iZotope Ozone 3?

[Styxx]

Anyone of you use this Mastering software? I was going to download it but couldn't find system requirement listings. Wondering if it will bog down my system only having 2.66 MHz processor Pentium 4, 2 gigs ram, ham sandwiched, cup a joe and a toola box.
Wandering if it be worth downloading.

Thanks shmorgishboard! :D

[mistahamma]

I don't use Ozone, but I've considered it. From what I understand, it will run on your system without problems, but it will be pretty CPU intensive. I use the Har-Bal system for most of my mastering needs. Worth checking out if you don't know about it.

www.har-bal.com

Jim

[Houston Haynes]

It's a mastering plugin - in fact, it's a suite of mastering plugins in one interface. It is supposed to be CPU intensive. That said - you should only be running a stereo track (or group of tracks summed to stereo), so it's not like there *should* be a bunch of other stuff running on your system. It should run fine on yours as long as you're not crazy. Wait - forgot who I'm responding to...

:|:

Seriously - there's not a single stereo mix that leaves my studio without processing through Ozone first. The latest update (the trial should be updated to) had some nice tweaks to smooth out the reponse for crossover adjustments - along with a few other bells and whistles. Download the demo and try it.

[wst3ae]

Not to be contrarian... oh what the heck!

A mastering plugin is a market-speak construction, nothing more!

And I mean no disrespect to the nice folks at Izotope, their plugins are marvelous, really powerful, sound great, work well, and are priced quite competitively.

My bugaboo here is the use of the term mastering with respect to audio processors. It just isn't right.

In the old days of hardware there were, from time to time, compressors and equalizers that were built specifically for the mastering engineers that practiced this craft.

Some were designed from the ground up, others were modified versions of already popular hardware. The usual modifications included replacing potentiometers with switches, and vastly upgraded power supplies and audio paths to improve the signal to noise ratio.

But that is not what mastering is all about.

Mastering is the icing on the cake. It is that last pass on a finished mix that makes it even better than it was, usually in very subtle ways.

A good mastering engineer can do magic. With a touch of compression here and a tiny tweak of a filter there they can do everything from fixing minor problems that snuck past the mixing engineer to adding the glue that holds a project together.

The later is the root of the whole mastering process, and the need for it. One can have magnificent mixes of twelve songs in the can, but when you string them together they just don't sound right. One may be too loud or two quiet, or the order might be wrong, but whatever, during the mastering stage all the problems are resolved.

Mastering ought to take place in a room designed for mastering. A room designed for mastering is distinctly different than a room designed for tracking and/or mixing. And more important, the mastering suite includes the mastering engineers ears.

Now I generally make a pre-mastering pass when I finish a product. If the client is using the recordings as a demo to try to get work at a club that may be all we do. But if the finished product is going to be a CD for distribution I'll send them to a mastering facility.

None of that really answers the question asked... but I do get concerned that folks spend all this time writing, recording, and mixing, and then skip the last step. They miss out on so much!

I own, and use quite regularly, both Vinyl and Spectron. They are amazing tools, and amazing values! I've also played around with the demos for Radius, MP, Trash, and Ozone 1, 2, and 3. They all do wonderful stuff, and with each new tool I become more and more impressed with their programming prowess.

If you do not already have a compressor and filters (equalizer) that you are comfortable with Ozone3 would be a great choice.

I'm also a huge fan of plugins from Kjaerhaus, United Audio, Voxengo, DB Audioware, the former Sonitus and DSPFx, and even Waves, (though I find their copy protection and general attitude towards their customers to be anti customer, and thus I have not upgraded since V3.)

There are a lot of plugins out there at different price points. They all have qualities, most have minor annoyances, and it really depends on (a) what you want to do, (b) your ears, and (c) your bankbook. Sometimes the later has the biggest impact, which is too bad, but reality.

Just don't fall for the misnomer "mastering plugin!"

Don't know what that annoys me so much, just does!

Bill

[Houston Haynes]

Bill - you're right, in essence. Mastering and pre-mastering are two different things. Most people don't know the difference, you being the exception. Of course I was talking about pre-mastering, but as a convenience, I was talking about mastering as a convenience to refer to the final step before delivering the piece to the outside world - be it a mastering engineer to assemble into a CD/album - or to a website of my own design. I too have plugins from Voxengo, Kjearhus Audio, and a few other vendors, yet still rely on iZotope's Ozone 3 as the final step before anyone outside of my studio hears my music.

[wst3ae]

And therein lies the challenge... at least one challenge<G>!

I think a lot of folks know the difference! And more to the point, using whatever tool you choose to prepare audio for whatever purpose is valid. As long as the tool fits the task.

