Alain Paul.
Mastering · Plugins · Courses
I've been mastering records for 20 years and writing code since the 90s. The plugins and courses here are opinionated by design. You get my specific methods, philosophy and what actually works, not platitudes and a blank canvas of generic options. Tools that try to please everyone help no one.
Where my conclusions contradict industry orthodoxy, I don't argue, I conduct blind tests and publish studies.
7 plugins · 8 courses · 3 studies · Mastering 100€ per song
Plugins
All plugins →I wrote these plugins because they didn't exist. Three of them are free and open source.
Courses
All courses →No magic frequencies, no presets. The actual reasoning behind professional decisions, taught from 20 years of doing it for a living.
Mastering
There is no conveyor belt process. I will listen to your music. I will notice if the mix has issues, and I will say so. A lot of the time what a record needs is not more processing on top of the mix. It's mix feedback, asking for a specific stem or understanding the broader context surrounding the track on an album. If you want to add random additional processing to your mix, Ai is pretty good at that now. My experience, mix critique and judgement are the things Ai cannot do, and are the exact bits you are paying for. The processing itself is free.
100 € per song
projects of 4+ tracks
Studies
All studies →When an audio debate can be settled with data, I run the experiment and publish the study.
- Analogue Modelling Versus Digital PluginsBlind AB test · 514 participantsNo preference for the analogue plugins.
- Professional DACs are transparent, even if most people disagreeLoopback blind test · 1,367 participantsModern professional DACs are transparent.
- Black-Scholes-Merton option pricing model applied to audio compressionAudio plugin proof of concept · —BSMOPM can be used directly for audio compression.