[Jamin] Mastering with JAMin.

[philicorda <phi...@nt...>]

Hi.
I work as a producer and engineer, own a small studio, and so quite often end 
up mastering albums/compilations etc.

I'm definately no expert on the subject, but have managed o.k. for a few years 
with a combination of Waves C1+C4+L2+various eqs. Now I have 
Linux+Ardour+Jamin etc set on the studio box as well. Here are some personal 
impressions of using JAMin to master, a few ideas, and a bit of a wishlist 
too. I'm using JAMin 0.8.0.

----Resetting----

There should be a way to reset controls back to default without having to 
restart JAMin.
                                                                                                                                            
I would like to be able to set to default each section independently. I may be 
happy with the multiband comp, but need to start again on the eq. I can reset 
the filters and parametrics with ctrl+click, but cannot erase the curve I 
have drawn with the pencil.

There should be away to reset the band stereo enhancement to 0. It seems 
impossible to get the slider back to 0.00 once it has been moved. Perhaps a 
larger zero area on the slider would make this easier?

----Individual Bypass----
                                                                                                                                            
I need to be able to bypass each section of the HDEQ (high pass, each 
parametric, low pass, hand drawn curve) independently. 

Why is this important? Because much of mastering for me is trying small eq 
tweaks and seeing how they interact with the comp and the rest of the eq. I 
need to be able to enable and disable and listen to each band without 
changing it.

I know that JAMin really has a monster graphic eq, rather than parametrics etc 
'under the hood', but treating it as a set of parametics+shelves is more 
natural for me.

There should be a way to bypass each of the sections independently also.
(seperate bypasses for HDEQ, multiband comp, limiter) It's important for
me to be able to set up the eq over a mix to sort out the general shape, and 
then start to bring in the multiband, then the output limiter. I need to be 
able to bypass each section independently to make sure it's doing good!
                                                                                                                                            
----User Interface----

Being able to resize the JAMin window and have all the controls get
bigger is fabulous. It makes little tweaks so much easier than trying to
do it all in a tiny plugin window. Why don't all software eq's let me do
this dammit! Nice big meters too! I did have one problem, which is that
when the JAMin window is resized, the numbers on the limiter's meters
dissapear.

The operation of the parametric eq's in the HDEQ is really good. It's really 
easy to use and feels right to me. My only point would be that using shift to 
constrain a parameter is not mentioned in the context help. It's a very 
desirable feature, so should be mentioned.

----Stereo Enhancer----
                                                                                                                                            
Being able to use stereo enhancement on seperate bands is a useful feature. I 
had some luck using a little enhancement on the top, and closing the width of 
the low end a little. Panning the bands leads to some very strange results. 
:)
                                                                                                                                            
----Wishlist----
                                                                                                                                      
Is there any way the high pass could be made to go down to 20hz? Or even 
lower if possible? Could the slope of the high/low filters be adjustable to 
make them work more like shelves if required?
                                                                                                                                          
The limiter works fine, but gets a little 'cloudy' sounding earlier than L2 
if I try to go for serious peak smashing. (I know it's 'bad practice', but if 
it's what the client wants....).
                                                                                                                                            
A way to group paramaters across all the compressors would be cool. I like to 
adjust all release times at once sometimes.
                                                                                                                                     
It's strange to master without a conventional compressor in the chain as
well. I'd love to see one in JAMin in the future, perhaps with a few
useful curves like an opto emulation. It's easy enough to use a LADSPA
plug for the time being.
                                                                                                                                            
Crossfading between scenes is interesting, though I would like to be
able to set the crossfade time to zero, to make fast comparisons between
two scenes possible. (the crossfade can make it so that the
subtle difference between two scenes is not obvious enough. when flicking 
between them)

Many thanks to everyone who created this great app!