Low budget Mastering

[Saucyjack]

I've got a couple of low budget projects that I'm going to need to do some down and dirty mastering and minimal editing on.

Usually I send my stuff out to a Real mastering guy but that's not an option.
I'll be using a 02r96 and Cubase/Waves plugins to master on.

One of the projects is string of songs with audio snippets that will be inserted between songs without gaps.The artist wants to be able to place song markers/ID tags but no audio gaps.

I think CD Architect can do this,correct?

Is the Sonic Foundry stuff decent for this kind of project?...I really wouldn't be using any onboard plugin or effects...just need the editing and cd burning/irq code capability.

Any opinions or other options for around $200?

[allencollins]

For PC Sound forge/cd architect is great. I think wavelab is a little more functional for quick mastering though. You can get great results with both. I always liked samplitude for burning cd's

[Saucyjack]

Thanks.
Anyone else work with cd architect?

[DeeDrive]

I use cd architect for burning masters, works great, lets you easily set all the markers and all that stuff, and makes it really easy for getting track spacing right.

[Saucyjack]

Is there any overiding reason to get the newest version of Cd architect?
Would an older version from a year or 2 work just as well?

[feefifofum]

Another thumbs up for SoundForge. The multiband compressor plugin in the later versions is pretty solid if you know what you're doing.
As for CD Architect, we used it in a studio I was working it a couple of years ago and you could do all the marker stuff with that version, so I don't imagine it's critical for you to buy the latest and greatest incarnation of it.

[Jay Kahrs]

Originally Posted by Saucyjack

Is there any overiding reason to get the newest version of Cd architect?
Would an older version from a year or 2 work just as well?

There's some solid reasons to get the newest versions. Last August I picked up the Sound Forge 8 & CDA 5 package and haven't regretted it, but I've also been using SF & CDA since 1997 or so!

Anyway, you want to get CDA version 5 or newer...version 4 is a buncha' years old and won't/can't support anything other then a SCSI (remember SCSI?) burners. When my old one crapped out around 2000 or so I had to jump through a lotta hoops to make CDA 4 recognize & play nicely with the new IDE Sony 8x burner that replaced the old SCSI. Just to further complicate things the old version worked a plug-in for SF, now version 5 is a stand-alone AP. It also supports CD text now and never did that before.

But honestly man, the SF/CDA package is really great & highly flexible as a 2-track editor. CDA can't do any "real" editing & talks to SF without any pain. I've got SX3 here & still use SF as my default editor for anything other then multi-track edits because it's so much deeper & (IMO) easier to use then SX3, but maybe that's because I've been using it for the better part of a decade!

[Saucyjack]

Thanks Jay,
That's what I need to know.

[Gregg Sartiano]

It's not the easiest way, but you can master in PT and burn in Toast/Jam and still get the track ID points seamless, etc.

Edit your 2-tracks together onto one stereo track (do your fades & timing), then Edit>"Consolidate" the entire thing.

Then cut up the 2-track at your edit points.

Then export each region as a 16-bit stereo interleaved file (mark the whole thing and cmd-shift-k) to a separate folder.

Burn these in Toast with DAO (Disc-At-Once) turned on. Make each track pause 0 sec. except the first (always set to 2 sec.).

Sorta ghetto, but it works.

[catfish11]

some of the simpler versions of samplitude would work,
it's a complex program but it's absolutly the balls for mastering and making cd's as it does it all.

mastering, cd design, layout, burning, ect...

you should do yourself a favour and download the demo

the object editor is great for doing mastering
the included effects are also a step above all other
DAW included effects

on top of that, it is probably the best native DAW around