What Are The Preferred Features Of A DAW For Mastering?
Most DAWs are built with production in mind. While you can use a regular DAW for mastering, some DAWs are better suited to this task than others. Erman Aydöner considers the priorities for a tool for mastering.
In today's technology-driven music world, DAWs are capable of doing many things we could not even imagine a decade ago. So many well known mixing and mastering engineers who always worked with big format analog mixing consoles and hardware equipment have changed their ways of working and adopting working in the box with plug-ins and maybe just a few outboard units. Ease of recall, sound quality, lower price and many more aspects of working in DAWs let this happen.
There are two common approaches to mastering with a DAW. Some work within a single DAW. A different approach especially if hardware processors are included is to use two systems; one for playing back the mixes and one for capturing the hardware processed signal and preparing the masters.
If you are trying to choose a DAW for your work, how should you approach it? Nearly every year new software workstations are added to the alternatives, there are many to choose from, but do they all fit for mastering?
Let's look for some specialties that mastering engineers look for in a DAW.
Sample Rate Conversion Quality
In mastering, engineers prepare digital masters for different purposes and being able to output deliverables is part of the job of a mastering engineer. Proper sample rate conversion is a must if multiple masters in different sample rates are needed. Poor quality in conversion may introduce distortion, phase shifts or other unwanted side effects on sound. While engineers may have preferred using their converters' built in SRC in earlier times, today most DAWs and audio editors have crystal clear conversion quality.
At infinitewave you can find SRC test results of many music software titles with the option to display and compare two sets of test results. The results are interesting!
Sample Rate Conversion comparisons on Infinitewave website
Mastering for CD in a DAW (Merging Technologies Pyramix)
Red Book CD Writing and DDP Export Option
The popularity of streaming rises every year while the demand for music CDs decreases. But it is still important to be able to prepare master CDs, DDP images or multiple file formats at the same time in your mastering project. The ability to create CDs and DDPs isn’t available in every DAW. For example, Pro Tools does not have a built-in metadata editor and CD/DVD writing option, neither does Logic Pro. Studio One deserves a special mention here as it features the Project Page which features a clever linking system with source sessions as well as other essential tools including DDP creation.
Metadata information editing on a DAW (Merging Technologies Pyramix)
Metadata Embedding
Metadata is detailed information for audio tracks. You can add this kind of information to both CDs and digital masters.
Metadata for a CD is named CD-Text. The standard for music CDs is referred to as ‘Red Book’ and information on a Red Book CD can include artist, arranger and composer names; album and song titles; ISRC; etc… This data is shown if you play the CD on a player that supports CD-Text. Most DAWs that support Red Book CD writing also let you embed CD-Text data.
Some digital files like BWF (Broadcast WAVE Format) can carry metadata information too. This data will be useful for radio broadcast and digital distribution. Many DAWs let you export BWF and embed metadata into it.
Some editors let you zoom into samples in waveform editing (iZotope RX)
Capability of Audio Editing
Most DAWs are built specifically for recording and they have waveform editors too. But if you want to really home in on the details, then you will need a specialist audio editor. Some mastering engineers work in this way. They use a main DAW along with external audio editing software. But many DAWs let you edit to the sample level and you can even draw waveforms by using the pencil tools on some of them, for example Pro Tools.
Waveform editing is very important for quality control in mastering. Removing clicks, pops and similar unwanted sounds may be needed and with detailed waveform editing you can fix many common issues.
Source - destination editing (Merging Technologies Pyramix)
Source - Destination Editing
Source - Destination is a workflow which has been used for a very long time by mastering engineers. This type of editing was originally performed using tape. It helps you make the best selection from different sources. For example, you can use different performances of a song as sources and select different parts of them to make a perfect comp. This method is still being used on many classical music projects.
With tape, you have to cut different sections from source tapes; edit them together and make a new master tape. Some DAWs let you do this type of editing more easily than others. You put your different performances to the source track and mark the parts you like. Then the software makes a comp on destination track depending on your markers.
This approach can also be useful while working with alternate mix versions. Source - Destination editing can make this type of work very easy!
Ability to Use Hardware Inserts
Using high quality hardware equipment is a passion of many mastering engineers. There are two ways of using hardware processors with DAWs.
With Source - Destination editing, you can use two computers; one for playback and one for capturing. And between them you can use your hardware gear. But if you want to use just one computer with one DAW, then you have to use a software which lets you utilize your audio interface's input and outputs as hardware inserts. Today, most of the big DAWs are able to do that.
A few DAWs have all of these options listed above. And mastering engineers often prefer using them. Below is a list of DAWs which are popular for mastering.
- Merging Technologies Pyramix
Are you principally a mastering engineer? If so do you find you use a DAW which is different to the one you might choose if you were principally a mixer? If you are a mixer who masters their own material do you use the same DAW as you used to mix? Share your thoughts in the comments below.