Ddp master file
This can actually add up fairly quickly for a full album project. The basic monthly plan gets you unlimited 192kbps mp3 files, but you still have to pay for 16-bit/44.1k WAV masters on a per-track basis, and pay even more for what they call “HD” WAV masters. I had heard about how affordable LANDR was, how it was devaluing the art of mastering, and how it’s ruining the business of human mastering. If it’s not a great song, performed well, produced well and mixed well, the mastering isn’t going to save it. I think sometimes people unknowingly put too much faith into the mastering process. Mastering is not going to make a bad song great. The problem is with how it’s being presented and sold as real mastering.
#DDP MASTER FILE PRO#
I don’t think any pro mastering engineer is worried about these AI services stealing their jobs because as mentioned, it’s only doing one aspect of the mastering process, not all of it. An AI mastering service is just guessing and would apply some processing again because it is not capable of realizing what’s going on, it’s just guessing that something needs to happen. If a human mastering engineer with some intuition and sensibility was sent a song they already mastered to master, they would do no additional processing because they already did exactly what the song or project needed the first time, right? Nothing more, nothing less. The true test is this: Run a song through an automated stereo bus processing service, and then send the result back through again. I can throw a burrito in the microwave but that doesn’t mean I’m a chef that can prepare a great entire meal that will please all my dinner guests. I get that AI stereo bus processing can be a tool for mix engineers and producers at times to see how their mixes react to being pushed louder or to help get mix approvals, but that’s exactly why it should be called “Automated Stereo Bus Processing” and not “Mastering.” It gives people the impression that uploading their songs to an AI mastering service will be equal to hiring a human mastering engineer. Stereo bus processing is just one component of the mastering process, but not ALL of it. That would be considered “educated guess stereo bus processing.” If I just ran songs through my processing chain without speakers and/or headphones, just looked at the meters and numbers, and did NOTHING else, that would not be mastering and I would have very few (if any) satisfied clients. A human mastering engineer does FAR more each and every day than just stereo bus processing. I’m more concerned about the big picture and how these services give people a false sense of getting all the things that the mastering process entails, not just the stereo bus processing. How do you even have a chance to be better than AI if companies are falsely changing the definition of mastering to current and future generations? I have plenty of new and recurring clients each month, and it’s been increasing for years so I don’t see things like this as a direct threat. The “be better than the AI and you have nothing to worry about” comments are really short sighted. Among others, LANDR, ARIA, eMastered, and now Plugin Alliance/Brainworx are now comfortable dumbing down and redefining what the mastering process is. One component of that process is stereo bus processing. Mastering isn’t processing, mastering is a process. I wasn’t expecting the actual definition of mastering to be so subjective, but now it is thanks to these AI services attempting to dumb down what the process entails. I’ve purposely not even commented on the actual sound of these AI services because it’s subjective. What I think is disingenuous to users of so-called “automated mastering services” is that by calling it that, it gives users, particularly less informed users, a false sense of receiving the same treatment that a human mastering engineer would do. If these services called themselves “automated stereo bus processing” services, I’d have no problem with that. Mastering is more than just stereo bus processing. I’m a firm believer that a project isn’t fully mastered until it’s 100% ready for distribution and production. Instead, this article focuses on facts regarding a few things that what people call “automated mastering” simply cannot do for you, and why that is important or perhaps detrimental to your project. If you’re expecting an article that critiques and dismisses the intrinsic sound qualities of what people are now calling “automated mastering” or “AI mastering,” this is not that type of article.