Mastering to me is a bit like applying stain to wood: done correctly, it brings out the definition of what’s there rather than covering it up. But making mastering effective is a really special art. Danny Wyatt, a veteran mastering engineer now working as an instructor with Dubspot, has some serious credentials both on the mixing and mastering side and as an educator. He’s worked with a range of artists over the years (Wax Poetic featuring Norah Jones, Curtis Mayfield, Thievery Corp., the Roots, Ultra Records, and Mos Def, to name a few). But he also doesn’t mystify his knowledge: he’ll tell you straight what he believes, both face-to-face and as a teacher.

I feel I know Danny’s work a whole lot better, too, having had him master my new solo electronic album, which will be released soon. You can get sort of a loose sense of how someone works when they’re manipulating someone else’s material, but you really get close to their technique when they’ve got their hands on your own stuff.

I like handing over work to a mastering engineer both because they can then provide some objective distance, and because they specialize in the craft. But knowing basic mastering technique is increasingly essential for anyone working in sound – aspiring engineer or not.

Danny has some free videos out, included here, that explain some very useful techniques and tools:

• How to use a limiter, here illustrated with iZotope’s Ozone 4, including its “Loudness Maximizer.” We’re talking distortion-free loudness, not nasty, justly-notorious brick-wall limiting.
• Mid-Side EQ, which I’ve heard Danny call “ear candy,” for widening the stereo effect of a track (here with another of my tracks as the example). Again, he uses Ozone, though other tools could work, too.
• Compression of a bass with URS Classic Console Strip Pro – dubstep-style here, but applicable to a wide range of things. especially with the emulation of the LA-2A modeled compressor.

If those videos whet your appetite, Danny’s class is now taking enrollment for an in-depth online course, so you can benefit from this level of instruction without having to be in New York:
http://www.dubspot.com/mixing-mastering/

And stay tuned, as I did an interview with Danny that digs into his workflow and approach, which we’ll have here on CDM soon.

Have a look at the videos right here:

At the very least, Tyrell, the synthesizer dreamt up by readers of the website Amazona.de, will be realised in software form – and it might inspire a hardware module, too. That’s the word from Peter Grandl from Amazona, who writes:

our project TYRELL will become reality. ))
First as a Software Synthesizer, programmed by U-He (from the inventors of ZEBRA 2) and hopefully later as an analog hardware device.

Urs Heckman (see picture) is working on a Synth-project called DIVA. One part of the project is developing a module which is based on the ROLAND Juno 60. Exactly this synth was also the base for the AMAZONA.de Reader-Survey. Now, Urs will bring both ideas together and will create TYRELL – N6 as the first TYRELL Clone.

Since the last letter we have been contacted by three companies from Europe and China. Each of these companies has expressed interest to realize TYRELL.

PS: BTW – the Software Version of U-He will be free of charge for amazona.de readers. We expected a beta-version before Christmas this year!!

As a huge fan of Urs’ development work, color me interested – and DIVA itself is sounding a fascinating project. So what may have begun as hardware dreams could wind up being more interesting as software. In fact, building this as a controller wouldn’t be unimaginable. (Come on, I have to anger analog hardware die-hards at least some of the time, or I’m not going to live up to the name of this site.)

Speaking of hardware, though, have a look at the slick, new design look. Stephan Gries tells me the rendering engine he’s using with the Rhino modeler is Maxwell, since a number of people asked. (In a first draft, I wrote that the models were “rendered” in Rhino; it’s really that they were modeled in Rhino and rendered in Maxwell.)

The result is a powerful “modular synth without wires.”

Here’s CDM’s Adrian Anders’ take: “I tried out the demo during its beta period. All I have to say is wow. It sounds great, and at $199 it carries alot of bang for the buck when compared to other semi-modulars like Tera and Absynth.”

Or, as BT says: “the new Zebra s*** looks aaaaaamazing!”

Throw out that old synth?

Adrian points out that Urs Heckmann is doing something a bit unorthodox: featuring a gallery of vintage, synth hardware that’s supposedly been retired by Zebra2.

