SOUND ON SOUND

[Luke W]

Pro Tools... I don’t know. Anyone for Pro Tools? :)

:shifty: I'll say it quietly...

Pro Tools user here, I'm happy with it and have been for a long time. But if I was starting again today it probably wouldn't be my choice, and there aren't many situations that I'd recommend it for over the alternatives...

[Humble Bee]

Pro Tools... I don’t know. Anyone for Pro Tools? :)

:shifty: I'll say it quietly...

Pro Tools user here, I'm happy with it and have been for a long time. But if I was starting again today it probably wouldn't be my choice, and there aren't many situations that I'd recommend it for over the alternatives...

:shh:

[RichardT]

I use Cubase, simply because I have for many years, but I’m sure Reaper would be a very good choice.

I suspect the official list of supported DAWs for your iZotope bundle is limited simply because iZotope can’t afford the cost of testing it on every DAW. I guess you could try it out on your existing DAW to see if it works, if the iZotope products have trial versions.

I’ve never used a bundle like this so I can’t comment on how good it would be for classical music. I would think you could easily do without it - the processing on classical recordings is usually quite light. You can probably get away with just EQ and compressor plugins in Reaper, save yourself a shed load of money, and get equally good results.

Professional mastering engineers don’t generally use this kind of plugin suite. In my experience they simply use EQs and compressors for the most part.

[george_vel]

I’ve watched about 10 excellent tutorial videos on youtube today, walking through Reaper’s capabilities.

I must say I am really impressed with what I saw. It seems this DAW has everything I need (and more).

Thanks for recommending it, I’ll make the switch.

...

I’ve never used a bundle like this so I can’t comment on how good it would be for classical music. I would think you could easily do without it - the processing on classical recordings is usually quite light. You can probably get away with just EQ and compressor plugins in Reaper, save yourself a shed load of money, and get equally good results.

Professional mastering engineers don’t generally use this kind of plugin suite. In my experience they simply use EQs and compressors for the most part.

You know “Professional mastering engineers” are the keywords here - I am far, far away from being such and I need some “newbie” tools to help me not get lost entirely.
I don’t do this for living. It’s a hobby with the aim to reach to semi-pro level while helping to my wife with her choirs’ performances (she is the conductor).

[RichardT]

Hi George,

I understand! But I’m not sure iZotope modules will help in your case - I doubt that they are designed for the kind of work you need to do. But I don’t really know. Maybe there’s someone in the forum who has used them and can give you some advice.

[The Elf]

The caution above is wise. If you think you can avoid learning the basics by using fancy software and its presets then you are setting off on the wrong foot, IMHO. You would do better to use simpler tools and learn what they do.

[george_vel]

Hi George,

I understand! But I’m not sure iZotope modules will help in your case - I doubt that they are designed for the kind of work you need to do. But I don’t really know. Maybe there’s someone in the forum who has used them and can give you some advice.

Agree. Let’s see if others would elaborate more on this as well.

From iZotope latest versions reviews, they claim they’ve trained their ML on different genres and are giving better presets to start with. Plus Tonal balance control could reveal if some frequency areas are out of the boundaries outlined by their models for a given genre.
This looks quite good if it delivers what is promised.

Otherwise I agree with you - good recording, EQ and some compressions are the key ingredients for classical music. :-)

[blinddrew]

As one of the less-experienced folks here, I'm going to sit on the fence on this one. The izotope stuff will give you a good set of presets and starting points. And for some folks that will be enough. But an experienced user will be able to get better results (most of the time) either by building on the tools in the izotope package or just using their own set of preferred tools.
There is value in the out-of-the-box stuff, but don't neglect building your basic skills. :)

[george_vel]

I think there is some misunderstanding going on here.

I do not expect (and I am not willing) to load a preset and leave it like this waiting for the software to make wanders. I’m aware this won’t work.

But I can use it as a starting point to see if it sounds better, and if yes why. Explore all the adjustments suggested and applied by the ML and understand how different tweaks affect the mix / master. And then build from there while learning at the same time.

Maybe I am wrong and iZotope price will not justify my intention. That’s why we’re having this discussion here.

But as I said before, there’s not much (actually almost none) content online how to mix and master classical / choral music, especially covering the wide variety of this genre, thus I expect to get some insights from models trained over hundreds to thousands pieces in the same league.

Does this make sense?

