Grand Finale 2

Just tested this App and have to say it’s much improved. All the major presets now work and individual sliders work flawlessly. The only minor oddity is that some presets on individual subsections don’t seem to result in visual changes to the slider/rotational representation on the screen.

I was expecting and hoping for more from this app but sadly it’s functionality appears limited… on my M1 iPad at least. There’s a whole world of tweaking that’s constantly greyed out leaving only some non too subtle presets. Perhaps the developers need to update for iPads?

I was expecting good things from this app based on YouTube reviews and reviews on the App Store. But I don’t know if it needs an update but the presets don’t work properly and some don’t work at all. So I have an M1 iPad as well as an iPhone 8 and I have issues with both so for me, it’s become a waste of money.

Just purchased this app but none of the presets work on my new M1 iPad Pro.

So Grand Finale 2 seems like in some ways it’s more “professional,” such as having a layout that mirrors physical mastering equipment and appearing to have a companion desktop app as well. It has mostly the same features as the original but designed differently visually and with one or two brand new things to play with. However, I already have an issue with it, and that is the fact you can’t save user presets. In the original app you could master a song, then save your settings as a user preset and make the next song faster (no two songs are ever mastered the same but it still made it way faster). Not an option here, sadly.

Grand Finale 2 is absolutely worth the small price it costs. If you work with GarageBand, which supports 24-bit depth recording, you can get some great sounds and utility from this great plugin- on the go. It sounds great. With the lack of a true “master fader” in the iOS version (specifically), Grand Finale 2 can be inserted on any track of your choice, with tools like a high-pass filter (20, 35, and 70 Hz), input gain going into the first compressor (Default, Gentle, or Hard); access to a multi-band compressor, featuring settings like “Tighten bass” etc.; a stereo imager + EQ (Default, Acoustic, Ambient); saturation/“Distortion” with various modes, and another compressor with an additional make-up gain knob; and finally into the plugin output section, which amazingly uses LUFS as the metering/level visual, and an optional limiter (Fast, Medium, Slow). I’ve been playing, writing, recording, mixing/mastering music for 24 years and am a certified recording engineer. Ableton is my primary DAW but if I’m working remotely, on anything remotely serious, I will absolutely use Grand Finale 2, whether it’s while composing, or even making adjustments to a 24-bit stereo master in GarageBand while on the go- this app is worth every penny, in my honest opinion! Thanks for reading this review; I hope this helps you to decide to buy this awesome iOS audio plugin, and understand what it provides as a tool for your audio production work. <3 -Matt

Is such a useful tool in recording music. I highly recommend it.

I use Beatmaker 3 as my DAW. I love making music on it but my final exported mix always lacked some punch or polish. After doing some research I was happy to see that Klevgränd had a simple but powerful mastering focused app. I’ve had good experiences with ReAmp and Pipa so I decided to purchase Grand Finale 2. I’ve spent an hour playing with it this morning and already made significant improvements to two tracks. Very, very pleased with this app since it allows me to stay completely on my iPad for music production. Thank you Klevgränd!

GF1 was pretty good but stopped working properly. GF2 is more accessible and does a great job. The presets are a good starting point for tweaking and sometimes do the job as-is. 😎👍🏼

Be careful if using GarageBand and don’t save as a project or you cant open the file in the app. I emailed tech support and they responded quickly. Other than that GB issue which isn’t this apps fault, it works great. I needed to replace Finaltouch and was also looking at Larssun mastering app. You can also add this to GB as an extension so you can master within the GB app.