ItвЂ™s worth paying extra for ones you really love, too. Definitely a must have.Д®ven if you hire someone else to do your mastering (which we recommend you do), these five plugins should be handy in every studio. A multiband equalizer can be a lifesaver when mastering. Often the biggest mistake indie artists is having too much or too little bass. EqualizerДЄn EQ is essential to the mastering process as often itвЂ™s necessary to fine tune the frequency levels of a mix to make it sound universally better and balanced. While reverb is often used more in the mixing process, it can be helpful when putting the finishing touches on a mix to add extra depth and fullness to some of the tracks.

A de-esser is designed to leave the highs sounding clean and bright, but cut the sibilance down. This is often due to their having polished up the highs with an EQ while mixing and resultantly making the sibilance too hot. One of the biggest mistakes indie producers make is getting too much sibilance in their mix. It effectively sets your dynamic limit, which is important for getting the loudness correct. Hard LimiterДЄ hard limiter is a compressor with a ratio of around 10:1 (meaning that every one decibel over the thresh hold is reduced by ten decibels). The trick, however, is to not use too much compression, or your song will sound flat. The result is a richer and more full-sounding mix. It essentially reduces the dynamic range of your track, making the quieter parts louder and the louder parts quieter. CompressorДЄ compressor might be the most popular type of plugin for mastering. Generally youвЂ™ll want to start with these five plugins when mastering a track. We thought itвЂ™d be helpful to give a brief overview of those tools. YouвЂ™ll find them in every mastering studio in the world. While there are virtually endless tools out there for masteringвЂ“tape emulators, stereo expanders, aural exciters, etcвЂ“there are some tools that are just basic necessities. Thanks to digital recording, much of the right tools can be had as plugins for a fraction of the cost of their analog counterparts.

Mastering requires both experience, training and the right tools. The Shadow Hills Mastering Compressor Class A Plugin is a faithful 1:1 model of the corresponding hardware version, offering all its non-linear behavior and analog sound quality in the digital domain.

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