9-Band Dynamic Mastering Suite for Reason Studios
If you've already purchased the above rack extensions and the FabFilter mastering plugins, you should be able to load _Project with no issues. Once it is loaded, you can import any audio track you want. Adjust the input level depending on how much noise suppression you want to have using the guide below. You can do this either in Reason itself or beforehand in another program, e.g. Audacity.
Once you have adjusted your track accordingly, you should generally be good to export the audio without making further modifications, however, you may have more success trying one of the following:
- Minimum Noise: Reduce the input input gain of the track by 5-10db. 10db should be enough to really reduce background hiss. If you are still getting hiss at 10db, then try going further or follow the recommendation in the sensitivity section below.
- Moderate Loudness: Normalize the track to 0db peak loudness.
- Maximum Loudness: Play the full length of the track within _Project 2. Then, check each input limiter to see which has the loudest recorded peak amplitude on the upper right hand side. Adjust the overall band gain on the DM9-base combinator upwards until the peak amplitude of the loudest input limiter shows between -3db to -4db. Going louder than -3db is not recommended.
Once the export is complete it is up to you what to do next. If this is a song meant to be uploaded to a streaming platform, I would recommend using Audacity to normalize the track according to perceived loudness (effects -> Loudness Normalization; set the LUFS value to -14 [youtube,spotify]). This should give you a positive gain boost, so you will likely want to run a final limiter over the result before exporting the final track to prevent clipping. Audacity should let you use the FabFilter pro-L2 limiter to do this final limiting stage. I would recommend using 32x oversampling and maximum lookahead as this is a single-pass application of the limiter so live performance won't be a concern.
Loosely defined, sensitivity is the degree to which the band processor adjusts itself when there is a change in the input signal. If you have a track that has a LOT of hiss, then you should scale the sensitivity levels inversely proportional with frequency. 9 bands makes this pretty easy as you can start at 127 for band 1 and subtract 16 for each band until 0 for band 9.
I've added automation lanes for this already so all you need to do is adjust the values as you see fit.