I’ve worked as a professional mastering engineer for over 20 years now, and my honest opinion is that with the technology available now, the answer is “Yes”.
Of course, as a mastering engineer I’d always recommend you take your music to a pro!
But I also realise that you may not want to – perhaps you want to learn how to master yourself.
You may not have the budget for mastering – or maybe you even want to learn how to be a mastering engineer yourself.
And, it’s all free !

Ian

First of all, let's start by explaining what exactly mixing and mastering is. The first term, mixing, refers to the process of putting multiple layers of audio together to make one final track, or to musically modify an existing track.
The second term, mastering, refers to the process of optimizing the final track using all sorts of different mastering elements such as compression, equalization, stereo enhancement and more.

AAMS does the Mastering part very well and improves Mixing skills!
Recommended Here, I am a AAMS user for 8 years now.

Michael

I allways had a problem mixing and mastering my tracks.
Maybe i did have no knoledge enough but hard to learn to get a good sound.
Listening to best commercial tracks, my mix and masters where rubbish anyway.
I use AAMS Auto Audio Mastering System for 2 years now and i have learned so much.
I read the Basic Mixing I,II and III (Resources on the site) and have implemented that.
Also i cannot explain here what i have learned, but looking at analysis in AAMS can be helpfull on the mix i am busy.
Frequencies correcting in the mix returning is my thing.
Ok that takes a bit more time, i do not do one button mastering in AAMS.
My tracks and music have improved to the fact that my friends and my band say it is commercial ok.
Before that never happened, AAMS is the best software for this.
Mix and Learn, Master and Learn, improve.
Finally the end master with reference preset, allways comes out perfect this way.
I recommend to anyone! Even the disbelievers, try it its free!

Mason Liam

Other usefull things to do with AAMS software is recording my old record collection to digital.
Ran all with References trough AAMS and i am very happy with results on my Ipod and Car / Home Systems.
I am still late with digital conversion of my tapes (did that).
Sounds ok, but i think when i use AAMS on them the results are stunning.

Noah

I was new last time and searched a tool to get my music collection sound better.
I have old music, new music, everything sounds ok, but i have recorded from tapes and tracks to digital.
I use MP3 as a main format for my collection.
Somehow i found the website AAMS on the net, read the manual a bit.
The batch mastering function i have put some bad MP3's in.
What AAMS creates of them is allready way better and returns the mastered MP3 straight.
Ok takes some waiting time, but on the side of improving sound it works pretty well.
I do think on Commercial music, but on my collection of commercial music where it sounds bad.
AAMS can improve the sound of MP3 and is worthfull tool.

Noah

Now before you go off the deep end, I just came across this and am still playing with it.
I was impressed with the analysis it does of your WAV or MP3 file and it actually seems to work.
It's got quite an extensive tool kit and a good assortment of reference audio files to bounce your source against.
I think it's worth exploring. It has a complete manual with it also.
I've mastered several of my songs with this tool and it is amazing.
There are reference files (over 200) that will master your song to that genre.
It can also master individual tracks, vocal, guitar, bass and there are reference files for this also.
You can also load up a file for just EQ or compression, bounce it against a reference file, and it will give suggestions for EQ and compression that you can then apply through whatever other tool you have.
It will produce a printable reference file that you can use.
Try it out and let me know what you think. :D
Master it with one of the @master rms. settings.
The @master ones seem to do the best job of not crunching out the middle.
Also, the reference files are definitely designed to beat up the loudness war and appear to be designed more to master multiple songs for use on a CD or album rendition.
P.S. Just my humble opinion but the auto mastered version separates the guitars and brings out the lead better.
It also set the loudness more along an AGC setting, keeping everything within a range.

Outteh

Consider it a learning tool.
It has potential to be something offered within a DAW as a simple way of learning about mastering and the types of adjustments you make.
Within this software are some really amazing individual pieces.
The EQ tool alone is cool! And it doesn't force you into changes it just makes suggestions so you can tweak it any way you want.
I,m happy with it. :D
Okay I finished the stems (well except for one track I have to fix the mixdown on) and this solution worked.
When I loaded all of the mastered stems into a pro tools session and bounced them again afterwards as one track...
it sounded exactly the same as the original master so success :)

Stateofpsychosis

Yeah this software is great imo.
It can do the auto mastering stuff, but you can also use it as a learning tool.
Check out the website, there is a ton of info in the Tutorial section as well.

Japoluza

I remember trying to use AAMS a couple years ago.
I liked the idea behind it. But I couldn't get it to do what I wanted, so I tossed it.
Now, I have been recording music for 30 years, so I trust my ears completely.
But not everything can be done "by ear", especially mastering.
What is important is how well something translates to all systems.
Certainly not the same art as mixing!

I recently came back to AAMS to give it a shot.
So what I do is take my final WAV and load it up in AAMS to render out a source file.
I then load that file up as the SOURCE for the program.
Then I choose a reference file according to what I am looking for.
In most cases, it is MODERN. Once that is loaded, AAMS shows me the preconfigured curve for a modern sound.
It compares it to my source file. I finally load up my WAV file under the EQ tab and AAMS automatically applies the changes on the fly.
Following the directions of the manual, I eventually render out a new EQ'd copy.

IN every single case, my files come out perfectly mastered to sound awesome on any system great or small.
This may be dependent upon the idea that I mix my material very well.
But the big question to ask here is "Can we actually rely upon the AAMS reference files?"
I truly believe we can. We can pick a few different ones to use and eventually we will come to know which ones work best for us.
But still, AAMS is dependent upon how much work you did beforehand.
After all, mastering is not the major part of making a demo. The hard work comes before that.

Joe M

Something like this will be the future of mastering...
Got some beautiful results with this thing...
Doesn't work on everything of course...
100 thanks to developer :clap:

Selfik