I mastered an ambient track using only FREE plugins!

[@holosuitemastering]

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[@Permutative]

I guess one reason to use premium is that there are MORE professional-quality premium options than free ones, so you could get little things tailored to your liking, not just for the audio itself but also workflow, flexibility, or other preferences. But that can lead into your point on laziness. I do prefer plugins that are more technically clear about what they do, while also not being drudgery to configure each time. Also, I really like toyko dawn labs because if you like the plugins you can upgrade and get more features. It makes sense why they are so good in the free versions since they are just stripped down premium plugins. Very good video all around it touched on all the important things, aIso I like that idea of using mid-side eq for stereo width control that's clever.

[@holosuitemastering]

Thanks so much! I imagine I'm missing something important in the difference between mid-side EQ and stereo width manipulators but I think for the average ambient artist it's probably not going to be a big problem. The best thing about the TDR plugins is that, for the most part, the GE versions just add the kinds of things engineers need, so it's pretty clear to the average user that they don't really need to upgrade unless they're trying to go pro (unlike some plugin companies that seem like they just want to bulls**t their way into making a buck off you). Agreed that the best paid plugins are the ones that tell you exactly what they'll do - but in the case of, say, Oeksound Bloom, sometimes it's difficult to express what it actually does! At least those kinds of plugins have free trials you can take. And of course buying plugins gives you access to a lot wider variety of features and time/brain-saving functions, but I'm hoping that a poor artist can watch this and feel a little less pressure to go out and spend a lot on plugins, when it could be a major expense for them.

[@lofimat3856]

What is yur Thoughtz on the new Tokio Dawn Filter bundle are they any good?

[@holosuitemastering]

Thanks for watching! Good question - I haven't had a chance to check these out yet. I took a look at Dan Worral's excellent in-depth video on it, and it looks like Elliptical and Arbiter could be useful for ambient, whereas the other two have very specific applications that might make them less often used. Also worth noting that these are intended for using on full mixes, ie for mastering. But they're on sale, I might pick them up and do a video on them!

[@lofimat3856]

@@holosuitemastering Arbiter seem very intressting and yur right the ultraInfrasonic filter juzz usefull for hi SamplingRate like 88.2 or higher then those are useful! Danke fürden Reply brudiee!!

[@holosuitemastering]

Happy to help!

[@huberttorzewski]

3:43 if your master eq is looking like that don't call it a master. Call it a disaster or go back to the mix and fix the problems.

[@holosuitemastering]

Thanks for watching! You're most welcome to provide coaching to my clients to improve their mixes, I'd love the help!

[@huberttorzewski]

@@holosuitemastering no problem! Been mixing lots of different genres and can provide some help. I mean if you need to boost or cut more than 3dB on the whole mix it means something went wrong. In the mix you can definitely go past 12dB and it won't hurt but once you sum every element you start to introduce many different problems (weird and phasey eq curves for the mix elements in the background for the sake of overall eq balance, change the sound of the ambience and reverbs/delays and their relationship with the dry signals etc.). It just better to re-do the mix from scratch. Many times I told my clients to re-track some parts that I couldn't fix in the mix properly to achieve better quality

[@holosuitemastering]

Agree completely. This is fine in an ideal world, but this requires either the artist being able to pay for coaching to improve their mix, or being motivated enough to spend the time necessary to get better on their own, both of which slow down the production process. In the case of this client, we agreed that the mix could use improvement, but instead of making him go back and start from scratch, seeing as he'd spent so much time and effort on it already, I thought it better for his practice to simply work with what we had and focus on improving the mix for his future releases. Nothing squashes creativity harder than being bogged down in technical details, if you're not oriented that way.

[@LeChapeauMusic]

Mate you turned an ambient track into a track that's not quite that ambient anymore...

[@holosuitemastering]

Thanks for watching! What makes you say that?

[@LeChapeauMusic]

@@holosuitemastering mainly the increased perceived loudness I think.

[@holosuitemastering]

Fair enough - this was a choice I made to try and improve the clarity of the piano - as you would have heard in the original version, the mids were quite muddy so I had to tone down the "ambience" to balance out the track. If I'd had the stems I imagine it would have been easier to get that clarity without having to raise the top end too much. Having said that, I enjoy a lot of music that is quite loud that I'd term as "ambient", although maybe not everyone uses the term as liberally as I do...

[@LeChapeauMusic]

@@holosuitemastering good points. To my ears the piano was okay for the genre but it all comes down to the specific sound you're trying to achieve.

[@holosuitemastering]

My client was very happy with the master I sent him (not the free plugins one), so at least I can say that I got the sound he was looking for. The free plugins master was more to my taste, but obviously taste differs! And I can always improve on my work, so I appreciate the feedback :)