Hi Again,
Any good third party tools to master a Renoise rendered track for Audio CD production?
Thanks
I prefer using Wavelab. version 4 is very good. (not free though).
If you got the dough I can recommend you pay Xarc Mastering a visit. They will master your songs for 49 euro a piece.
the prices per song are only interessting if you have long tracks.
mastering per overall time is cheaper. prices for professional mastering for 15minutes e.g. are 50EURO (in germany).
I think you are very wrong here.
First of all 50 € for 15 mins does not sound very professional to me. I have looked around for mastering in the last years several times, and an example CD with 50 minutes and 12 tracks started at 350€ total, which would have been the total bottom quality-wise. (But I am sure this can also be a very local thing.)
Anyway, these prices also did only apply for mixing-studios which mostly do rock-music (they are the bottom of the price-range afaik), and you should avoid those at all costs.
The reason is simple : There is one easy shortcut most of those engineers take to minimize the effort they have to do, and that is “grouping”.
This basically means that they do not mix every song individually but mainly put all songs they define as “nearly identical sounding” into a group and end up with four or less groups (down to one). Then they simply make a rather rough preset for each group and apply it to every song in that group.
In the worst case (very lazy engineer) there is only one group (called “that album”) and they apply some fast-hacked preset to every track.
The problem with this grouping is that its up to the engineer what is “similar sounding”, and this very much is a question of personal taste (and again the mentioned lazyness).
Now this might work if you mix a rockalbum, because most rock-albums are done by the band in a single studio-session, so in each track there are the same instruments recorded by the same setup and so you end up with material which is very similar to each other soundwise.
However, with sample-based/electronic music this is something totally different. If you are not using the same basic plugins every time your songs will have a very different soundspectrum from each other and simply cant be defined “similar” or be grouped. If you think I am wrong just think of the vast amounts of basedrums in electronic music, this basic part of the music alone has an incredibly vast variety of sounds, whereas with the before-mentioned rockband the basedrum in all songs from one recording session with no change in setup of the drums and the recording equipment is very similar. And this is just a very, very small fraction of your overall sound.
So, our kind of music has to be mixed trackwise (with an additional final mix to the whole album at the end, mostly consisting of maximizing and basic EQing) or else it will simply suck. Believe me, I heard albums mixed by such rock-engineers.
So, that xarc does base its prices on the amount of tracks and not the total time is simply a warranty that they mix each track individually, just as it has to be. And if you ever mixed your stuff yourself you will know that mixing a 3 minute track isnt very different from mixing a 8 minute track in terms of used time, because after a while you will simply mix based on a few unique spots in the whole track. It does not take that much longer.
So I think that the main idea of xarc and their base of chargement is definately right, now just check the examples from their website and try to get that money together. 
Very intresting reading Looza…
well LOOZA you are right … my price example is only a simple overall mastering for 15 minutes BUT belevie me: a higher price means not better result in general …
on the same mastering studio (15min/50euro) the normal working-hour price is 75EUR - thats for individual songs and inidivdual mastering. i think an intensive mastering of 50minutes music needs 4-6 hours or more … so we are at your example (350euro).
i like it to be present on mastering coz i have my own ideas how the final music must sound and i asked xarc some times ago for this possibility but it is not possible.
it’s no problem for me to drive 500km for a great mastering day - but the guy of xarc says “we only working over the web” and so on …
everybody can talk so much on websites and i can make the same mastered/unmastered sound-previews with an eq and t-racks … NO NO - don’t take me to serious … i think XARC is really ok … and cheap … but i’d like it to be present on mastering … and XARC would never be my first choice … maybe only a temporary solution.
ok … with a little doubt i “tested” XARC last sunday coz i was in time pressure. Lorenz of XARC managed the mastering of one track of my upcoming CD in a really fast way and the result was a high quality mastering. big thanx to LORENZ - my helper in my hour of need 
- great work!
i will “test” XARC another time again - coz the song was not one of my own - and i really like to listen to one of my own songs mastered by Lorenz … maybe after this … XARC will be my first choice! 
nevertheless - it’s a real advantage to be present on mastering coz sometimes it’s hard to describe special wishes on mastering via mail … and the monitor-equipment at home or in your own studio is never the same like in masteringstudios …