With self-mastering becoming ever more common, the producing engineer has to navigate a lot of complexity in lieu of a second pair of ears. We take a look at a single suite of simple tools that could help solo studios to deliver.

In Summary

Delivered within clean GUIs and an emphasis on concise feature-sets, Masterbus Bundle affords producing engineers an adaptive compressor, novel passive EQ, audio gear modeller, and a Finaliser-style multi-stage processor.

Going Deeper

Mastering Processors

As the definition of mastering continues to evolve, so too do the tools used to execute this sometimes misunderstood stage of production. While the pro mastering studio will frequently house a selection of specialist hardware and software tools, their complexity can exclude use by those whose skillset lands more in field of Art as opposed to that of Science.

Dynamic

These processors include compressors, expanders, limiters, and their variants. Opinions vary on whether to mix into compression, or to compress after the event. This can be a wideband process, or multiband, where the engineer can tighten up the low end, for example, without squeezing the middle. Some treatment at the very top can impart pleasing tape-like effects.

Spectral

Primarily EQ. With compromised monitoring setups, and a broad gamut of listening devices and environments to contend with, it’s no surprise that some EQ is often needed to iron out the mix that arrives with some bumps and troughs that mirror any monitoring curveballs. EQ can also be used to correct mix balance in some cases.

Harmonic

These processes can be employed to add musical complexity or even audible saturation to signals. These can be designed for purpose, or be in the form of signal-bending media such as tape. Other ‘secret weapon’ processors for this purpose can even involve those designed for other duties. These can be patched in purely for their circuits’ character with the processing itself bypassed or otherwise dialled out.

Loudness

Some kind of loudness metering is mandatory for anything due for streaming or broadcast, and a good idea for CD as well. (Vinyl production will often employ a ‘third stage’ at the place of manufacture where the cutting engineer will compensate for the limitations of the medium.) Some tools can set the loudness as well as report it.

The One-Stop

Towards the end of last century, a number of boxes sprang up offering multiple processors in one place for entire masters. These offered a number of almost exclusively digital processes, however some became infamous for their ability to make things sound incredibly loud when used in a certain way. In its place, a well-executed audio plugin might be all that is needed.

Klevgrand Masterbus Bundle

Setting aside the actual purpose of mastering, the self-mastering creator has a lot to consider when producing deliverables. These cover doing the music justice as well as satisfying a raft of technical requirements.

Taking on mix buss and matersing duties is Masterbus Bundle from Klevgrand. Covering multiband and conventional dynamics, EQ, as well as harmonic enhancement, stereo width processing, and loudness metering among others, this package of audio plugins is aimed at the engineering musician or anyone who needs a concise set of tools across their deliverables.

In the video we use Masterbus Bundle’s friendly suite of tools to achieve better sounding mixes without a great deal of technical detail getting in the way. After adding some tape-like harmonic interest with REAMP, we iron out some low mid anomalies and add sparkle with GotoEQ courtesy of its dynamic mid bands and gentle shelves. We then apply easy parallel compression using Korvpressor before opening out the master’s width in Grand Finale.

It’s easy to forget that the self mastering creator has to overcome quite a few complex audio concepts to get their music out there. As can be heard, using tools such as those from the Masterbus Bundle to take away a lot of this complexity and dares to reconcile two former opposites: Ease and Quality.

Masterbus Bundle Key Features

Korvpressor adaptive compressor

• High quality compression algorithm

• Unique and easy-to-use UI

• New: Attack / Release time switch (three states)

• New: Dry/Wet mix

• New: Ratio switch (three states)

• New: Maximizer Mode on/off (with a Make Up parameter knob if set to off)

• New: wide choice of factory presets

• New: Output brickwall limiter on/off switch

• 3-band smooth EQ

• Lookahead on / off

GotoEQ premium equaliser

• Low and high shelf filters with detailed modelling of a classic passive EQ unit.

• Two parametric dynamic filters.

• High-pass filter: 20/40/80 Hz

• Continuous frequency selection for all four bands

• Boost and Attenuation for the Low and High shelving bands

• Gain, Q and Dynamic Attenuation for the two mid bands

• Finely-tuned compression algorithm makes mid bands react dynamically to the signal

• Global Input and Output Gain controls (+/-24dB)

• Global bypass and individual band bypass

• Peak metering for the input or output

REAMP audio gear modeller

• Seven handpicked profiles based on Klevgrand’s favourite pieces

• Spectral drive (four bands)

• Dry / Wet mix

• Wide choice of factory presets

• Ultra low latency

Grand Finale audio finalizer

• High-precision audio finalisation multi-processor.

• LUFS and RMS output metering.

• Parallel signal in aligned phase.

• Additive signal path with distortion and/or compression.

• Revamped UI optimised for a quick and creative workflow.

• Stereo width enhancer.

• Multi-band compressor.

• Fine-tuned limiter.

• Factory presets available.

A Word About This Article

As the Experts team considered how we could better help the community we thought that some of you are time poor and don’t have the time to read a long article or a watch a long video. In 2023 we are going to be trying out articles that have the fast takeaway right at the start and then an opportunity to go deeper if you wish. Let us know if you like this idea in the comments.