What qualifies as a dinosaur? “Not all synthesizers qualify for the Dinosaur Crossgrade offer. As the name implies, Dinosaur stands for a piece of musical hardware that has a certain vibe to it just when you say its name. It’s easy to imagine that such a piece of synthesizer history must have cost thousands of dollars back in the seventies or eighties. It certainly has a bunch of knobs on the panel and it certainly has a 3-5 octave keyboard. Well, maybe it has no integrated keyboard but a weird bunch of spaghetti hanging in front of it. Or patch cords, as they called it.”

Okay, let’s be honest. This is all supposed to be a marketing gimmick, and sending in a photo of the right kind of synth will earn you a US$50 coupon off of Zebra. Theoretically, the whole thing could be a statement about how software synthesizers allow richer sonic capabilities via a more programmable interface at a far cheaper price than pricey, bulky hardware synths once did — and that would be true.

But what you get, of course, is pages of gear pr0n:

Dinosaur Crossgrade Gallery

Hey, we can be software synth aficionados and still love that old hardware, right? Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to pull up a beach chair and sip a Cosmo with an old E-MU.

Software Ubersynth Shootout: It’s heating up a bit here, with Native’s just-announced Absynth4 and Massive, VirSyn’s TERA, Zebra2, and synths like Cakewalk’s Rapture. Each has a different take, but each seeks to redefine how synths work in software. Which synths would you want to see duke it out in this category?

Didn’t quite get that? Think four joystick control, multiple sound-making techniques, massive, graphical sound sculpting and more:

Lots of synthesis methods, integrated: Urs is working on providing fully integrated, modular access to lots of different synthesis methods, so you can mix different techniques and sounds. Everything plugs into everything else, and everything’s stereo. (Many synths have mono-only oscillators.) Techniques possible: FM, virtual analog, subtractive, amplitude modulation, etc.

Everything’s Visual: As you can see in the screen grabs, everything from routing to drawing waveforms to creating envelopes is entirely visual. Parts of the interface even remind me of MetaSynth, but everything is live and controllable. Speaking of which . . .

Four X/Y controls: Ah, X/Y controllers: they’re intuitive, and they let you control a lot of stuff at once. In Zebra2′s case, they can control 8 parameters on each axis. So, say, your X/Y joystick can control a total of 16 sound-shaping settings (8 on X, 8 on Y). Now I just need to build a new controller with four joysticks . . . (see image below)

No wires? That “wireless” comment is because, unlike a traditional modular synth, there are no patch cords to connect — physical or virtual. Instead, everything is routed through “grids” for synthesis, effects, modulation, and mixing. That’ll help adventurous sound designers create some out-there patches.

And all the fixin’s: Arpeggiator, alternative tunings support, 32-node multistage envelope generators — 4 of them (look out, Absynth) . . . no shortage of features here.

Compatibility: Windows VST, Mac Audio Unit and VST

Pricing and availability: Zebra2 isn’t ready yet, but you can download a free preview version that expires around New Year’s Eve. (I’m hoping for afterwards so I can down champagne and play with the modulation matrix . . .) Pre-orders are available, too, at US$169 ($30 off).

Zebra2 Overview
Download Preview Version

Urs will give you a major discount if you let him retire your “Dinosaur” analog synth. Ouch.

The preview looks great as I start playing with it, but wait for the finished release for a full review and final verdict. This is an ambitious feature list on paper, at least, so I can’t wait to see if Urs has pulled it off.

Prolific plug-in virtuoso Urs Heckmann is bringing his Filterscape bundle (filter + EQ with dynamics + analog synth) to Windows; join in on the beta and Windows users get a special discount (US$89 instead of US$129) before 4/15. (thanks, kvraudio)

This is Urs' first outing on Windows, and he's pleased as punch: "I'm
very excited that we got things going so well on a platform that I
haven't worked on until a few weeks ago." Yes, ladies and gents, it's a
cross-platform world.

Mac users, if you haven't checked out Filterscape,
do it now — this is a fascinating combination of analog-filter-y music
makers! And unlike some of the filter banks in Logic (bless your heart,
oh former Emagic interface designers) I think I can actually follow the
routing scheme from the UI . . .