Any point in mastering VST based music?

1

Hi All,
I create small ensemble classical music. Everything I build is created with VSTs. Almost all of the VSTS have reverb, delay, and EQ presets applied. I tend to use the factory settings.

Outside the obvious, panning, a bit of EQing, volume balancing and such, I hear no discernible difference if I do have a work mastered, other than making it louder.

Is there a lot of point in mastering music made with VSTs?

All the best,
Rob

2

Hey @kenrob2037,

Welcome to the Waves Forum.

Mastering adds the finishing touch to your music or audio, ensuring it sounds polished and consistent across different platforms and playback systems, regardless of the sources you used such as VST or if you maybe recorded everything with live tools i.e.

So my opinion here is yes, there is a point to mastering VST-based music.

3

Hi,
While I agree with you, what I’ve found is that most mastering, especially AI and online mastering only raises the volume.

I use Logic 11, and its mastering does make quite a difference. Especially with the valve, transparent and other choices. I’ve paid for mastering, and as I said, the only difference I can hear is a volume increase.

Most frontline VST makers do a pretty good job of supplying their products with sufficient adjustments to make them sound the best. That sad, none really sound like the real thing, especially orchestral sounds, because when changing dynamics, that’s all most do. Very few alter the tone, attack or decay.

As I can’t afford an orchestra, they will have to do until something better comes along.

1 Like
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A large majority of professional music productions has been done on projects that only use plugins. Hip-hop, rap, EDM, pop all good examples. It’s not the plugins.

Mastering doesnt just raise the volume, but it refines the tonality, energy and dynamics of the music. That said, the difference is generally subtile, especially if it’s been well mixed. The most obvious thing you hear is the loudness difference, but it you listen to the before and after with the levels matched you should hear some other differences too.

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Hi Simon,

I agree with you on what mastering is supposed to do. While I’m a composer and not an audio technician, I’ve yet to hear online mastering do anything other than raise the volume. Even looking closely at a spectrum analyser, I can’t see a difference.

However, when I do my own in Logic, I can hear a huge difference. The balance, the presence and tone of instruments is much more refined, clear and noticeable when I do it, as opposed to online mastering.

I have a friend who does this for a living. He records classical music concerts in Pro Tools. He says that is what most professionals use as it is designed to record live music. He mixes and masters in Pro Tools too.

For him, the most important processing for live music is EQing. He reckons that most of the other things take care of them self with a standard approach. However, what most of us creators do is not what he does. While we will never be able to reproduce the sound of a live orchestra, I think what manufacturers have done with VSTs is pretty ■■■■■■ amazing. I rarely touch a VST setting to make it sound better.

So, I do minimal mastering to all my music, because I believe that the quality VST makers, like Pianoteq, have done most of the job for us. But when we combine different VSTs, and effects, that’s where we need to step in and resolve issues.