Waves Audio launch AI-powered mastering service

Waves Audio — one of the biggest names in the plugin world — has launched an online mastering service powered by AI. The new service, simply called Waves Online Mastering, allows anyone to upload their music and have it mastered right there in the browser, using the company’s proprietary Waves Neural Network technology. Waves allow you to tweak, change and have a level of control over the mastered output for free. You only pay when you go to export your track, so you can hear exactly how it’ll sound before committing. 

Waves has teamed up with Grammy-nominated mastering engineer Piper Payne, who claims the goal with Waves Online Mastering was to create a tool that was “as good, or better” than her own mastering. The machine learning algorithm was apparently modelled on her own techniques and meticulously A/B’d until she couldn’t tell the difference between her own and the AI mastering’s output. You can even upload a reference track and Waves’s AI tech will extract information and process your track to give it similar characteristics.

Once you’re happy with the master, you can export it using Waves’ own ‘credits’ system. Prices start at $6 for a single credit, or you can buy 60 credits for $180, which works out around $3 per track.

Try Waves Online Mastering here. 

AI mastering is nothing new, with LANDR having launched in 2014, and still going strong. Heaps of AI tools have been popping up over the past year, with 60% of musicians claiming to already use AI to make music.