Production Mixing Mastering with Waves
by Anthony Egizii
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Book Reviews of Production Mixing Mastering with Waves
Book Review: RUN... DON'T WALK... Away From This Book!!!
Summary: 1 Stars
I write, record, and perform music for a living. I have produced several CD projects on my own, and have received extensive radio airplay throughout Texas and the southwest. I'm a do-it-yourself kind of guy when it comes to recording, and I'm always stepping up to the latest and greatest technology that I can afford. I recently retooled my studio with a computer-based system featuring Cubase SX at the core. My local friendly Guitar Center salesman sold me the Waves Gold Bundle, so I couldn't wait to get my hands on "Production Mixing Mastering With Waves" by Anthony Egizii.
The premise of the book/CD set is to teach real-world use of the Waves plug-ins by providing textual instruction, along with actual project examples on the CDs. I ran into several problems with the package...
The "How To Use This Book" section consists of four short paragraphs which take up half-a-page, give virtually no information on, well, how to use this book.
The book is comprised of five chapters, each addressing a different musical style. Although the book looks and feels substantial, you will find that each chapter is so abbreviated and incomplete as to render the overall package of minimal practical use.
After copying the "Country Rock Music Production" CD's files onto my computer and attempting to load the project into Cubase SX I found that (a) the files were not organized as a usable Cubase project, (b) the project file OVERWROTE MY HARDWARE SETTINGS to, I guess, those of Mr. Egizii's soundcard. This led to a couple of hours of tweaking to get sound out of my system again! (c) the files are just raw .WAV files, completely unusable.
At this point, I didn't DARE copy the Waves files from the discs, for I knew fully well they would overwrite my registered Waves plug-ins, forcing me to have to go through a complicated and painful re-registering process with Waves.
In addition to these problems, once I was able to repair the computer/soundcard problems caused by installing this book's files, I gave a quick listen to the "Country Rock" production featured on one of the book's CDs. I'm not sure what I was listening to, but it was about as "country rock" as Willie Nelson is Death Metal.
In summary, I found this package to be useless piece of rubbish, and I wish I had my $80 back. Do I seem angry? You'd better believe I am!
Book Review: Very useful, a few flaws aside
Summary: 4 Stars
I started buying Waves plugins a couple of years back to use with Digital Performer, the most rock-solid DAW out there. Waves has always supported DP and the MAS environment, and I believe they are a solid company with a long-term future. That is very important when you're buying software! I started out with the Ren bundles and by now I've upgraded to the Platinum Bundle, which this book covers. The Waves User Guides are fair, but not very exciting. So I was glad to get my hands on this book. I had some initial problems getting all of the audio files in order (make sure you go to Waves website and download the hundreds of megabytes of updated audio files!!!) and the way the files were set up for DP caused me to have to manually import many of the .wav files. This took some serious time. However, once all that was over, I was ready to use the book. The examples here are really good, and it helps you learn what to listen for while mixing and mastering. By muting and then unmuting a plugin, you can hear its effect on the track/mix, which is very eye-opening. Sometimes the effect is tough to hear (I imagine some high-end $5K monitors would help) but all in all these tutorials are great and will give you excellent ideas on how to up the professionalism of your own mixes. In particular, I was excited to see how kick bass and bass guitar can be bussed together and compessed/limited for a solid low end. Other than items listed above, my only other wishes would be that the author elaborate more on the selection of certain plugins (why does he choose to use an L2 instead of an L1 on a track, and vice versa?) and I also wish there were some discussion on how to use the PAZ analyzers to evaluate the mix. I hope Waves will listen to the suggestions everyone has (they actually sent me a survey to get ideas on how to improve the book, always a good sign, esp if they use the results!) and make more books like this. Yes, the price is rather steep, but you could spend the same on 4 or 5 imported computer music magazines and get far less useful info. I'm going with 4 stars on this one, and hope the next book will earn a 5. Thanks Waves!Book Review: Great insight into professional mixing...
Summary: 5 Stars
I have been using logic, cubase and sonar for some time now, and mixing is something not new to me,but what this book does is focus on effective spectral mixing using eq, compressors, maximisers and FX, all based on the world class Waves plugins version 4. This book does not focus on arrangement and production as much as one would like to, so if these aspects are important to you, try something else. What is given in this book is important tips and tricks to effective mixing and subsequent mastering. This could involve some relearning and deconstruction as in my case. This book could have been named Essential tips and tricks to mixing and mastering, as composition, arrangement and production are just highlighted upon.
Some people have had trouble with the files given in those 7 cds, but I think things are just fine. If you know your sequencer well, things like changing soundcard settings should be a breeze. The files give you to deconstruct the entire song and take a good look at the settings of each of the 5 songs.
The genres are rather too standardised or cliched for some tastes, like the classic alternate drum and bass patterns in the first song "one and only", and the country number would have been better off with female vocals, as the book had stated similarities with faith hill and shania twain.
The unmastered files seem to be normalised before mastering which to me was a bit of a pain when mastering since it was clipping, I mastered the songs straight from the sequenced files instead.
Overall I think that things are well processed and sequenced for an effective tutorial in professional mixing and mastering, this is a good book.
Book Review: Good for musician
Summary: 5 Stars
Having used Protools from 5.2, I has already accustomed to the operation of it.
For a musician who didn't receive professional training in mixing. This books really demonstrate the expertise in mixing.
The expertise includes the choice of plugin (although purely on waves...) and importantly, the concepts behind in using and tweaking the plugin.
The copying and using of files on CD is flawless, at least for Protools LE user. The book is well supported by its web site. Updates and errata can be obtained over there.
Surely, it is not perfect. For example, mixing involves personal taste. The last song, sounding of the song "Already gone" is not up to the taste of being modern. Maybe, I simply don't like the song...personal taste again.
Kinglok, FONG.
Book Review: great book
Summary: 5 Stars
This is an excellent book. You really learn alot from going through the exercises and I wish there was more on techniques of matering/mixing/effects processing (I know this is alot) to further develop my skills using Waves plugs.
This product was an excellent, excellent idea. I have been frustrated as an amateur recording engineer/producer knowing that I had all of this power in my hands and not really know exactly how to use it other than by trial and error. This product was a godsend. It did a great job at explaining why things were set the way the were. It opened my eyes to a whole new philisophical approach to my recording and mixing. Now I just need to learn how to play guitar better. None of this info helped that.