Wow....Who would of thought my thread would of
become such a debate.

Sorry Mateusz, I have to agree with Mike on this one. I am an Independent Artist who likes to be able to Produce/Master my own Music.
I find your "Guides/Manuals/Applications" very confusing for someone who wants to spend most of there time composing VS tweaking.
Your vague response to my original question did not help me in the least. And instead of leaving with an understanding of how I could us VW with MC. You lost a Sale, as I left thinking that MC is just an Improved Expanded version of VW and you just didn't want to give the impression that perhaps both Plugs were'nt necessary. No offense, that's just how I took it, from the response.
Instead, I took my limited funds and purchased FL Studio (DAW) instead. There's a great example of a Affordable Product($149)with Outstanding Support and vision.
They have Video Tutorials, Written Tutorials, Forums, you name it at thier Site.
And Applications for that product far exceed what MC's are.
All's I'm looking for is mainly Common Example Applications, as Mike suggested (Which could be as simple as by Genre- Heavy Metal/Hip-Hop), or More Presets to use as a guideline.
On VW for example. I still don't fully understand it and have to invest many hours in making 3 or 4 Samples and "Hear" which sounds best.
If you just had MORE Presets to work from. Remember those of us who are only Technically Average.
(For mix Presets. Common Genres would help greatly. VOCAL Presets a must. Male/Female- Soft, Mid, Belting, Anything would help. More Instrument Presets- You only have a couple guitar ones).
I understand this is more work for someone.
But, this is also one of the Strongest selling points of Plugs. (You could open a Presets forum and let folks share them, etc. to get around that.)

I still hope to perhaps purchase MC down the line.
But for now it seems to be a product for Engineer Types who enjoy Playing around with new stuff.
My Goals are to make music and then make it sound it's best. Without scratching my head thru the whole process.

Your Products are Great...I just think you're missing out on a whole Market of the Likes of Me.
(As a side note...Accepting PAYPAL would help greatly also.)

Thanks for Listening, Brian.

Wow here too. Master comp is a perfectly normal (ok, with exeptionally transparent action and detailed sound) compressor. Do you guys expect white papers on how to drive when you buy a car?

I don't mean to be rude but I don't share this whitepaper point of view and I also think that you have made all points that can be made on an Internet forum long ago. No presets or whitepapers can make up for getting a good listening environment and ear training and last but not at all least spending time recording and processing your material.

In order to be more constructive in the original question: Master Comp is very nice to have on the master strip before Vintage Warmer. Here's a quick start: open the "Gentle Master" preset in Master Comp. Set the meter mode to "GR" so you can monitor the gain reduction. Adjust treshold to get 3-4 dB gain reducion on your material. Listen carefully and adjust attack and release to get a compression shape that make your ears happy. Then fire up Vintage Warmer (then you will not need the limiter in master comp). Use Gain reduction mode here too and see to that you don't get more than around 1 db gain reduction when you operate the gain control. Adjust speed and release in the same way as above. If your tracks are recorded somewhere in the normal level/energy area you should now have a pretty decent master compression and limiting. If analyzed, the average RMS sound pressure could be somewhere near -12 db witch is just fine. If you don't have a good tool for that you might be intrested in trying this .

Peacefully

Ouch....You gotta love Sarcasm.
Though I do recall going thru Classes- and Training- and a Test- before being able to drive a car.
Any Puttz with some cash and limited computer knowledge can purchase a Plug and attempt to use it. The secret is what extent to you want to go to make it accessible to the widest possible audience. (Remember...I'm part of the Fast & Large Growing Independent Artists out there who
Compose & Produce their Music from the Demo to Master- Who see's Mastering Studios VS DAWS/Plugs in the same light as Photo Labs and what Digital Photography has become.)
My feeling is PSP could go alot farther in capitalizing on this growing market.

I do appreciate your input BB54 on the original question. That is exactly the kind of info I was looking for and would of thought PSP Support could provide.

Thanks, Brian

I'm usually not into sarcasm at all but felt that the car reference made just the needed kind of point. You don't expect to be educated by the salesman in the use of perfectly normal products, you go to a school of your own choise.

Note that my quick start above is in no way intended for use with any special compressor or limiter product and is aimed towards minimizing the damage that compressors and limiters can have on audio material. There are tons of possibilities of getting this kind of info for free. One of them is a forum like this, just shoot and people will help!

