Mastering Grade or Waste of Money? FabFilter, Plugin Alliance, Tone Projects, Amek

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Hello, I'm Nicholas Di Lorenzo, Studio Owner, Mixing and Mastering engineer at Panorama Studios.
I'm an Italian-Australian born and raised in Melbourne. I've been a creative professional for 10 years managing some pretty awesome projects for artists, labels and producers all around the globe.
What motivates and drives me?
My family,
Good food,
Great coffee.
You can find me on many platforms:
Instagram: / panorama_mastering
Facebook: / panoramamastering
Twitter: / panoramamasters
Kit: kit.co/Panoram...

[@gazingwrmth]

Thanks for taking the Question! Much Appreciation for your detailed articulation and Explanation of all the nitty Gritty involved.

[@panorama_mastering]

Glad it was helpful! My pleasure!

[@swst09]

All the TDR plugins are of high quality. SlickEQ M and Nova GE are also serious tools, particularly for mastering ITB.

[@panorama_mastering]

You're spot on; Fabien is incredibly passionate and does great work with these tools; he's also been a great support and help when doing research for some of my video topics here on the channel; check out the video on True Peak limiting if you haven't already!

[@jmercemusic1873]

I clicked just because of the thumbnail. 👏🏽 love it, haha!

[@tomman7729]

Although Kirchhoff (labeled Kitchnoff in the video…) doesn’t have a per-band phase option. Set to Mix mode you can set a crossover point for minimal and linear phase.

[@panorama_mastering]

Thanks for the info! That's nice to know!

[@GingerDrums]

Extremely good business ethics too. They updated to M1 faster than many major Devs. Super send this

[@GrumpyGr3g]

So true about the Amek Mastering Comp.I was super hyped cause I kinda like Amek and PA, then I watched couples of videos and went like "ok, nothing more than my actuals comps can do", pure marketing and design, maybe a different workflow but for nothing super obvious in the end.

[@panorama_mastering]

Interesting; what comps are you using at the moment?

[@Rhuggins]

I actually really liked the Amek- whats comps do you have that can approximate that? The detector circuits are really the special thing here

[@GrumpyGr3g]

@@Rhuggins Don't get me wrong, it's an absolute great plugin, but imo for mastering too complexe, it slowed me a lot during the sonic research of my tastes. To my tastes, I like more the SPL Iron or Elysia Alpha Comp, easy going and also great sounding. I think this Amek is very suitable for a mixing process, you put that on the mix output and you get something big, spend more time to get every details or a track pops out.

[@GrumpyGr3g]

@@panorama_mastering It's just my personal test and experience with, Amek is an excellent comp for sure, but too complexe for mastering I my opinion. I like more easy going like the Kotelnikov or if need "bigger" SPL Iron, Elysia Alpha. Nothing close to the Amek, in terms of controls, but about feelings it really get that "mastering" thing. I would say that the Amek is a problem solver, repair compressor or a final mix compressor cause it's very complexe and slowed my mind during mastering because of the big amount of time trying to shape something.

[@prod.dailydailydaily]

thanks so much for the comparison, I know its difficult to cover all plugins but as far from my community a lot of colleagues got some of the ik multimedia plugins and they run pretty smoothly for mixing and mastering

[@panorama_mastering]

You're very welcome! Interesting; which IK plugins in particular?

[@prod.dailydailydaily]

@@panorama_mastering the eqpa1, equal, fame and Motown room verbs and the tape simulations just to name a few

[@theoquayle8714]

Always appreciate your videos man! Just wanted to touch on clippers as it comes off that they’re all pretty much one size fits all. Yes hard clippers all have the same brick wall curve by definition but even they handle distortion differently (over sampling filter shape) and DO end up sounding different as that video you referenced concedes. That’s not to mention the countless other and often-preferred soft clipping algos. Plus additional features like multi band, AD converter modeling, MS / channel linking, detail preservation. All useful in the right scenario and usually not readily available on a stock plug-in

[@panorama_mastering]

Bang on! You're definitely correct about this! I find the level of detail I can go into on clippers deserves it's own whole video.

[@theoquayle8714]

@@panorama_mastering yes dude would love to see it! 🤟

[@MerajTypeBeat]

New subscriber here. I’ve been binge watching your content and love how you get technical and in detail. These technical videos remind me of David at MixBusTV, and I love his breakdowns as well. Keep that shit up! Looking forward to more and got my notifications on. Also, just giving you some friendly input, if you can give a warning before loud content gets played like at around 11:00. It’s something minor and doesn’t take away from the quality your videos offer.

[@panorama_mastering]

Hey Mate; Amazing; thanks for joining and also; definitely more incoming! Appreciate the feedback too! N.

[@WillyJunior]

Great video. I also love Standard Clip!

[@panorama_mastering]

Thanks man; me too!

