Ozone 11

[AlbertSmithers]

I usually try a couple of presets, and then try the auto mastering. If it ends up sounding better, I use it.

 

[K.Pietras / Pssst! Instruments]

No matter how well I do balancing / EQ'ing individual tracks / stems, I find that arrangement differences across sections can use the adaptive "smart" EQ to keep them relatively balanced.

Of course you may be right, I did not use exactly these tools.

However my experience is different. I have been using similar tools with a "great final effect" impression. After years it usually didn't sound as great as I heard it while doing it.

Now the mix is a priority for me. If mix is ok, mastering should be a simple formality.

I make master in my main session. In the first step I add limiter on the master and check how it sounds. If it's too quite, I edit mix in same session. The rest of mastering-related tweaks are on specific purpose.

 

[motomotomoto]

Only Ozone 9 Elements in past, but now Ozone11 Advanced. Any hints on identifying this TGP emulation from Ozone 4 ?

You can’t recreate exactly without ozone 4 because izotopes algos changed, but you can get close. Read the gear space thread, it is super long but people in there shared the preset as close as you can get in ozone11. Also you can watch old streams from Jaycen Joshua and he shows the preset. Point of my comment was not that there is something magic about that preset (there isn’t), but that sometimes mixing into tools like ozone are better than applying after.

 

[robgb]

I think the mastering assistant is fine, but you should only use it as a guideline. Trust your ears.

 

[Aymara]

You can’t recreate exactly without ozone 4 ...

As I said, it might be worth trying out the free Izotope Audiolens to create your own presets.

 

[jcrosby]

BTW Do you guys use compressor in your standard mastering chain? I use multiband only for specific purposes (e.g. when I am lazy and do not check if all sfx in my project have "not too high" volume).

Not as a 'rule', but if I'm working on more aggressive genres with a lot of heavy sub bass (trailer cues, electronic, or urban genres, etc) then I often find I prefer a little multiband compression on the sub (often in parallel). If a mix feels a little unglued I may try parallel compressing the mids a little... I find I tend to prefer a pretty long attack (50-100 ms), to give the mix a little more of an attack envelope before being crushed by any limiting and/or clipping.

 

[jcrosby]

BTW I recently saw someone demonstrate a really clever mastering technique they use with Ozone 11, now that it has transient/sustain separation.

They'll turn 'soft clipping' on in the EQ (in the EQ's preferences menu, under the "EQ" tab), then find a few areas where they do a few small boosts to bring some transient punch back after limiting. Not the kind of technique you'd use for classical music, but I could see this being a handy trick to have in your pocket for aggressive and electronic genres.

The awesome thing about the EQ is it's zero latency by default, making this the kind of trick you can use in a template on some of your busses without adding latency.

PS - @K.Pietras / Pssst! Instruments Shhh is a kickass library

 

[K.Pietras / Pssst! Instruments]

BTW I recently saw someone demonstrate a really clever mastering technique they use with Ozone 11, now that it has transient/sustain separation.

Interesting. Btw I need to finaly take a closer look at the "clip to zero" technique, did you try it?

PS - @K.Pietras / Pssst! Instruments Shhh is a kickass library

Thanks man! I love it too haha. But seriously, I use it all the time in my projects

 

[jcrosby]

Interesting. Btw I need to finaly take a closer look at the "clip to zero" technique, did you try it?

I've seen a few people post a video about 'clipping to zero', is that what you mean? If so I don't do that. I can see how it's useful for certain styles of EDM, but unless I were making something really aggressive (like drum and bass) I personally think you lose too much detail that way... (That's an aesthetic choice though... There are a lot of drum and bass artists I like that I know do it...)

That said, the one thing I do that's kind of similar is I use Inflator all over the place. I find its wave shaping curve is a lot gentler, meaning that most things still retain some level of transients. But if something isn't hitting 0 dB I won't deliberately clip it the turn it back down.

 

[motomotomoto]

Interesting. Btw I need to finaly take a closer look at the "clip to zero" technique, did you try it?



Thanks man! I love it too haha. But seriously, I use it all the time in my projects

I’ve watched the whole clip to zero series and imo it can just be summed up by making each track and bus as loud as possible using clipping and spectrum analyzers to ensure things aren’t all loud at the same time. Great way to make things super loud but also more extreme than needed for all but the loudest genres.

