Master Plan is an extremely powerful and versatile Mastering plug in for Digital Audio Workstations that is simple and easy to use and features an intuitive interface.
Master Plan delivers impressive results with simple controls. You don’t need to be an experienced engineer to be able to achieve significant results. Designed as an all-in-one mastering solution, it sports crystal clear loudness, rich, analog saturation, phase-coherent imaging, physical tape emulation, mono compatibility and extra tools to fix and monitor your mix. Close your eyes and let your ears be the guide.
Featuring just a few controls, Master Plan sounds great. It can be broken down into six sections:
Input/Output controls: These are your standard level controls. Also present here is a bypass control—but here’s the kicker—a Unity switch, which when engaged, let’s you hear the effect of the Master Plan WITHOUT a volume increase. This is a great feature, as the tendency is that anything louder sounds better. Unity allows you to hear the sound without being fooled by increased volume.
Two tone controls, just Low and High: Frequency ranges can simply be described as “Buttery and Open.” I found them to be effective.
Loud and Wide controls: The Loud dial brings up the gain of your mix and can bring the gain up to massive levels. If you are not sure how much loudness to apply, I would suggest having a mastered track you love available to compare as it’s possible to overuse this parameter. The Wide control takes your mix and makes it sound even wider. For me, the most pleasant setting was around the 10-11 o’clock range.
The filter section allows you to hear what you master will sound like on a variety of systems. I found another use on a mix. I used the Phone setting on a vocal where the artist wanted to sound like a '50s mic. Bonus use!
Tone Presets. Thick, Clean, Multi, Smooth, Calm and Tape settings provide remarkbly different tonal settings to provide quick variations for your sound.
Metering and sound presets. This area features promeasurement in LUFS and Peak readings, as well as preset sound categories that can further establish your master sound in an efficient manner.
Busta Rhymes’ new album Blockbusta was mastered completely with Master Plan, and is even mentioned in the album credits. Master Plan is an easy-to-use, low-cost, yet powerful and professional Mastering plug in. It is a powerful tool in your kit! At $89 for a perpetual license or a 5-month rent to own plan at $18 a month, It's a wonderful low price option for all musicians who want to get release-ready masters.
