Ableton Forum

Hello all,

Just wondering what you all are using for mixdown and mastering for the purpose of burning to CD. Do you only use Live? It seems somewhat limited in this area and I'm looking to record my songs that I'm creating in Live.

Tracktion looks interesting (easy to use?) and it supposedly rewires with Live. Would you share your experiences with this software or any other when doing mastering?

I use analog tape to mixdown to. This in itself is somewhat a mastering process, because of the tape coloration and compression applied to my mixes.

Rewire to Pro Tools. BLAm !

basetwo wrote:Hello all,

Just wondering what you all are using for mixdown and mastering for the purpose of burning to CD. Do you only use Live? It seems somewhat limited in this area and I'm looking to record my songs that I'm creating in Live.

Tracktion looks interesting (easy to use?) and it supposedly rewires with Live. Would you share your experiences with this software or any other when doing mastering?

Tracktion doesn't offer anything more than Live in terms of mastering tools. Get yourself a good set of Mastering plugins like Waves or Izotope then learn how to master properly and you'll be ok.

Tracktion doesn't offer anything more than Live in terms of mastering tools.

My bad, I was tired when i wrote this. I was thinking of Tracktion (or another software) for the final editing and mixdown instead of using the arrangement view in Live. I've not looked at it enough, though, to know if it's much better. That's why I was posting this question about mixdown and master. Two questions, really.

Then I was thinking about what it would take to do the mastering after that. And you've helped to answer that question.

Thanks.

Any more input, especially on the mixdown, would be appreciated.

Rewire to Logic Pro 7

Vercengetorex wrote:I use analog tape to mixdown to. This in itself is somewhat a mastering process, because of the tape coloration and compression applied to my mixes.

Do you use a real to real or something like a cheap 4 track tape recorder.

I use Wavelab 5 and a combination of UAD plug ins and the Waves Master's bundle as each song dictates.

sometimes a little bit of Vintage Warmer, with a "sometimes" combination of TC Native Compressor/DeEsser, and there's usually an L2 in the end of the chain there as well.

If the software isn't doing the trick and i just can't get the sound where i want it, i will output to a Focusrite Platinum Compounder and a Drawmer DL241 (both of which are hardware). But the more i take my time and not rush with Vintage Warmer, the less i use those hardware pieces.

its good to have options though, and i try not to use the same configuration for each track.

LIVE to Finalizer 96k to Sound Designer 2.8.3


so good.

Live to BBE SonicMaximizer to Waves Ultramaximizer

basetwo wrote:Hello all,

Just wondering what you all are using for mixdown and mastering for the purpose of burning to CD

I use this guy i know....

AdamJay wrote:sometimes a little bit of Vintage Warmer, with a "sometimes" combination of TC Native Compressor/DeEsser, and there's usually an L2 in the end of the chain there as well.

If the software isn't doing the trick and i just can't get the sound where i want it, i will output to a Focusrite Platinum Compounder and a Drawmer DL241 (both of which are hardware). But the more i take my time and not rush with Vintage Warmer, the less i use those hardware pieces.

its good to have options though, and i try not to use the same configuration for each track.

Do you find that the final sound of your music varies a lot from track to track or do you manage to keep it extremely consistent regardless of using different combinations of gear/plugs for mastering?

I use a TC electronic Multiband on a parallel bus (Thank you mister Bob Katz for his book on mastering) and then through the Voxengo Elephant Limiter

Steinberg's Get it on CD, the poor man's version of Wavelab. Cost, $19. And there was a $20 rebate offer on the box! But I plan to get the full version of Wavelab 5, when I can afford it.