Does anyone know of a plugin I can stick on my output bus, that will let me hear my mix as if it were being encoded then decoded to MP3 format? At the moment, I have to export to MP3, then listen to it, then go back to the mix, guess at some corrections, export to MP3… etc etc. If only I could just monitor the … ahem… damage being done in realtime, then I could create compensated mixes much faster…
Cheers /FD
In all seriousness, why would you need to do this? If your mix is good from an EQ perspective (i.e. not too many tracks competing for space in the same subsection of the EQ spectrum) then the MP3 mix is going to sound quite close to the master bus.
In times past when I had a lot of EQ crowding going on, my MP3 mix would suck. I’d get a lot of bass pumping and other such nonsense. But the issue was in the mix and not in the MP3 codec. Once I was proficient enough to correct my mixes those problems disappeared.
Sonnox Pro-Codec:
http://www.sonnoxplugins.com/pub/plugins/products/pro-codec.htm
£295 GBP wow thats a bit pricey!!!
Thanks karl! That’s just the ticket… except for that price tag… crikey!
Looks pretty spiffing though.
Agreed. It is probably a fine plugin, but that price? Nope not for me.
That said the sonnox plugs are VERY good.
They are not emulations, they are the exact code transferred from their insanely expensive digital mixing desks.
So with sonnox you get what you buy, not an aprox of a legendary thing.
I have the eq and the dynamic myself. Expensive yes but man they work 
All the best, Kim