, and render out of edison as an mp3...

Is there an advantage to "mastering" a single file?

[EDN]

Adobe Audition?
*edit* sorry too expensive, ignore me *edit*

[nowaysj]

Maybe not technical, though maybe still, but largely psychological.

[paravrais]

Ok fair enough. I stand corrected. However by reading over your "question" twice I sort of understand why people might not get you at the first glance.

Right, so dude to the ridiculous fact that Ableton doesn't render to mp3 I have been for a long time exporting a naked wav to one folder then doing a quick 'mastering' job (usually just a limiter) then exporting a second wav to a different folder then opening that on in Audacity and then exporting that as an mp3

Why? Sure it sucks ableton does not export mp3, but why add an extra step and then complain about it taking too long? Using reaper would make sense if you exported your mixer tracks separately. Or if their mp3 encoding is better or faster then audacity.

I love the concept of being able to render one wav with nothing on the master then take that wav into another program to finish it off and export as my internet ready mp3.

Seems like you create problems for the sake of it. Why do you love the concept? You complain about something taking to long yet you love a process that inevitable will take you longer.
In any case if we are talking about music tracks, I don't see any reason why you'd want to bounce a mix dry and add limiting to 1 wav containing multiple mixer tracks.

Sound forge, wavosaur, audacity they are all pretty much the same. It's not realtime processing like a DAW. It's a audio editor.
I use soundforge for my work and limit/normalize my samples with it.It's ideal for batch processing, working with one shots etc. It's also useful for editing out clicks or digital glitch etc.

However it seems that you want to limit a source that's made up of multiple mixer channels. Obviously you won't be able to adjust things when the limiter is applied in sound forge on a per channel basis. So it must be because it's faster? Indeed, a bit of a contradiction.

Maybe you got a bit lost in the whole process and start to make it more difficult than it actually is,I have that problem too at times. why complicate a solution to a simple problem by adding a concept involving extra steps that are not useful? the only problem you have is that if you want to export a mp3 in ableton you'll need to convert it. You dont need a finsishing/mastering program, you need fast converter i'd say.

You still totally misunderstand me.

Ableton can't render mp3 files right? So I have to render wav only out of Ableton. Now ideally I'd like to have 2 copies of any track that I make. A naked wav file and a compressed mp3 for uploading to the internet to share with people etc. So if I were using another DAW I could just finish my track, render out a naked wav then do whatever 'mastering' I wanted in that DAW and then export the mp3. I can't do this so I have to do work arounds. I USED to do everything in Ableton so I would render a naked wav, then do the 'mastering' and render another wav to another folder and then put that into Audacity to export as mp3. Now more recently I realised this was clearly taking too long and cluttering up my hard drive so I started looking for the easiest way for me to only export from Ableton once but still end up with a naked wav and a compressed mp3. So now I do all my 'mastering' in a separate program. Reaper has the benefit of applying the limiting immediately and letting me adjust the levels in real time till I get it just right however Audacity has the advantage of showing you the final waveform after limiting so you can take a last glance and see if there's anything jumping out at you that you don't think should be there to go back and check. My question was really quite simple, I just wanted to know if there was an easily available program that could combine the best features of exporting via Reaper and Audacity in one package.

As it seems like nobody knows of one I'm gonna simply keep exporting naked wavs then using audacity or reaper to limit and convert for playback on the web.

Dunno why so many people getting confused :s

[paravrais]

Why do you love the concept? You complain about something taking to long yet you love a process that inevitable will take you longer.

The whole point of this thread is that that is the quickest way to achieve the results I need O.o if you know of a quicker way then please let me know but I'm pretty sure there isn't...

[Recessive Trait]

why don't you just upload wav files to your soundcloud?

[paravrais]

why don't you just upload wav files to your soundcloud?

Cos this takes daaaaaays on my internet connection :\ also I don't want to be putting up tracks peaking at -6db when half the people that hear it wont turn it up properly :s

[Wrigzilla]

why don't you just upload wav files to your soundcloud?

Cos this takes daaaaaays on my internet connection :\ also I don't want to be putting up tracks peaking at -6db when half the people that hear it wont turn it up properly :s

Doesn't ableton have a limiter built in? Cos if it doesn't + the whole can't bounce straight to mp3 thing makes it a bit redundant doesn't it?

[hifi]

Right, so dude to the ridiculous fact that Ableton doesn't render to mp3 I have been for a long time exporting a naked wav to one folder then doing a quick 'mastering' job (usually just a limiter) then exporting a second wav to a different folder then opening that on in Audacity and then exporting that as an mp3. Pretty long winded and eventually you get REALLY sick of doing it. So recently I started toying with other ideas. I love the concept of being able to render one wav with nothing on the master then take that wav into another program to finish it off and export as my internet ready mp3. I tried using audacity but it takes forever to apply anything so it ends up taking even longer than my previous method having to apply limiting, wait for the waveform to change, play it back, shit it's not quite right, undo, re-apply new limiting settings etc etc. So then I started using reaper but a: I didn't like using reaper enough to purchase it and b: I really want to be able to see the waveform when I'm working on this stage so I can see the peaks etc.