Of course I think it's ok or sometimes even good to discuss and point out things like this but sometimes it does not get any better even if the discussion extends into eternity.

I also compose and produce my own material from demo to master, most of the time mainly to please myself.

OK, Thanks for interesting discussion to all of you.
We will try to prepare in the future some basic hints for products however I still beleive in my point of view and I will once again try to explain it.
1. I think that preparing presets directly called: Vocal, Drums, Perfect rock ballade etc, in the convence of mastering is a cheeting of our customers because the preset vocal can be a best choise some heavy metal while a Perfect rock ballade can be a greate choise for a hip-hop track. So, mainly, in the mastering a preset naming of this kind is very nice but actually useless in most of jobs.

2.Even if we could cover "all" settings in presets it woudn't exclude you from carefull listenning expearience to discover which preset is a best choise.

3. Generally we preper presets in mastering plug-ins as a help to speed up learning of those tools by rapid observation of changes that occurs through presets and how those sounds can be setup with controls.

4. If somebody don't know what the compressor (car - no sarcasm, just an example) is, how and what for use it (or drive a car - no sarcasm, just an example) why we should force one to buy one (compressor or a car)? Just to be glad of a rapid sales followed by long discussions with clients that bought something they don't understand and don't want at all?

5. From my expearience, tools like the MasterQ or a MasterComp are understood and intentionally chosen by people who, from their own listenning expearience, understand that standard processors included with most of DAWs are far from beeing a real tool for mastering. Then, when they really hear the difference, there is no price or CPU usage problem. They fully unrestand that the MasterComp and MasterQ are upgrade options, not tools for begginers.

6. A mastering plug-in will not gain your results automatically. It can, of course, make the same job with little distortion but it will not remove common mistakes in usage caused by inadequate monitors etc.

7. Finaly this is great that nowadays technically mastering can be done on the same system and by the same person that created, recorded and mixed it however this is often the worst case. Monitoring, expearience etc. Of course sending it to highly priced mastering house doesn't automatically mean that the results will be good eather but it is a different story.

All of this doesn't mean that we don't listen to your point of view and we will make more stress to better support intermediate users in our manuals and through support channels.
Once again - we are glad to have various customers and we are open to learn how to support them which, I hope, will mean better manuals in the future.

Best regards,

Very well said, Mateusz.

>Do you guys expect white papers on how to drive
>when you buy a car?
That's a terrible analogy and is wrong. I get an incredible white paper when I buy a car - it's called the owner's manual.

Mateusz had made my point - PSP tools are created for professionals, and that's why the documentation is so sparse. I still don't think Mateusz understands what a good white paper is. He thinks it has to cover all cases, but it doesn't and in fact, shouldn't.

I agree with B5 and PSP lost a sale because their doc/marketing points are weak. I bought MC and probably shouldn't have because I think VW does all the I want & have much of the same functionality as MC.

Mike

learning how to use a comp should be high on your learning list if you are goign to buy a comp... i dont think the company needs to provide the documentation in order to use one. i dont see anything out of the ordinary for someone who knows how to use one.

documentation? ever see manuals for pro outboard gear? who reads manuals anyway?

the car analogy does work IMO, to take it further, you might know how to drive a car but if given the chance, you think just knowing how to drive a car will enable you to win a F1 race? or even finish it?

Never saw a car owners manual give directions on how to use the car, but perhaps we don't drive the same brand.

Yikes! Alright already...
We get the point.
MasterComp is not for everyone.
And this thread proves the point that PSP is geared towards a select market. (Which is not your average Musician/Composer).
And no matter how many "Car Driving" references are thrown in...the fact is PSP needs better product support compared to it's competitors.
I own plenty of Plugs & Audio Applications-
And I can only conclude that PSP is on the bottom in this regard. Where the likes of Har-Bal & FL Studio are on top.

So lets put this baby to rest...
I think Mateusz answered this already.
MasterComp is not for your average Joe and they'll keep this in mind going forward.

So if you Mastering Guru's want to keep pounding the point that you know alot more of the Technical End than us "Ignorant Sound Engineer want a be's".
I think you made that point already.

Peace?
B5