Ah, Ozone 4... From hell's heart, I stab at thee - For hate's sake, I spit my last breath at thee.
Okay, that may be a bit strong, but wow -- I still can't believe what's in those presets... And notice I said "4" (and previous versions also) and not "5" as I've heard from Izotope (and I've heard that I may have had something to do with it) that 5 doesn't have Haas filters on the low end in any of the new presets and they've put it a little "deeper" in the GUI so it isn't so easy to "accidentally" engage.
I'd have to imagine you could hear it -- I've heard it on nearly everything I've tried. You can even make it out on cans to some extent. I'm sure it's easier and more apparent on better monitors in better rooms -- But if you can actually slide your low end to the side - even by only a few milliseconds - and not have it make you aurally nauseous, there is no hope for anything else.
Anyway - and I know I'm digressing - (Massive's digressing?!? Wow - that never happens...) - but I honestly can't even relate to presets (for anything other than "goofing around" and/or showing me what a plug's capabilities are. When I listen to a mix for the first time, I try to take in what's there and mentally establish its potential (for lack of a better term). What are the weak points and how to minimize them; what are the strong points and how to maximize them; what does it need to ensure that it will translate (again, according to its potential) to the widest possibly array of playback scenarios. Is there anything "crazy and goofy" going on (sibilance, hum, buzz, crackles, pops, etc.). Then the 'technical' stuff -- How much gain (positive OR negative) does it need to bring it to operating level; what is the order of the potential chain; etc., etc.
That's usually a "verse/chorus" thing -- Then (assuming I'm digital here) I bounce around for a few seconds and see if there are any big changes.
Then I shut it off and make the chain in my head. Just as an example -- On a tune I just did before typing this - I brought the level up around 6dB digitally (ahhh... headroom...) while listening. Right off the bat, there's some 'mud' off to the sides, there's a bit much 2.5kHz on the guitars, too much 3.5kHz on the lead vocal, not enough on the backing vox, some brittleness on the hat and some "woom" in the bottom (sounds like a bit of a shopping list, but it's pretty normal). Set up SpitFish to deal with the hat (took a guess on the settings). Broke out the Fab Filter Q. Rolled off the (mono) bottom a bit around 40Hz, cut everything on the sides (gently) below 120Hz, 200Hz dip in the side info, 400Hz (stereo) down 1dB, 2.5kHz (stereo) down .75dB, 3.5kHz 1dB down in the mono information, 1.5dB up in the side information, 7.5kHz down about 1 dB. Elephant brought it up 2dB while just "kissing" gain reduction on the hard stuff, FGX brought up another dB and softened the top a bit. Out of the HEDD, into the (Dangerous) BAX for +0.5dB of 74Hz shelf, +1dB of 18kHz, through the STC-8M for about a dB of gain reduction and around 3dB of clean gain back into the HEDD.
Turned it back on -- Liked it. Fine-tuned everything (the settings I mentioned were closer to the final settings that the original "rough" settings, but I only changed a few things - and the SpitFish, of course). Listened to the whole thing through for the first time, noticed a spot or two that didn't like the additional gain - brought it all down about .5dB and automated a curve or two on some extreme transients.
The "rough" was 3 or 4 minutes, the "fine-tune" was another couple of listens. Notice that nowhere in there did I attempt - or have I ever purposefully attempted, a time/phase shift in the low end. Except on the occasion of demonstrating what a terrible thing it would be to do.
[/DIGRESSION]
Now where the hell was I anyway? Oh yeah -- If there was a preset called [all that stuff I did], I would've loaded it. But there isn't. You need to know what you're hearing, know what you "want" to hear vs. what you're hearing and know how to take it there. Anything else and you're "guessing" (for lack of better terminology).
And the SHORT STORY (oh yes - It was possible to skip all that stuff above) is that if you're simply boosting some volume and EQ'ing a bit (A) for preference and (B) to "counteract" the side-effects of sheer volume, then you're probably not wandering into the "danger (O)zone" of all the nasty, terrible things that presets might do -- No matter the plug -- An EQ, a compressor, Ozone, T-Racks, whatever. I don't want to seem "anti-Ozone" - It's just that Ozone seems to make it terribly simple to completely destroy mixes in ways that other plugs can only dream about. No, they can't even dream about it -- Because no one -- NO ONE -- in their right minds would ever dream of doing some of the things that plug does as incorporated into a preset -- unless that preset was called "utter mix destruction" or something like that.
) and i only use Ozone to "finalize" my own mixes of my own recordings, pure hobbyist.
