The project page makes it incredibly easy to manage an album. By linking your songs to a project you can ensure you're always working on the latest mix - you can jump into a song, make a tweak to the mix, go back to the project and hit update. Then theres the organization and metadata aspect of it. I'm not going to touch on the mastering tools itself because all the same processing can be done on the song page too.

If I were mastering a 1-3 song project, I could get by with doing it on the song page, but for more than that the tedious tasks like exporting start adding up and I'd refuse to do it in anything other than the project page.

johnstaggs wroteThank you all for your generous time and knowledge. I have a 10 song album that I am ready to master and distribute. First endeavor. I know most of you have done this and any advise would be greatly appreciated. Looking at Distrokid as distributor? PROBLEM: SONGS ARE RECORDED IN S1 ARTIST; THERE IS NO PROJECT PAGE. From my research, the project page seems essential to placing songs in order, balancing levels, mastering etc. for distribution. I'm planning on purchasing S1 5 pro to achieve this. Please advise. Thank you.

I'd suggest taking out a 1 month subscription to Sphere and mastering the album in that month. Then you can decide whether to carry on the sub, or stop the sub and purchase S1 Pro outright, or stop the sub and go back to S1 Artist.

One word of caution. Make sure you back up your Artist songs somewhere safe before you open them in V5 because you could easily end up with them saved in a newer format that your Artist cannot open.

Having said all of that there are plenty of people who master their own albums in other DAWs without any form of project page. There is no doubt the project page is useful but it is by no means essential.

You can technically make the "Song page" your "Project Page" as well. Mix down all the songs, open a new session. Place each song on it's own track, so that each song starts at the end of the previous song. Do any track EQs, fx that you need. Any overall mastering effects you would want could go in the Master bus.

You do lose out on some nice features that the project page such as Digital Release. DDP release and the various displays / frequency / loudness analysis things, but you CAN master a project this way.

Honestly, to me, it's worth it to go Pro for much more than just the Project page.