{"id":4096,"date":"2014-06-12T05:00:42","date_gmt":"2014-06-12T12:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/passivepromotion.com\/?p=4096"},"modified":"2021-03-02T07:29:02","modified_gmt":"2021-03-02T15:29:02","slug":"can-landr-replace-your-mastering-engineer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/passivepromotion.com\/can-landr-replace-your-mastering-engineer\/","title":{"rendered":"Can LANDR Replace Your Mastering Engineer?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Drag-and-drop online mastering is here, and it’s free to try.\u00a0LANDR<\/a>\u00a0(affiliate link) provides unlimited 192 kbps mp3 masters of your tracks in seconds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you like what you hear, you can pay for uncompressed 16-bit .wav masters. Pricing is very reasonable at $9 for four or $19 for unlimited masters per month. Paid users also get to select the “intensity” of the mastering: low, medium (the default), or high.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their algorithms were refined over eight years of university research, and they even have a resident astrophysicist. An astrophysicist<\/em>!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Guess this mastering engineer is out of a job, right?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To find out, I selected tracks from three recent mastering jobs, to compare my results with LANDR’s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"LANDR\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Three notes before we get our hands dirty in this mano-a-microchip match-up:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. Am I biased?<\/strong> Perhaps, but who’s more qualified to evaluate a mastering service than a mastering engineer? Let your ears be the judge.<\/li>
  2. Louder pretty much always sounds better to the human ear.<\/strong> While differences in volume are important for the purposes of this evaluation, you should try to match playback levels when comparing the examples for sound quality.<\/li>
  3. This is an apples-to-apples comparison.<\/strong> I paid $9 for four uncompressed 16-bit .wav masters, to compare to my uncompressed 16-bit .wav masters. All files were encoded to mp3 at 320 kbps using LAME at the highest quality setting.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    Wideband Network<\/a> “Reach”<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
    \"Wideband<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

    I was asked to give it “the full EDM treatment,” which I interpreted as, “make it loud!”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Here’s a taste of the chorus, unmastered:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \"Reach<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
    \"Reach<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n