Basically the point of this story is that I want a program similar to audacity that I can load wavs into, apply various vst effects and then render it out as an mp3/ogg file. I know soundforge is the go to program for this but I don't have that kind of money at the moment. Free would be nice but I can go up to 100 quid probably. Anyone know of any programs that would suit my needs nicely? Needs to be reasonably easy to use and friendly to look at too.

Just to be clear I'm not trying to master my tracks here, just use a limiter to push the quiet wavs up to 0 and VERY occasionally some gentle EQ.

pro tools, logic, nuendo, cubase i guess i know for a fact logic can bounce in almost any format including mp3 of course.

[nowaysj]

Why doesn't live render mp3 by the way? They always have some shit excuse for their deficiencies, what's this one?

[thor_beatz]

Dunno why so many people getting confused :s

because of this:

Basically the point of this story is that I want a program similar to audacity that I can load wavs into, apply various vst effects and then render it out as an mp3/ogg file. I know soundforge is the go to program for this but I don't have that kind of money at the moment.

(Audacity and sound forge are almost the same.)

turns into:

My question was really quite simple, I just wanted to know if there was an easily available program that could combine the best features of exporting via Reaper and Audacity in one package.

(the problem was not being able to export mp3's and you end up wanting 2 different functions from 2 completely different programs)

You combine a bunch of things you dislike about different programs and present it as one problem. cluttering your folders, not seeing a waveform. not able to export a mp3. All your questions were already answered.

edison will show you the wave form in your DAW. (although a roof on a limiter is not relative so why the visual feedback?)

naming files and replacing them will answer your cluttering problem.

audacity, itunes, input freeware converter here, can convert your mp3.

But really; I have no clue why you'd want all these steps... There is no technical advantage what so ever. it just takes longer.

[deadly_habit]

cubase or pro tools when it comes to working with audio on a pc man
wavelab too

[paravrais]

Why doesn't live render mp3 by the way? They always have some shit excuse for their deficiencies, what's this one?

God knows why, guess they just don't think it's important.

@thor beatz - You still really don't get what I'm saying. It's all ONE problem. I don't understand why this is so hard for you. I want to export a naked wav from ableton right? Done. Easy, no problem. Now because of that it doesn't make sense for me to do my limiting in Ableton because then I'd have to render another wav (my labelling system is fine but it takes LONGER to render an extra wav, then convert that to mp3 than to just convert the original wav).

So the EASIEST and SIMPLEST thing for me to do is to render that original wav from ableton, load it into audacity, apply limiting and then export as mp3. How is that making things harder for myself? That's literally the simplest way to do it and if you know of a much easier one then why haven't you mentioned it yet

ALL I WANTED TO KNOW WAS IF THERE WAS A PROGRAM LIKE AUDACITY THAT LET YOU APPLY VSTS IN REALTIME. THAT'S REALLY ALL. SERIOUSLY. NOTHING ELSE.

I don't have any problems with anything else, it just annoys me that in audacity it takes ages to apply the effect each time.

How is that hard to understand? I've tried to put it as simply as possible over and over again and still people are confused...I knew I should never have come here to ask a simple question *sigh*

[paravrais]

edison will show you the wave form in your DAW. (although a roof on a limiter is not relative so why the visual feedback?)

naming files and replacing them will answer your cluttering problem.

audacity, itunes, input freeware converter here, can convert your mp3.

But really; I have no clue why you'd want all these steps... There is no technical advantage what so ever. it just takes longer.

As I've already mentioned I can already see my waveform in my DAW. I want to be able to see it in my rendering program right before I export to mp3.

There's nothing wrong with my filing system but having a folder called 'Uncompressed' and one called 'Compressed' each with the same amount of wavs takes up a lot more space and time than having just one folder for my wav files. If you can't understand that then I'm not gonna try and explain it to you further cos you probably need a primary school teacher to do it.

I've never said I COULDN'T render to mp3, I have several programs to do it. I'd advise against using itunes too mate.

It doesn't take longer, it's the quickest way, if it takes longer then whats your magical shortcut?

FFS.

[JemGrover]

Doooood, have a look and Tracktion 2 if you're willing to spend money 'cos it's a measly £29.99 now. You can rewire it with Ableton and it's piss easy to edit audio files. And a lot less fiddly then audacity (and Ableton) to chop stuff up in

[serox]

I still leave the master dry but I dont know if I should explore by putting things on the master.

I hear so many mixed comments about this so I am not sure what to do!

If anyone with real knowledge can give some advice that would be great. Ie, EQ on master after compressor etc

[paravrais]

Doooood, have a look and Tracktion 2 if you're willing to spend money 'cos it's a measly £29.99 now. You can rewire it with Ableton and it's piss easy to edit audio files. And a lot less fiddly then audacity (and Ableton) to chop stuff up in

YES!

Finally someone who understands what I'm looking for

Checking it out now, might have to invest I think.

Cheers dude.

[Pedro Sánchez]

Why doesn't live render mp3 by the way? They always have some shit excuse for their deficiencies, what's this one?

Because they would have to buy a licence in order to use the codec for sale or revenue of the program utilizing it (which the end user would end up paying anyway) or write their own version utilizing one of the many opensource codes, which would mean they would in turn have to make their edited version available to the opensource community. The laws and cases around codec and code ownership in general at the moment is a fucking mess. This is also why the likes of protools used to charge £20 for mp3 option support.