 

[MLaudio]

Depending on the mix, using Exciter to bring out some sheen / presence on the high end I generally prefer to an EQ boost. A high band with the “tape” setting often works great. Imager also gets a lot of use.

My general starting chain when using Ozone.

EQ > Comp / MB Comp > Exciter > Imager > Limiter

Obviously this can change per track but I find this to be a good starting point. Stabilizer occasionally finds its way in there when a mix needs it.

One thing to note, I have never used the master assistant so I can’t comment on it.

 

[Jeremy Spencer]

The mastering assistant is aimed at users, who don't know much about mastering

I use it for nearly everything, it provides a great starting point. Love it.

 

[cmillar]

I'm sure that I'm speaking for a lot of Ozone users when I say that many of us have actually performed with, do perform with, have listened to, and still always listen to live as well as well-recorded music from orchestras, film orchestras, and many other types of ensembles....because we care about great sound.

Guess what? Ozone doesn't ruin anything unless you want it to.

Does the 'Mastering Assistant' always get it right? Of course not!

So you make adjustments. You don't need to use all the modules in Ozone, just the ones that you really like. The 'Stablizer' can really clean a lot of 'mud' out of digital orchestra mixes and sampled ensembles.

And the same goes for the much-often mis-guided hatred for the BBE Sonic Maximizer. There's a long history there from people who know what sound is all about and how it travels through the air. BBE hardware/software can work wonders on different mixes or scenarios.

If you use it properly, it will enhance many mixes in the good way that it's designed for.

Some amazing tools available! I'd rather trust these and my own ears than send my mixes away to someone advertising 'Mastering services' in 5 minutes.

Ozone and BBE take longer than 5 minutes to understand and really get the best out of them.

 

[charlieclouser]

Can any Ozone 11 owners tell me if it does / can use iLok? (Please say yes). Or does it use some phone-home crap authorization, or is tied to your NI auth or what? Thx.

 

[jcrosby]

Can any Ozone 11 owners tell me if it does / can use iLok? (Please say yes). Or does it use some phone-home crap authorization, or is tied to your NI auth or what? Thx.

Yup, iloks an option. Izotope are pretty good about giving you multiple options…

https://support.izotope.com/hc/en-us/articles/6658199993361-How-to-authorize-iZotope-software

 

[Namatikapi]

I use the assistant, I was reluctant at first but it does a better job than me in a lot of situations (or maybe it make it worse but I'm too bad to ear it, it's an eventuallity ). But for the type of music I make, I found it makes too loud some little details that I wanted to be subtle. It put them right on the front and I have to modify that. But for someone like me, who doesn't know how to mix, the results of the assistant is quite useful, and it was a surprise because when I try to use the assistant on Nectar for audiobook voiceover, I hate what it gives me.

 

[packhorse]

Why does the Assistant make the music increase in loudness? Is there a reason for this?

 

[Aymara]

Why does the Assistant make the music increase in loudness? Is there a reason for this?

It's the built-in limiter causing this. It's default is -11 LUFS.

 

[TheMysterium]

On a side note...
If you are mixing AND mastering your own music, like probably many do, you should not have to spend a lot of of time and energy on mastering. Especially since you are in full control of the mix, pretty much everything that is "wrong" with it, can and should be fixed in the mixing phase.
So, if you have a great mix, mastering shouldn't be more than adding a few very moderate final touches (EQ/compression/saturation/imaging) to the mix, only when necessary of course, and bringing up the loudness levels with a limiter/maximizer. Never apply something for no reason... in some cases increasing the loudness only could be enough.
I would not use any AI suggestions for this, use your ears, make a modest FX chain and listen to its effects on the mix while "level matching", meaning that you listen to pre and post FX on the same loudness level. ABLM2 from TBProAudio is a great tool for this.
So anyway, I would focus by far most of your efforts on mixing, which is way more important.... unless you're releasing music on psysical media, mastering is nothing more than adding some last final touches to the mix, when needed... I spoke to a professional mastering engineer once and he said he spends at most 30 minutes on each track.

 

[packhorse]

It's the built-in limiter causing this. It's default is -11 LUFS.

Thanks. Do I need it to be at this level?