Is there a plug-in or some ‘magic’ that would let you see the -entire- waveform of yer rendered song in real-time? (ie. in an active CPR). The shape would dynamically update itself as you work on the project. BUT you would not have to render the song. It would just ‘happen’ while you work.
Use case: I often work on these really long classical/rock pieces. It’s important to get the gain staging right… ie. it has to build properly and reach a climax. It’s easy to make each section sound good on their own, but then realise that when put together, they don’t properly ‘build’ towards the mountaintop.
Also: in such long pieces there are invariably a few peaks that just explode for no reason. Seeing those all as part of the waveform would allow me to tweak them much easier.
Anyone got anything like that or is it still in the future?
…in Quantum-CPU-with-super-fast-HDD-memory-etc future
serious - as soon as render all mix isn’t realtime operation
why it should be realtime in some magic-plugin?
Take a close look at Fabfilter - L2 very useful tool for such “real-time” gain monitoring
I’ll tell you one of the under-appreciated aspects of a great mastering engineer… they can listen to all 10 tracks and balance their levels so that it sounds like one cohesive album… which is kinda what I’m trying to do here. It can be -really- hard.
I feel ya…every time I master an album which has more dynamic than the top 100 songs or is from an experimental gerne, I struggle with the same thing. To shape the dynamic and prevent your described effect, I use group tracks or vca automation bevor the mastering chain ( post fader effects). Since I also use external gear for mastering, I can easily hit my analog chain to hard and introduce to much color. To prevent this, I clone the track I master and use it exclusively as a side chain source for my outboard gear. With this aproach, I can shape the analog colour without changing the dynamic of the audible track to hard. This also works fine in the digital domain. Finally, I use stillwell schOPE plugin, which is just an oscillograph to see the waveform in real time. Maybe this can help you in in your situation.