[worshiptuned]

Maybe I am wrong and iZotope price will not justify my intention. That’s why we’re having this discussion here.
Does this make sense?

There are many people more prepared than me. I will share my opinion though.
With regard to the DAW, any DAW today can do the job and you can save your money buying a cheap one.
I think anyway that even if many don't agree to call them "industry standard", Protools, Cubase and Logic pro (Logic for Mac users only) are the most used among professionals.
Cubase for example, has useful functions that other DAWs don't have and 30 years of development...
And if you have to share a project is more likely that the other has your same DAW and they have bigger communities for assistance and if you go in a professional studio you will find them more frequently than other DAWs and if you are able to use one of these your skill will be likely more useful for a potential job at a professional studio.

I have the tonal balance bundle. The tonal balance is useful, the presets are useful to learn and give some interesting ideas and starting points, but I end up always changing them a lot...The izotope stuff sounds very well and is comparable to other good sounding plugins. I bought it in time of discounts with an upgrade for some 150USD, at regular price I wouldn't buy it.
The plugins are generally more transparent that the one bundled with Cubase. You get a lot of things and this is what is good in the bundle, Dynamic Eq, many compressors, multiband, vintage....limiter...a very good imager and tape and saturation plugins. The mixing assistant and the vocal plugin nectar I find the less useful IMO. The izotope plugins are some of the most heavy on the CPU, the graphics are very intuitive and well done, one of the best I have seen. Are worth the discounted price, but you can definitely live without, especially for classical music!!!
I have also a few Waves and Soft tube plugins, izotope is of a similar quality maybe slightly less transparent.

[Sam Spoons]

I'm not sure you are entirely correct there, "Industry Standard" is bandied about as if there is only one (and, there used to be, it was Pro Tools) but those days are long gone. These days there are professionals using all the well known DAWs from Cakewalk to Cubase and Ableton to Logic to Reaper and so on. Basically they all do the same job, some are more suited to loop based recording and others to linear based but there is a huge overlap.

[Mike Stranks]

I wonder if this book would be of use to George?

https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/classical-recording-practical-guide-decca-tradition

[RichardT]

I wonder if this book would be of use to George?

https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/classical-recording-practical-guide-decca-tradition

Good suggestion!

[george_vel]

...
I have the tonal balance bundle. The tonal balance is useful, the presets are useful to learn and give some interesting ideas and starting points, but I end up always changing them a lot...

...but you can definitely live without, especially for classical music!!!

Thanks for your insights.
I agree with you that for the classical music maybe these are not the best fit. They look more oriented towards other genres.
You gave me food for thoughts. :-)

... some are more suited to loop based recording and others to linear based but there is a huge overlap.

Your words reminded me to ask something - yesterday when I was checking Reaper’s tutorials, I’ve noticed that by default its timeline is set to bars. With the grid and snap tools enabled, this is useful for building loops, etc.
But I guess there is a way to change the timeline in minutes and seconds, is there?

And given the way I want to use it, to edit audio files, I guess the tempo settings feature could be disabled, right? I don’t want the DAW to speed up or slow down the choir performance, but have it in the way it was recorded. :-)

I wonder if this book would be of use to George?

https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/classical-recording-practical-guide-decca-tradition

O, this looks like exactly what I am looking for! Thanks, Mike, for sharing it! :thumbup:

[worshiptuned]

Cubase does more or less the same but is much more expensive, especially over time. £400 + payed updates (£80ish/year?)

I am not a Cubase advocate, but this is not totally correct. There is a legal turnaround to buy Cubase pro for some £200. Read the comments here

https://www.thomann.de/gb/steinberg_cub ... UiOiJlbiJ9

Anyone is obliged to update it every year, it's a full version working and supported for many years (with the proverbial bugs of Cubase of course ;) )
Cubase users know that every summer there are the sales at half the price and the .5 versions cost less than the .0 version. If one updates every 2 years this would cost some 30 euros a year and even less, because if you buy in August the discounted .5 version and you activate the license after December when the new release came out, you get the last available version. All this is perfectly legal.

I don't know hot to make 2 quotes in the same answer....anyway Sam Spoons I do agree with you. Things are changing very much. But the question is: are there big commercial studios (I don't mean professionals that have their own professional studios, I mean big studios of labels where many sound engineer work) with some of the new DAWs?
I use windows but I have many musician friends and it seems that also Mac Pcs and logic pro are still a bit omnipresent among musicians, this is also changing especially with the new generations