[@saardean4481]

Hey there Panorama friend. Have you tried the V-Clip by Venn audio ? or in other words the paid version of Freeclip?

[@panorama_mastering]

No I haven't yet!

[@saardean4481]

@@panorama_mastering down it of a while but believe it or not , have never really used it cause I am used to standard clip for years now. However I heard here and there that it might be equal if not "better" so I hoped I get an opinion by someone I trust . You. I don't have the time to do comparisons right now cause I am on the road with work. Well it will have to wait I guess

[@djdanger9812]

I never push my limiter ( Isotope Maximiser or Fabfilter L2) any more than 5db of GR. My preferred attenuation is 3db with random peaks periodically hitting under 5db. Anything more than this sounds bad to me. Flattening out the mix loosing attack and punch. I find myself using the limiter more so to get a desired sound and make the mix sound slightly more full over getting things loud. Opinions?

[@panorama_mastering]

That's a lot of gain reduction for a limiter; check out my tier-list video on loudness mastering techniques; I go through several methods which off different approaches based on the mix;

[@fcmas]

To be fair: if you have Ozone, you have both the Ozone Eq AND Ozone Dynamic Eq options, which should count as Ozone having dynamic eq as well. The Dynamic Eq also provides left/right, mid/side professing.

[@billpodolak7754]

Great video 🤘🏼

[@panorama_mastering]

Glad you enjoyed it

[@chejoseofficialTV]

I love free clip and standard Clip :)

[@panorama_mastering]

Me too!

[@lordberly]

Your thumbnail is always 🔥

[@panorama_mastering]

HEY! Thanks mate! I didn't know what to do for this one; it's hard being in the audio world to connect visuals with content; with the exception of posting GUI's... which is pretty boring and what everyone does;

[@rundajulesproductions7735]

I have that Deep Purple record, but I can't remember if it was the original or the remaster. I guess I'm not as Deep in the Purple as some. I feel like my FL Studio EQ is kinda sus and their compressor is underwhelming, but the Fruity limiter and their Maximus has pretty intricate tools for a good, 'finished' sound. When I put the FL parametric EQ on w/o even boosting/cutting any frequencies it already sounds worse, to me.

[@panorama_mastering]

Have you done null tests between two channels? I'd be curious to know if it sums to zero; when no filters are applied;

[@WillyJunior]

Good old placebo effect 🤠

[@rundajulesproductions7735]

@@WillyJunior When using words like 'feel' I realize I'm not being completely scientific. Could be strictly hoodo! To be fair to the EQ, there are some settings on it that may effect the quality that I don't think are labeled well. But conversely, some make everything sound different just by turning them on and its a sweeter sound in some instances. I would just rather start there if possible. I do agree that the most expensive "fill in the blank" is not always how to get the best result.

[@MOSMASTERING]

If there were different qualities of EQ - why would you use 'shit quality' up until the mastering point? Why would use use anything but the highest quality from start to finish. Isn't that what we are taught from the very beginning - Shit In = Shit Out. Your sound sources are the most important aspect of ANY music production. You can't fix it all with a Mastering Grade EQ .

[@panorama_mastering]

Correct;

[@eytzur]

What about saturation?

[@panorama_mastering]

Didn't really consider this for the video; as I was focusing on the "big pillars"

[@this_is_jmdub]

Ozone 10 EQ has M\S

[@this_is_jmdub]

This is a difficult video.. you did not include stuff like EQ cramping. So if you chose a higher frequency band the difference would be huge.

[@luvitluvitbaby]

Oversampling is an option or I use SSL X EQ2 in a case like this. This eq has anti-cramping technology.

[@this_is_jmdub]

@@luvitluvitbaby did you even watch the video?

[@jacksonlaframboise6257]

11:05. I audibly yelped here.

[@travesdymusic]

Right!!! Was not expecting that!

[@panorama_mastering]

haha ! Wonderful!

[@YoungNino2017]

this fucking asshole always does that shit

[@whitex4652]

Good you talk about "Made In Japan". It's never the mastering tools, it's always 99% the music. Desperatly fighting to make your mastering "skills" look important gets more ridiculous from week to week. Show us a remastering of "Deep Purple In Rock", the 24bit transfers from the original master tape are available on the net. Show us.

[@YoungNino2017]

WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT SONG YOU'RE MIXING?????? With that one you don't need a spend a penny on plug-ins... all it takes is a right-click and move to recycle bin to do the best job possible on that one.

[@panorama_mastering]

I welcome all input and discussion on the channel; but I don't look kindly on comments like this; especially those that put down the artists; what might be trash for you is treasure for another; your comments are always welcome; and I won't ever delete or censor someones opinion;

[@YoungNino2017]

@@panorama_mastering no no no no no,,,, that song is shit... delete it. Trust me... trust me