This has been covered a lot on this site. Doing a search will bring up a number of threads.
To repeat what has been said before:
most are using Samplitude 7 or Sequoia, and this is probably your best choice currently if you are starting from scratch. A number like Wavelab also and this is probably also a good one to demo.
Other options are SADIE (expensive), Sony CD Architect 5(ok and inexpensive but not full featured), T-Racks (awful sounding), and
I myself am primarily using an unusual choice - SAWStudio -
http://www.sawstudio.com - along with the JMS Audioware CSG SAW native plugin -
http://www.jms-audioware.com/csg.htm - which allows full PQ editing (including CD Text & UPC/MCN & ISRC codes) directly in SAW.
The advantages of SAW over other PC native solutions like Wavelab and Samplitude 7 are the following:
1) in the internal processing path a full 32bit DWORD is always kept - with multiples and divides done with 64bit integer math (as opposed to the 32bit floating point of other PC native apps). The fact that it is coded in assembly language allows it to do an amazing amount of calculations while still having lightning fast response times and it works incredibly stably. Both of these combine to give it to me a DAW with truly "master quality" sound.
2) there are really valuable proprietary plugins available for it -
such as the RML Labs Levelizer - which an amazingly transparent peak limiter when used subtly - and which uses a unique algorithm that never flat tops the wav form so it preserves transients a lot better than many other limiters out there -
http://www.sawstudio.com/StudioLevelizer.htm and things like the fully autoteable JMS Audioware Hi-res EQ which uses 64bit floating point math for all it's calculations - and the Native MS codec which does M/S encoding and decoding again with 64bit integer math.
Plus you can still use VST & DX plugs without any problem.
3) "Live" mode allows you to use SAW's FX and virtual controls as a pass through processor that are snap shot automateable (great for things like using it as another digital "hardware" processor for things like transfer to vinyl master). This is also great as it allows you to monitor what your analog processing path sounds like along with any digital processing you're going to do in SAW without having to commit to the digital settings on the load in.
It's disadvantages in comparison to other mastering apps is that you have to bounce to disc to create a Cue Sheet image prior to burning (although by doing this you guarantee a more stable burn and have made the final data files ready for archiving which should be done anyway - so most of the Samp7 users I know are burning from image anyway even though it also supports real time burns), and that DDP image creation is currently not directly supported.
Best regards,
Steve Berson
Author
Topic: Need opinions on mastering software for PC (Read 1574 times)