Ozone 6 thoughts....

G

Goss-stick

New member
Went to Guitar Center and the workers there were speaking really highly of Ozone 6 for mastering. Can I get some thoughts and feedback? Thanks
 
I've always been convinced that if you want to do as much damage as possible, as efficiently and expeditiously as possible to an otherwise perfectly decent mix, load up Ozone.

Otherwise -- I know a few guys who like the limiting or the dither.
 
I think it's easy to use Ozone to mess up your songs, but I also believe it has the tools necessary to do a decent mastering job; especially in the home recording realm. If you use the presets, you'll probably ruin your songs like Massive says. If you take the time to learn when and how to use the tools, it's possible to get your collection of songs to work together.

For Ozone, the dither process is a no-brainer. Turn it on and don't think about it. I love the limiter; set the ceiling to where you want and then vary the threshold to match perceived volume between songs. It is simple and it works good. The EQ is pretty good, but it does take some time to get a feel for how it responds.

What I don't like is:
- The Master Reverb. WFT is that?
- The Multi-band compressor. At first it sounds good, but after listening to your songs for a while, your ears get tired. And it takes a lot of work to set it where you need for each song. I don't think it is worth it.
- The Stereo widener thing. Completely unnecessary. Acts weird. Sounds like garbage.
- The Harmonic Exciter. To me, it's like another MBC. Adds to overall harshness and fatigues the ears.

The two most important things you need to master an album are not in Ozone; a decent listening environment and well-trained ears. This is where I'm at right now. I don't have enough trust in my room to think I'm going to put out a good product on my next CD. But I'm debating whether my tunes are worth the money to have professionally mastered. I recently finished mastering a cd of 12 songs using Ozone 5 and Wavelab Elements. In my studio, they sound great, but I have yet to take them elsewhere to see if they translate.
 
I've never heard of a professional mastering engineer using it, personally I'm not a fan either, it sounds crap on pretty much anything.
 
Atleast at the guitar center by my place, the people who sell stuff doesn't really know much about audio stuff. You would think they would be pretty knowledgeable, but they are not. So be careful abut what they tell you.
 
I certainly didn't want to be the first GC slammer in the thread, but I'll happily be the second.

I recently walked into a GC and -- in the "Pro Sound" area, mind you -- Talking with the floor manager -- asked for an AES cable.

"A what?"

"An AES cable...? AES/EBU...? Digital audio...?"

"Oh, a S/PDIF?"

"No - an AES/EBU - "Pro" digital. Looks like a microphone cable."

"We've got plenty of mic cable..."

"I don't need a mic cable though."

Blah, blah, blah -- I finally found one on the Hosa rack. But CTFO, man... Am I the only one in the Chicago area that uses AES/EBU cables? They've got plenty of digital equipment with AES I/O...

30 years ago, you could sort of count on the knowledge. Or maybe I was just dealing with people who had some sort of an idea. These days, I don't even walk through the door unless I know exactly what I need and know where to find it.
 
In my experience, its a not bad tool to show you how a lot of different effects are impacting your mix.

For me, a basement warrior only mixing for myself, I find it useful when I am unsure on which direction to take a mix. I find all the presets to be exaggerated versions of what you might want. Its easier to hear what is happening when its exaggerated. Which is why alot of people will tell you to PUSH up a setting until its audible and then BACK DOWN a little. The BEST mastering.. is the mastering you don't really hear.. or at least subtle. The presets go over the top and aren't great as is.. but as you shuffle through you'll hear things that strike you as interesting. At that point I'll go through and start tweaking everything and backing it down.

I have also been known to.. ... .. :facepalm:.. load ozone to find some presets that I like, then duplicate it with other more favored plug-ins. LMAO
 
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Massive Master said:
I certainly didn't want to be the first GC slammer in the thread, but I'll happily be the second.

I recently walked into a GC and -- in the "Pro Sound" area, mind you -- Talking with the floor manager -- asked for an AES cable.

"A what?"

"An AES cable...? AES/EBU...? Digital audio...?"

"Oh, a S/PDIF?"

"No - an AES/EBU - "Pro" digital. Looks like a microphone cable."

"We've got plenty of mic cable..."

"I don't need a mic cable though."

Blah, blah, blah -- I finally found one on the Hosa rack. But CTFO, man... Am I the only one in the Chicago area that uses AES/EBU cables? They've got plenty of digital equipment with AES I/O...

30 years ago, you could sort of count on the knowledge. Or maybe I was just dealing with people who had some sort of an idea. These days, I don't even walk through the door unless I know exactly what I need and know where to find it.
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This kind of surprises me. I worked there for a seasonal gig, and they made me get "certified" in whatever department I was going to work in. This meant taking extensive tests that you had to score 90%+ on to be considered proficient in that department.

