Welcome to Sage Audio. Today we’re talking about 3 Underrated Mastering Plugins. To get the most from
your music, consider watching the entirety of each chapter for a complete understanding of the topic.
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Arturia - V76 Pre
I typically talk about FabFilter plugins which are great for sure - but I wanted to showcase
some lesser-known and rarely discussed plugins for this video.
First is the V76 Pre emulation by Arturia - which is modeled on the classic Telefunken V76
mic and line preamplifier.
This plugin has been marketed more for emulating the microphone pre-side of things - however,
many of these preamplifiers were used for mastering back in the 60s and 70s.
The V72a is considered a great amp for mastering
due to its low noise and intermodulation distortion, but the v76 follows close behind.
If we run a sine wave through it
we can see that even and odd ordered harmonics start to form at higher levels
of input gain. If we flip on the EQ we get 3rd and 5th ordered harmonics at lower input levels.
When we observe the frequency response of the plugin we notice very subtle noise and distortion.
We also can see how the response changes as we increase the input drive,
and how it drastically changes near the higher end of the available gain.
The high and low shelf work as we’d expect - as does the low-cut filter.
When we observe the phase we can see that the plugin delays the signal by 32 samples,
so it shouldn’t affect our transients too much.
Lastly, the mid-side option can be great for mastering if you want to
cut some of the side lows and boost the highs.
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Voxengo - Teote
This is a newer plugin by Voxengo,
but one that hasn’t gotten the attention it deserves. It’s a dynamic equalizer,
but a little closer to a multi-band compressor and expander with a lot more bands than usual.
It dynamically reshapes the spectrum of the audio in real-time
to reduce resonances and other unwanted aspects of the response.
This effect is easiest to see when we reduce the
bands to 3 - we notice that simultaneous compression and expansion is occurring.
As we increase the number of bands we can see how it gets more
accurate in its shaping of the spectrum.
The FX dial is like a wet-dry for the effect
and boost T is the threshold. Keep this set to unity to return the band to unity
or L to limit the band. You also have attack and release times for the bands,
a mastering button to make the processing a little more reserved, and channel linking or de-linking.
To the right, you can affect the slope of the 64 bands
but 4.5 is a good default. You can create low or high cuts to the entire signal,
or use these filters to affect the processed range by clicking apply to range.
For room dip - probably best to keep this set to 20 which turns of a subtle bell filter.
Lastly, use some oversampling via the top right button.
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Melda Audios - MTurboComp
Melda Audio makes a lot of cool plugins but they rarely get discussed - MTurboComp is a
really unique one that has a lot of potential for mastering due to how quickly you can cycle through
multiple compressor types and emulations.
On the left side of the plugin you have renamed versions of various popular compressors - each
with different characteristics and tonalities; however, what’s great about this plugin
is that the multiple parameters have been mapped to easy to understand dials.
This way each compressor type, despite its original design,
can be controlled in the same fashion.
When using this plugin, I’d recommend finding an amount of compression you like and then locking
your values. This way you can cycle through the different types quickly to compare them.
I addition to unique compression you have some saturation, an internal and external side chain
section, and on occasion a tone control which I haven’t looked into what it does exactly just yet.
Then of course you have your metering, oversampling,
and a helpful limiter to protect your ears in case any setting increases the gain significantly.
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