Ozone 4 Mastering of a Multiple Track CD

[buzzsmith]

Just curious, and I guess kinda polling...

For the clients that I have who can't afford a "pro" mastering facility, I'll use Ozone 4 and get very good results.

(I do each song as a separate project within DP, so I'll have 12 project files, for instance.)

I'm careful in the mixing to try and have the vocal level consistent from song to song using Inspector XL and a basic mixing board snapshot.

Those that do their own mastering...do you do it within the individual project or take (in this case) all 12 non-mastered mixes into a new project to make it easier to compare levels and visually see the waveforms' densities.

As I'm posting this, I'm kinda thinking this is the better approach?

Thanks, Masters of MotuNation!...

Buzzy

[Phil O]

I do it all in a single project with multiple stereo tracks (one for each song). A master fader is set up for metering, but each track has it's own plug-ins for whatever processing is necessary. For instance if I were using Ozone's dithering, I would have an instance of Ozone as the last plug-in on each track. All tracks are muted and I un-mute each track as I work on it. This allows a quick track-to-track comparison on the fly. I prefer to do fades with fader automation on each track. Spacing between tracks I save 'til later in the burning software. Hope this gives you some ideas!

I usually encourage my clients to take my mixes to a separate mastering house. There's one facility in particular that does a great job. But, I'm seeing budgets that are smaller and smaller lately and I find myself doing more mastering in-house than I'd prefer. You finding the same thing?

Phil

[buzzsmith]

I usually encourage my clients to take my mixes to a separate mastering house. There's one facility in particular that does a great job. But, I'm seeing budgets that are smaller and smaller lately and I find myself doing more mastering in-house than I'd prefer. You finding the same thing?

Phil

Yes. Most of my CD recording projects are local singers that are generally working both their gigs and a "day job", so after the costs of the musicians, the studio, me, and Harry Fox licenses (for non-originals), they've pretty much wiped out (or exceeded!) their budget for additional mastering.

I notice we both have the same machine...any CPU issues with 12 instances of Ozone? And thanks for the tips!

Buzzy

[HCMarkus]

I don't use Ozone, but otherwise work pretty much like Phil. Quick and Dirty Mastering is almost essential these days, 'cause people think there is something wrong with the engneering if their mixes are softer than commercial CD's. Sad, but true.

[buzzsmith]

Quick and Dirty Mastering is almost essential these days, 'cause people think there is something wrong with the engneering if their mixes are softer than commercial CD's. Sad, but true.

EXACTLY!

Buzzy

[Phil O]

I notice we both have the same machine...any CPU issues with 12 instances of Ozone?

Doesn't break a sweat!