RSR225 – Harold LaRue – How To Do Pro Mastering In Your DAW - Recording Studio Rockstars

RSR225 – Harold LaRue – How To Do Pro Mastering In Your DAW

Harold talked about the growth of the mastering industry, the power of great production, how to reference your mix and master against your favorite hits, and how to master your song like a pro in any DAW! Plus lots more..

My guest today is Harold LaRue a mastering engineer and audio educator based in Houston, Texas. Harold started out playing drums and running live sound in the 80’s and worked as a software developer and pro audio repair technician before meeting his wife, Elizabeth, an accomplished restaurateur; together, they built and operated several popular restaurants and a recycling company before he returned to his passion for recording and music production.

Harold studied with Producer/Engineer, Ronan Chris Murphy (also on the podcast RSR015), and learned the theatrical sound trade as a Union Journeyman on Broadway shows and other large-scale productions.

Harold shares his knowledge and experience with universities and recording schools across the country, provides technical support and consulting services to recording industry professionals, and operates a full-time mastering business, working on projects for artists including Macy Gray and R&B legend, Jeffrey Osborne.

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Step-by-step process for using Pro Tools for mastering

*Create 'MASTER' Stereo Aux Track, assign to Target Output (Output 1-2 here), ** SOLO SAFE this track ** 

* Create 'PRINT BUS' Send on 'MASTER' Track, set to Unity Gain (0.0 dB), Assign to an unused Bus with ** NO DESTINATION or TARGET OUTPUT ** This is a Bus to Nowhere. 

* Create 'Master' Stereo Master Fader, assigned to new 'MASTER' Track, use Inserts for your Stereo Bus plugins 

* Create 'MON' Stereo Master Fader, assign to Target Output (Output 1-2), Use Inserts for metering, reference plugins ** Place Sonarworks plugin LAST in chain ** 

* Assign Outputs from your Session's Audio Tracks, Auxes, etc to the 'MASTER' Track 

*When Bouncing your session, choose the 'PRINT BUS' Bus as your Source for audio. 

This is my workaround for Pro Tools not having a dedicated Monitoring Section, like Cubase and many other DAWs. 

This is my default PT Template configuration, so you only have to do this once.

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