Punk Rock with Abbey Road TG Mastering Chain

In the Studio
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Hello to all. Thanks for having me!

I’m relatively new to the Abbey Road TG Mastering Chain, and I am a newbie producer. Although I had good results in mastering songs with this plugin in other genres, I’m feeling a bit frustrated trying to master a California Style Punk Rock album.

Can someone point me some settings to begin with? I would be grateful
Thank you very much!

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Although this is a great plugin to throw on your master chain, you might require other plugins in addition. Such as a more flexible eq and a limiter.

I’d put the eq before the TG and the limiter at the end of the chain, of course

  • First pull up a decent sound with the TG, it only has to sound better than it was without the plugin. Try not to overdo the compression.
  • Activate the limiter and look at reducing about 1-2db off the peaks
  • With the eq, gently boost or cut areas for less boominess and extra clarity.

I made it sound simple here, but in reality it could take you quite a bit of practice pulling a good quality master. You may even required additional tools such as a multiband compressor or a dynamic eq.

Although, if you fins yourself starting to need more control over the mix, think about fixing the issues in the tracks instead.

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Hi IVNTV! Here’s a DEEP DIVE if you’re up for it:

The AR TG Mastering Chain is fantastic. It helps to understand its uses and limitations so you can get the most out of it.

The name causes some people to think it’s an “all in one mastering tool” but it’s really not that. I would think of it more like a channel strip that happens to work well for submix busses and on your master bus. But you will still need a final limiter after it.

ARTG’s EQ isn’t the most versatile of EQs – but I actually like that about it. Ideally your mix is really close to the intended tonal balance by the time it reaches mastering (or the master bus for independent artists who finish their own music.)

With that in mind, I mostly use the “BL” (wide bell) and “MED” settings on the EQ. Gentle, wide EQ shaping. I find the filter to be incredibly useful on submix busses but probably too heavy handed for the master bus… However the “presence” control there is like another “MED” EQ, with different frequencies from the EQ section. Very useful.

It’s important to know that AR TG Mastering Chain is a very clean plugin except for the “limiter” section. That’s where the “color” happens. To get that color (if you want it) you need to drive into it until your peaks are hitting or just passing 0VU (use the Bridge plugin to see that.)

The compressor is based on a Zener diode compressor. I absolutely adore the “original” mode, but for the type of music you’re doing you will probably like the “modern” better. The “modern” will be louder, faster, more aggressive, where as the “original” is beautifully mushy for lack of a better word.

For the order of operations, I would set it up like Input > Tone > Filter > Limiter. You probably don’t want to use the “tape equalizer” – but the “input” will help you to hit the compressor at an appropriate level.

If you don’t use the bridge plugin you can set a decent level by turning off all modules except Input and adjusting it until your peaks are around or just past -10. That will get you some harmonic saturation as you pass through the limiter section – but not too much. Use more level for more distortion, and back off to a lower level for a cleaner signal. I personally love the color of AR TG and if not going for color I might as well use a different plugin!

I wouldn’t personally use the spreader on the master bus but it can be great on individual tracks and submix busses.

I would think of AR TG Mastering Chain as your “mix bus compressor” with added EQ.

You can use a parallel style of compression with AR TG by using the mix knob. With that method you would dial up the compression to quite a bit more than you would normally use – really smash it – and then back off with the mix knob. This allows a mix of the original transients with the smashed signal.

The “recovery” knob changes both the attack and release of the compressor. I typically use it at 2 for faster songs and 3 for slower songs.

If you’re up for being heavy handed and doing something that “breaks mastering rules” – you and combine the high and low shelves of the Tone control with the highpass(low-cut) and lowpass(high-cut) filters. You can boost the shelves and then use the filter to roll off the ends. Again, mastering engineers would probably consider that too heavy handed but it’s something that works in this plugin.

Another trick is to use the shelving controls unexpectedly. Most people would expect the shelves to be on the top or bottom controls… But if you use the middle two EQs and set a low frequency (181-362hz) for the high shelf and a high frequency (2.05-3.25khz) for the low shelf — you can do very wide tonal balance correction.

The tape equalizer can be a pretty radical shift as well. Again, probably too heavy handed for the mix bus – but on individual tracks and submix busses it can sometimes quickly shift the tonal balance in a direction you want to go.

Depending on how the compressor works for you – you might consider also “Waves SSL G-Master Buss Compressor” (SSLComp) if you have it. It’s a much easier to understand compressor and can sometimes work well in conjunction with the AR TG Compressor.

Lastly, you need to follow up with a limiter after AR TG Mastering Chain.

A simple solution is the L1 Ultramaximizer Anniversary Edition which I still love after all these years.

Another possibility is to use two limiters together. If you have L316, there is an absolute magic trick:
Put L316 after ARTG and track both the input and output down together until you get a little bit of action. Not too much – L316 isn’t a limiter you want to dig too deep with, because it will alter your tonal balance. However, it can catch peaks on a band specific basis so it works REALLY well as a pre-limiter limiter.

So pull down the threshold and output together until it’s taming the inaudible peaks.

THEN follow up with your final limiter. Again, I like L1+ Anniversary Edition – but if your DAW doesn’t have good metering then WLM Plus has a loudness measurement.

The next part is controversial – but I personally like TruePeak limiting with a -1dB maximum because I don’t want my hard work to even potentially be made worse by lossy compression streaming codecs. I’d rather give up 1dB of loudness in return for guaranteeing no codec distortion.

Mastering engineer Ian Shepherd recommends matching all of your songs to a max loudness of -10 LUFS-S at the loudest point in the song, as opposed to using LUFS-I. (LUFS-S measures over 3 seconds, and LUFS-I is any duration but it’s usually used to measure a whole song.)

You’ll get more consistency if you match your songs based on the loudest part of each song (typically the final chorus, or wherever there’s the most energy.)

-10 LUFS-S peaks is a sweet spot between dynamic range and loudness, in my opinion, but most commercial tracks are admittedly louder. You can push to -9 or -8, but don’t squash the dynamics too much. It comes with a cost.

Lastly – if your final limiter is working too hard (frequently needing more than 3dB of gain reduction) – try passing through Kramer Master Tape just before the final limiter. Set the FLUX to either 185 or 250 and drive the input until its hitting or passing 0VU.

That’s an unconventional and arguably “wrong” thing to do, but you may like the color it adds. Kramer Tape can tame transients in a pleasing way, and you’ll find your final limiter doesn’t have to work as hard if you let Kramer Tape do some of the heavy lifting. What you’re doing here is taking on more saturation in return for fewer limiter artifacts. I don’t like my final limiter to do more than 2dB or so of gain reduction.

Anyhow, this is just one approach, and one potential way these great plugins can be used together.

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Thank you 4 all inputs!! :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

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