Companies that market to folks that don't know the difference make me a wee bit crazy.

There's nothing at all wrong with the Izotope plugins, including Ozone3. And their "mastering guide" (do they still provide that?) was really well done in most respects.

My only niggle is promising someone that by purchasing a software suite they too can master their own album.

As an aside, one of the things that continues to impress me about Gary is that he doesn't promise things he can't deliver. At least I don't remember any advertisements that told me I'd never need to hire a real musician again if I bought GPO or JABB. Ironically, I am able to create much better mockups with these two tools than I was ever able to create with other sample libraries!

It strikes me as odd that a company that has written as many good plugins as they have resorts to this tactic.

That's all...

[Houston Haynes]

It strikes me as odd that a company that has written as many good plugins as they have resorts to this tactic.

That's all...

Dude - you're barking up the wrong tree. Kjaerhus Audio, Voxengo, and iZotope all three have the same soft sell. None of them are over-promising. You're just putting words into their mouth so you can feel like you're making a point.

Ozone's Mastering guide can be found here. (http://www.izotope.com/products/audio/ozone/guides.html)

It's also known as "buy our plugin and you'll have a Grammy in your hip pocket this time next year."

:rolleyes:

For what it's worth, I've gotten more work to master other people's productions (film and television) based on my pre-mastering of my own material, so I don't think it's out of the question to produce print-ready material in-house. You just have to be careful when you do it. There are no easy answers, just complicated answers that make more sense - and iZotope Ozone is one of them.

<G>!

[Styxx]

Fist off, the reason for my enquiry was simple to try something new but not to replace something obvious. I downloaded the ten-day trial and found the tool to be interesting and useful to a certain extent. Mostly, I was satisfying a curiosity of the unknown. Mainly, to use as another tool in my arsenal of mastering tools which I am currently adding and learning more of. To say that one package such as Ozone will do the absolute trick and master your music to the ultimate perfection would be excessive. I took my courses in Recording Engineering in college yet not as a credit but as a need to learn bases. Nothing can take the place of an engineer with a great "ear"! Even the best tools of the trade can be useless in the hands of an untrained person. Not saying I have a "golden ear" but I have the desire to learn and become more knowledgeable and trying something for ten days just adds to the data banks of knowledge.
Furthermore, for the record, I found it quite a useful yet not the means to an end, piece of software. I used it on a vocal track for a demo and it was quite impressive especially when working with the parameters. In no way shape of form would I endorse this product as "The Means To An End" in mastering your music. However, I will say, so far, I haven't been dissatisfied.
Thank you all for your input. Greatly appreciated!

[Brian2112]

Forget all that "good ear" stuff.:eek: :p Just run the final 2 through Ozone, pick a preset (I usually use one that looks nice and has a nice title like "Mastering for people who have no clue":D ) - and let it rip.

Seriously - good plug (IMO) esp if you know what you want to do...


...2112:)

[wst3ae]

Dude - you're barking up the wrong tree. Kjaerhus Audio, Voxengo, and iZotope all three have the same soft sell. None of them are over-promising. You're just putting words into their mouth so you can feel like you're making a point.


I don't get the same impression from Kjaerhaus and Voxengo that I get from iZotope... but that could just be me. Perhaps it is the "Mastering Guide?"


For what it's worth, I've gotten more work to master other people's productions (film and television) based on my pre-mastering of my own material, so I don't think it's out of the question to produce print-ready material in-house. You just have to be careful when you do it. There are no easy answers, just complicated answers that make more sense - and iZotope Ozone is one of them.


No question that it can be done. Most of the top dogs in the mastering sphere started somewhere<G>! My point was not that someone could not use something from the vast array of plugins out there to do real mastering, but rather that mastering is way more than just making it as loud as possible, or buying the "right" plugin.

I don't think we disagree here...

Bill

[Houston Haynes]

I don't get the same impression from Kjaerhaus and Voxengo that I get from iZotope... but that could just be me. Perhaps it is the "Mastering Guide?"

Interesting that you point that out - here's something from the Intro of the doc:


Don’t worry. It’s not that you’re doing anything wrong. There are just some things you still need to do to get that “sound”. You just need the right tools and an understanding of how touse them. You won’t become Bob Ludwig overnight (or probably ever) but you can make dramatic improvements in your master recordings with a little work.

We put this document together to help others in their quest for better sounding masters. We don’t claim to be mastering masters. If we could master the next Christina Aguilera hit would we be writing code and manuals or sitting in a mastering studio with Christina Aguilera?

What we can give you is professional quality mastering software (iZotope Ozone™) and guidance on how to use it. But in the end there are no right answers, no wrong answers, and no rules.