There was a lot of reading, too. Like, several 50 page packets that I had to read just to get into the guitar department. I've played guitar for almost 10 years, and good lord, I thought I was an idiot after reading all that info.

Maybe the employee you dealt with was just super lazy and had a tab open with the answers to all of the quizzes so that he could pass them and get to work sooner... I took a little more pride in it. I got certified in all but the drums department before I left there after 2 months of working (only because I ran out of time, not because I don't care for drums). That was my favorite part was studying their material to learn more about music gear and whatnot.
 
I have Wavelab elements, and it seems it won't let me use some of the cubase plugins, I also own Ozone 4, and can upgrade to Ozone 6 for $99. I'm wondering if I already have everything I need?

thoughts?

thanks.
 
I use Ozone 5 with WLE 8. It's about all I need.

I will say this, I recently sent my tunes off to a mastering studio to be done professionally. The reason: to remove the horrible acoustics of my little studio from my tunes. I just can't be sure what I'm hearing translates across all listening platforms.

They sent me back individual files and I will use WLE to assemble them into a CD. Then it's off to Kunaki.
 
Chili said:
I use Ozone 5 with WLE 8. It's about all I need.

I will say this, I recently sent my tunes off to a mastering studio to be done professionally. The reason: to remove the horrible acoustics of my little studio from my tunes. I just can't be sure what I'm hearing translates across all listening platforms.

They sent me back individual files and I will use WLE to assemble them into a CD. Then it's off to Kunaki.
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cool. thanks!
 
I think Ozone 5 is a great tool, especially if you're doing everything yourself. But........as Massive has already stated.......you can completely ruin your song in a very short amount of time. If you watch all (6 I think) videos from FordeeTV on youtube, teaching how to use but not abuse each section you'll be a lot farther ahead than just diving in. Also Groove 3 has some great tutorials using Ozone 5. Chili said a mouthful when he questioned whether or not his songs were worth spending the money on mastering. Most of the mastering houses I've spoken to are in the $150 to $200 per song range. That's a lot to spend unless you know you can sell all your cd's. You can learn a lot by learning how to use the mastering suites like Ozone, and Waves etc. One thing I try to do is A-B my job against a commercial release by dragging the track from the cd right in to the pro tools session. I try to use older recordings, before things got really squashed and loud (some of Bonnie Raiits's older stuff or Free's first album)
Professional mastering is a lot of work and most have a bunch of money in their rooms and equipment and they earn every dime! But if you don't have the money you can learn to do a decent job.......just be careful and patient.
 
Ozone is good if you know how to use it.
Most people I see online are using ALL THE DAMN PLUGINS - ALL 6 OF THEM just because they have them.

Just use some EQ or multiband compressor if needed.

Don't add everything just because you can, of course you'll destroy a balanced mix.

I love everything in ozone, except the maximizer.
This thing gives loudness but destroys the punch/dynamics.

My chain is usually ozone (not everything) -> steven slate fg-x :)

The trick is to know when you should NOT use something and not they quanity of the plugins you're using.
 
So as someone very new to all of this, All I hear about is Ozone to master to increase the volume of your tracks once you've got a good mix.

What is the alternative to Ozone? Limiting and the like? Can you get the same kind of volume using limiting?
 
Yes. That is what gives the music the volume, even in Ozone. You can use any limiter. The limiter in Ozone is pretty easy to use and will be transparent until you go too far with it.
 
For me, the limiter is easy to work with. Set the cap and it doesn't go over it, vary the threshold to match the different songs. I know nothing about Logic, but I don't think one would be louder than the other.

I like the EQ section, too. I don't use the exciter section nor the stereo enhancer. I might use the multiband compressor, or at least experiment with it to help identify problems in my mix.
 
PhilLondon said:
So why use Ozone?
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Asking the question is answering it. Why indeed? They probably have a better marketing department than other companies.

But, first of all, there's way more to mastering than just "louderizing", though it is part of it. Any good limiter will get you volume. Ozone is no better than any other "mastering suite", and the tools contained in it are no better than each of those tools by any other company. It's certainly no magic program like a lot of un-informed people think it is.
 
RAMI said:
But, first of all, there's way more to mastering than just "louderizing", though it is part of it. Any good limiter will get you volume. Ozone is no better than any other "mastering suite", and the tools contained in it are no better than each of those tools by any other company.
Click to expand...

Yup, it's like 5 or 6 different tools wrapped up in one package. Just like which DAW to use, it's the user interface that separates them out. The controls might look different, but the functions are still the same; EQ, Limiter, Dither, etc. You can do the same thing with individual plugs.
 
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