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Mark Allidine

Hello! I'm Mark. I'm a Dublin based producer and musician who studied Creative Music Production. Over the past four years I have been developing my skills in sound engineering, production, coding and much more. I have been lucky enough to work on many varied projects from composition and studio recording, to remote work with New York based hip-hop artists. More recently my focus has shifted to mix engineering and personal projects with clients and my band, find-joy. My personal social media accounts and some of my own work is also linked here!

This project is a comparison of free and paid audio plugins and hardware. This project aimed to discover whether or not freeware plugins can stand up to their paid counterparts in the context of a mix and if there is a significant time investment making it not worthwhile. Four tracks were written by a client and composed, arranged, recorded, and finally mixed twice per track. One mix includes paid plugins and hardware while the other mix uses only freeware plugins. The tracks were mixed in Ableton, and an important distinction is that the tracks were not mixed using any stock plugins. This assumed ownership of a digital audio workstation (DAW) which may not be financially feasible for new producers.

The project is aimed at the average listener who will be hearing tracks on entry level earphones or built-in phone or laptop speakers. In this context, the freeware plugins performed to the same level as the paid plugins. The client was given a blind test of both mixes of each track and asked to pick their preferred mix. In the case of two tracks, the client chose the free mix and in the case of two other tracks, the client chose the paid equipment mix.

While the free plugins performed to a very high level the main discovery was a lack of certain types of free plugins that a beginner producer may try to budget for. These were a pitch correction plugin and an audio restoration plugin if desired such as Izotope RX-8. Of the pitch correction plugins tested, the most effective method was cutting the audio file and editing the cents and semitones manually in Ableton in conjunction with the free plugin Graillon II. However, every free pitch correction plugin tested lacked the functionality of popular pitch correction software such as Melodyne or Waves Tune, which allow the user to manually place the notes of a vocal or monophonic instrument on a piano roll and make more surgical edits that do not sound robotic or metallic.

Overall, the study revealed that any mix engineer with a high level of experience can create a professional sounding mix provided that the tracks recorded are of a professional standard. It was discovered that by focusing each stage of production at the final mix, that mistakes were limited, and the mixing stage workload was lessened.

Project Description

This thesis is a comparison of free and paid audio plugins and hardware. This project aims to discover whether or not freeware plugins can stand up to their paid counterparts in the context of a mix and if there is a significant time investment making it not worthwhile.

Free vs Paid Mix Comparison MP3 Thesis PDF

Mix engineering – a comparison of free and paid audio plugins and hardware

This project was worthy of study as many producers particularly in a home setting have developed a habit of purchasing many audio plugins without understanding them thoroughly or often not using many of them as they come in bundles. This research aims to examine if there are any huge differences between free and paid audio plugins and whether or not the same results can be achieved with one approach or the other.

Free vs Paid Mix Comparison MP3 Thesis PDF