[rich robinson]

Hey Guys,

Can anyone give any advice on plug-in and software options… I’ll try and explain my situation as best I can without rambling…

I frequently record bands in local studios and take the sessions away to mix. I’m an Audio Degree Student and don’t claim to know all there is… I’m a learnin’ as I go!

What happens is we track in a commercial studio to make use of the live spaces, mics and pres…. Then once the tracking/DIing is done… we take the session away and I mix entirely in PT (002-Mac) at my humble little home studio. I often re-amp the bass and guitar parts to save studio time. otherwise I work almost entirely in software and mastering is pretty much done myself as the bands can’t afford to send it to a PRO or SEMI-PRO mastering engineer.

The reality is that I do all the ‘pre-mastering’ on the master bus as I mix. Usually I bounce the mixes without the bus compressor/limiter plug-ins… drag all the mixes into a new PT session and check my EQ/Level balances against the others. I have used Soundforge on PC but I don’t have a PC in my home studio to analyse/process or arrange track orders etc.

My main plug-ins are the standard pro tools EQIII stuff, Vintage Warmer, Joe Meek optical, a Bombfactory 1176 rip-off, and Maxim. Occasionally ill put a mix into logic’s multi-band although its a real hassle jumping back and fourth to ram it between both DAWs.

Due to the rise in projects I am undertaking, I have been looking to expand my mixing & mastering plug-in arsenal and look into a program more suitable for mastering than PT. (Unless anyone has any tips for mastering within PT?)

I have been looking at a number of MEAT & POTATO Plug-in options:

The TC Powercore – seems good.
The Waves SLL Bundle – seems over-rated.
The UAD-1 expert pack (specifically the precision mastering bundle, 1176 and Neve stuff - I've heard about possible latency issues on my system).

Gear:
Mackie HR824s
G5 power mac: (2gHz core-duo 3g ram)
loads of HD space
002 rack + PT LE
Logic Pro
toast titanium 8

What mastering software is available at a reasonable price – that sits comfortably around the price-range of equipment I already own? This would be used for plug-in-processing with the UAD stuff, cross-fades, and analysing the tracks phase, stereo width, RMS levels etc.

Does anybody recommend any other plug-in packages that may help beef up my mixes within pro tools other than the ones mentioned above?

I’m also looking to purchasing Auto-Tune 5 to fix those – near enough perfect (It’s late… that will have to do) vocal takes.

Any recommendations or advice especially on the mastering side would be very handy.

Cheers.

Rich