Mastering Rack Very Useful

I had occasion to properly use the Mastering Rack today and found it a very useful addition to AA2.0.  I was thrown a pre-recorded track (drums, bass, two guitars) and told "this is really dull....what can you do"?

Well, the mastering rack doesn't let me do anything I couldn't before, but it sure makes it faster and easier to quickly apply a range of EQ, stereo expansion, dynamics processing etc.  Most "fun" was the ability to adjust input and output levels on the Mastering Rack at the same time as changing effects...since each change also altered the levels, this was great.

Nice one Adobe.

Bob

[Well, the mastering rack doesn't let me do anything I couldn't before]

Well, the mastering rack doesn't let me do anything I couldn't before, but it sure makes it faster and easier to quickly apply a range of EQ, stereo expansion, dynamics processing etc.  Most "fun" was the ability to adjust input and output levels on the Mastering Rack at the same time as changing effects...since each change also altered the levels, this was great.

The one thing that it does let you do that you couldn't previously do is to alter one parameter in a chain of effects whilst in preview, and let you monitor the change as it affects other effects. Under mastering conditions, this is pretty important!

Very true and I phrased my first post badly in a wave of post mastering euphoria.

I meant that I could have EVENTUALLY done all the same effects..but the ability to preview the whole range simultaneously was indeed worth its weight in gold--and couldn't have been done before.

Today's exercise in dog turd polishing was almost successful...and looks like it may have got me some lucrative work doing the NEXT recording for them properly.

Bob

Is it possible to (easily) jump to any part of the file in edit view whilst the mastering rack is in operation? I can't seem to do this - there's only a play button in the mastering rack - but I might be missing something... I usually like to check the effects at different points in the file (which is certainly possible in MV).

Not that I managed to find...and I agree that such a function would be "icing on the cake" in a future edition of the software!

Bob

If you use the "close" button on the rack rather than the "cancel" button, the state of the rack is saved as is, and you can then highlight the area of audio you want to preview, open the rack again, and hear it.

Is it possible to (easily) jump to any part of the file in edit view whilst the mastering rack is in operation? I can't seem to do this - there's only a play button in the mastering rack - but I might be missing something... I usually like to check the effects at different points in the file (which is certainly possible in MV).

It's an interesting idea - and also something that you can't do with Ozone, for exactly the same reason. The problem is that the Mastering Rack is, when all is said and done, an effect - and to achieve what you would like it to do in EV, it would have to be rather more than that. But this might be possible if it had it's own docking window. Then you could put it in a pane with whatever else you want (the phase analysis and markers are currently in mine), and still be able to shuttle through the file if you want.

Maybe something for the future, perhaps...

You can also highlight the desired location BEFORE you open the mastering rack and preview only the highlighted area.

You can also highlight the desired location BEFORE you open the mastering rack and preview only the highlighted area.

... so nothing new there, then!

You can also highlight the desired location BEFORE you open the mastering rack and preview only the highlighted area.

... so nothing new there, then!

Absolutely! I know it can be done, just not 'easily'

How much easier do you want ?? geeeeez

How much easier do you want ?? geeeeez

Perhaps I didn't make that clear in my original question?
When I apply something like compression to a large file, say a concert of 1hr+, I might like to find out what the dynamics processor is doing at different parts of the file without listening to the whole thing. This wouldn't be a problem if I were mastering a short c.3-4mins 'pop' song, but I'm not, and probably never will. As it now stands (and I think this is a big improvement BTW), this involves opening the mastering rack, pressing play, closing the rack, selecting the next bit, opening the mastering rack, pressing play...etc.
If I put the file to be mastered in the MV I can skip to any part of the file and hit 'play', with all the effects in place.

The beauty of this program is there are many options available to do many different work arounds to accomplish what you want to do. I also have worked with long recordings, and have no problem jumping to a selected area and demo'ing an effect. The mastering rack allows me to do this with multiple effects, which is great.

Another great option is just to apply said effects to the whole track, demo it on the locations you want, and if you're not happy with it, undo it,.....simple.

I haven't tried it in the multi-track section as you suggest, but that also sounds simple enough to be acceptable.

Either way, it's much, much easier than dealing with outboard hardware gear.

I'm with ricercare on this one.  The Mastering Rack concept is great and I'm not taking anything away from it.  However, the track I was working on yesterday had three slightly different musical sections and obviously I wanted to check the combined effects package on each of these three each time.  While it worked, opening and closing the MR effects window each time I wanted to change the preview section was slightly clunky...and this was only a 3 minute track.

Yeah, we're talking nitpicking here, but if it helps, why not suggest it!  If you don't suggest, Adobe won't know!

As for "okaying" the effect and then undoing if you don't like it, that kind of misses the whole point of the new mastering rack and its ability to preview and adjust multiple effects at the same time without actually applying them!

Bob

Either way, it's much, much easier than dealing with outboard hardware gear.

I agree with that, though I imagine an outboard compressor*, for example, would stay on the whole time no matter where I was playing from in the audio file... It is nitpicking, as Bobbsy said, but I feel the mastering rack should be on, and the effects remain on all the time if is to be a truly brilliant feature.

*The only piece of outboard gear I've ever owned is my soundcard