I don't think we disagree here...


Except for your overreaching generalizations and slanted opinion of Ozone, yeah - in large part we agree.

[Markleford]

I have Ozone (only up to 2, though), and don't find that they oversell its purpose.

Really the only thing that any of these plugins oversell is that if you want your track to sound like it's professionally mastered, HIRE A PROFESSIONAL. :D I personally don't have the ears or monitors or meters to do it right. Besides the fact that you likely want someone else to finish your work as they'll approach it with fresh perspective.

That said, almost all the music on my site is devoid of this "finalization" (in lieu of "mastering") process.

- m

[Styxx]

Interesting finding working on a demo for a country singer. She sung five songs one being "Here For The Party", Gretchen Wilson. Anyhow, my practice is to record several takes using different mixes and writing down changes to settings per mix. Before I downloaded Ozone I did several mixes without Ozone using several different tools I already have, on the vocal track ONLY. Mix number five was without Ozone 3. Mix number 15 was with Ozone 3 done a day later, vocal track only. As I was driving this morning, I popped in the master CD (master but not "mastered"). Number 5 was clearly a better mix "vocally" without Ozone 3 than 15 was with it. However, some of the other songs had a clearer mix with Ozone 3 (on vocal only) than without. So, I guess it's safe to say it all depends on your ears and what you are trying to put across in the mix.

[Styxx]

One last observation.
If you are going to use Ozone 3 at all, make sure you use it as the last in a chain if used with anything else. It seemed to be less effective especially if inserted in midstream. ;)

[Markleford]

One last observation.
If you are going to use Ozone 3 at all, make sure you use it as the last in a chain if used with anything else. It seemed to be less effective especially if inserted in midstream. ;)
Well there are much better plugins to put mid-stream! Look for ones that are described as "channel strips", which mimic all the functionality of their analog counterparts. Typically you'd have one across each channel or bus, before the panning and mixing stage, to temper the parts into relative balance by reeling in dynamic extremes (compressor/limiter/expander) and carving out a frequency space (EQ).

Definitely Ozone is the wrong thing to put there! It's just overkill.

- m

[Houston Haynes]

One last observation.
If you are going to use Ozone 3 at all, make sure you use it as the last in a chain if used with anything else. It seemed to be less effective especially if inserted in midstream.

What you think you are hearing is not a product of a specific plugin. The changes you hear from re-ordering of inserts (just as with the modules within Ozone itself) can have a profound effect [pun] on the outcome.

Double-check the ordering of effects within Ozone, and make sure that you don't have a particular module ON when you're replacing that function with another plug in the chain (unless you *want* them to interact, of course). I know an engineer that always has two instances of Ozone opened on either side of an external multi-band comp, because he can just grab a knob and tweak cutoffs and cross-overs, etc. So, wherever he wanted it in a different slot in the chain, he would just activate/deactivate sections of the Ozone plugin above and below that point, so he could control for what he was hearing.

If you have two compressors in series, changing their order can have a significant impact on the sound - that principle is used to advantage in a number of circumstances (and shows up as a feature in channel strip plugins like Voxengo's Voxformer). So - it's not always a bad thing (same goes for EQs - particularly those that have different cutoff slopes and/or a particular "sound") but you always want to have a great deal of intent behind the changes you make at the mix/pre-mastering stage, as it's the only thing between you and (eventually) the outside world.

[Houston Haynes]

Definitely Ozone is the wrong thing to put there! It's just overkill.

I disagree - I use Ozone's multi-band compressor on guitars and pianos all the time - I just deactivate the modules I don't need to keep from wasting CPU power.

[Markleford]

I disagree - I use Ozone's multi-band compressor on guitars and pianos all the time - I just deactivate the modules I don't need to keep from wasting CPU power.
And I almost said, "...unless you turn off pretty much *all* the modules except one or two." ;)

The problem comes when it's applied as a panacea by people learning how to use it. "Sounds good on my whole mix, why not every track?" Unfortunately, they usually take it to overkill lengths by listening to it with tracks soloed and saying "Yeah, sounds great!" without understanding the muck it will make later (particularly if they're still preset wranglers).

That said, I'm really not sure if Ozone is the most efficient multiband compressor to use in multiples, given that they intended it for use as a mastering effect. However, I'll leave the benchmarking to someone who has the time.

- m

[Houston Haynes]

:D

Great timing - from the KVR Forum (http://www.kvraudio.com/index.php?s=main#news5743):


iZotope has released updates for Ozone (v3.10), Trash (v1.09), Spectron (v1.09) and Vinyl (v1.73), all featuring the same change:

* Improves processor performance, especially in Pro Tools.