Does the MasterQ's manual meets these requrements?

By the way, even though we are trying to make out plug-ins simple to understand, I think that generally our mastering tools are for professionals who has skills and proper monitoring system. For instance setting up the PSP MC or PSP MQ without proper listenning room and speakers may not leed to proper results.

Regards,

No the MasterQ's manual does not meet these requirements. It is at best a reference manual.

If your market is only to professionals then you are not charging enough for your plug-ins :-) So assuming that your market does include home recording enthusiasts & amateurs like myself, a "best practices" manual would be very useful.

The closest thing I've seen that would qualify as a "best practices" white paper is that article "The Role of Equalizatino in Mixing" writen by Anderson from EQ Magazine, that you included in the MasterQ documentation. This is what I'm asking you for - more documentation like this but specific to your plug-ins.

Thanks.

Mike

I don't understand your point. Once you write that the MasterQ's manual is not doing what you are talking about and is a typical documentation while at the end of your post you wrote that Craig's article is closest to what you would expect. This article about EQing is an integral part of the manual!

The parametric equalizer is not a reverb or something - you cannot get any universal procedure to get good results, everything depends on the sources material and your expectations. What you really need in this case is training and reading the introduction article may help to understand EQing better.


Regards,

Actually there is nothing like "best practices" for comrpessors and equalizers. The best practice is to learn how to get what you expect from the sound which requires good monitoring system, training and comparison to other good recordings.
There is no way to find out what is your track sound like and what you expect from it after processing so there is no way to write a universal way to achieve the goal.
Yet again, processors like EQ or dynamic processors are not a kind of creative tool like WahWah, chorus, leslie, delay or reverb where results can be somehow described, prepared with presets etc. In the case of processors things are different and are closely referenced to the source material and expectations and this is an area where nano-details are so important.

I am sorry if my response disapoints you but I hope that it will be well understood.
Regards,

My bad - I meant the MasterComp manual, not the MasterQ (too many Masters).

I respectively disagree that there could not be a "best practices" for compressors and equalizers. Craig's article was indeed close to a "best practices" & I'm complimenting you on it!

But I think you are missing my point & you'll be greatly restricting your market if you don't come up with better documentation.

I know other's that were considering buying MasterComp but probably won't because they don't understand it or know how to use it.

It's fine if you want to target the high-end audio market, and I'm serious suggesting that you should charge more for your plug-ins. Of course, I won't buy them but you've clearly stated that you are not targeting me.

Mike

I am sorry if somebody don't understand it. This is the plug-in which has very common controls (unlike the VintageWarmer for instance) and doesn't require any extra knowledge other then when using another compressor. The main difference is in this case an expearience and expectations.
For instance no body excect true mastering engineers and some top mixing engineers would be Manley Vari-Mu because only those guys really know that this gear is worth its high price, they really understand what it does to the sound.
There is no way to describe practices for a compressor which is not tend to be a tool for begginers because without experiance it is really hard to expect and hear how it should really work.
Of course the idea to attach articles to manuals which would help in compression isn't a bad idea but it won't help you in any way to choose the MasterComp.
In other words it is possible to make an introduction on what the compressor is and what does every parameter but we cannot give guidelines how to get a good sound of it because its every setting can be good depending on individual situation.
But, hey, I just found an article on the net that you could read if it is really what you would expect:
http://www.pcmus.com/compressors.htm

Regards,

I understand that your goal is not to teach people to be mastering engineers, or how to use compressors. I also understand that each individual situation requires different settings.

All I'm suggesting is you provide alittle more documentation like the article in MasterQ. You could also provide more presets, which are useful in learning a new tool. I noticed that there were very few in MasterComp, as compared to your other plug-ins, and they were pretty cryptically named IMO.

Ozone did an excellent white paper on the mastering process, illustrating it's tools. I'm suggesting that you could do the same thing.

The idea is good and worth doing if we would find a good resource for it.
In this case - espeically in the PSP MC presets are very ilusoric, we could only prepare some starting points and actuall settings require tweeking.
Please note that every kind of processor of effect provides different possibilities to create any usefull presets. For instance PSP StereoAnalyser and PSP StereoController don't have presets at all while PSP Nitro has around houndred.
This doesn't meen that we don't want to provide a good tool but this means that the plug-in is just different.

Regards,

Mike - to successfully use a mastering compressor anyone would either need an internship in a studio or be prepared to take the ,amy many months it requires for the DIYer like myself. Craig Anderton (whom you've mentioned) has some mastering and mixing books available that explain how to use these devices as does Bob Katz. Both of these books (and many more) are essential for the hobbiest , DIYer, semi-pro, pro whichever you are.

PSP - my input is that your pricing is just fine the way it is! Am enjoying the Master Comp!

Thaks for your input Kylen.

Mike. Of course your points will be taken into account, we are still learning how to make things better - this also refers to our manuals.

Regards,