Processing plugin advice- esp harmonic exciter type

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srmd22

New member
I need a few plugins for mixing and mastering. I was looking at Ozone, which looks like it'll be great for mastering. I also need a harmonic exciter-type plug-in, and I was wondering if one can use Ozone's version for mixing as well as mastering, or if you need to supplement with something like BBE sonic maximizer or some sort of waves thing (all suggestions welcome).

Also, I came across Liquid Mix 16 on this forum, which looks sort of cool, and the price seems to be around $200 on the net. Seems to be an outboard USB or Firewire gewgaw with emulated compression and eq. I am interested, but it is a fairly old product now. Is it still a good option, and would it be a good alternative to other processing plug-ins with similar functions (comp, eq, whatever else is in there)? Or has it been eclipsed by some newer products.

I record, mix and master (although I would not brag about my mixing and mastering skills, but I do it anyway) on both PC and Mac, in Pro Tools LE 7.4 (about to upgrade to 8, especially for the pitch shifting and play list and midi edit improvements, but afraid that'll it'll knack my whole system, which I just finally got working smoothly, with all the damn plug-ins and what nots).

The mastering functions are actually secondary, as I am mostly mixing atm. I am thinking along the lines of Ozone (because it seems like a lot of bang for the buck to spice up a tune, if I can figure out how to use it) and something along the lines of BBE or one of the freeware exciters out there. If the software is limited to one platform, it'd have to be PC, where I do most of my work these days. (PITA to move files to my macbook to edit on the go, when all the plugins are not replicated, so I try to stick to stuff that works on both, but I am looking at Voxengo also, which I believe is PC only).

Thanks.
 
I'm not the expert, but I've heard a lot of people criticize Ozone on here.....Sounds like what I hear most people say is that you use the standard tools. Compressor, Eq, etc....no "Magic Plug" that makes your mixes better. Oh yeah, and monitors and room treatment. Not spoken from personal experience, but from a bit of experience reading and listening to those are.
 
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OneWerd said:
I'm not the expert, but I've heard a lot of people criticize Ozone on here.....Sounds like what I hear most people say is that you use the standard tools. Compressor, Eq, etc....no "Magic Plug" that makes your mixes better. Oh yeah, and monitors and room treatment. Not spoken from personal experience, but from a bit of experience reading and listening to those are.
Click to expand...

Second that, Ozone is just a plugin that wraps EQ, reverb, compression, stereo imaging, harmonic exciting, and a loudness maximizer all into one. It comes with a bunch of presets, but most of them suck and just make your mix sound shitty. If you know how to use the effects that it has, then you can get some good spice out of it, but you might be better off just using the standard plugs you probably already have.

edit:
and room treatment and monitors and practice
 
Cool, glad I asked! So most seasoned mixers just use compression, eq, etc independently on tracks if they feel it is needed, rather then these "exciters"? Makes sense, but on the other hand, if BBE has a plug that handily does it all for you in one fell swoop, seems tempting.

The reason I was thinking about it is that there are some posts scattered about praising their utility. I have to admit, though, usually when I put a plug on a track, I rarely find a preset I like, and usually have to tweak or start from scratch to get what sounds best to me (suspect as that may be).
 
Exciters

I've heard mixed reviews about the BBE...knew a guy that went to perform at a beat battle and tossed it onto all of his mixes prior, thinking that it made all of them "pound" a lot harder. Turns out he wasn't very pleased with the results when he left the studio and played it over the live PA. I've had similar experiences with my Aphex Exciter. Tracks seem to glisten and thump when I run them through in my studio with my monitors, but sound like utter trash when I take them out to the car. I've found that much more conservative applications of compression and eq yield much better results....:)
 
I get the feeling that this is a common feeling about these apps. I think I might try something like Ozone, just to see if it is any help to me, since I don't have very many plugins anyway. But I sense there is no quick fix.
 
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