mastering with DP

chagmusic · Post by **chagmusic** » Wed Aug 08, 2007 6:15 pm

i starting to master a cd and want to use dp. I read a thread about OZONE. is this a good product to use with dp for mastering? Are there other suggestions?

FMiguelez · Post by **FMiguelez** » Wed Aug 08, 2007 6:24 pm

.

Hi.

I don't have Ozone, but I've heard great things about it. What I do have is Waves. Qualitiy/soundwise I could not recommend them enough. They are top notch.

We are currently having issues with their customer support, and lack of DP 5 official support, but other than that they are awesome.

If you are using DP 4.xx you would not suffer from this, only if you use DP 5 x.

Check them out. I believe they have usable demos. If you decide you like them, and want to buy them, make sure you understand and agree to their WUP system.

I'm shure you'll have differing opinions shortly. Just listen, and, when possible, get the demos, so you can decide for yourself.

Good luck!!!

Mr_Clifford · Post by **Mr_Clifford** » Wed Aug 08, 2007 7:16 pm

If you're not a trained Mastering Engineer then Ozone in DP will work just as well as anything else. It has a useful collection of tools, and some good presets for people that aren't experts.

Project Nairb 1 · Post by **Project Nairb 1** » Wed Aug 08, 2007 10:15 pm

Im no master, but i bought Ozone and i love it. the presets give you a nice place to start, and usually just dropping one on there does a ton for your mixes, alittle tweaking and i usually have a mix im much more happy with. sounds like someone took a thick blanket off your monitors. good luck

mhschmieder · Post by **mhschmieder** » Thu Aug 09, 2007 1:36 pm

Ozone is amazing value, and even without considering its price, is a very good quality mastering tool.

I usually make myn own presets, but occasionally start with one of the factory presets, many of which are quite good.

I think they have a trial demo available, but you can check their website.

I recently bought a TC Electronic Powercore Firewire external DSP engine and have a demo of the $1000 MD3 mastering suite derived from System 6000. Most reviews put it at or near the top when it comes to multi-band mastering. But I just haven't had much success with it yet, due to limited time. I already know Ozone and amd able to get professional or near-professional sounding results from it, so am sticking with it until I get more caught up on my projects.

I would recommend starting with its presets and downloading the extras from their website, and pretty much shutting off the reverb (when it is used by the preset) and the more esoteric stuff like the stereo widener, until you are more comfortable with its interface and with some of the more detailed settings in the Limiter module (such as MBIT+ dithering, accurate mode, etc.). It is a weird interface that I do not like as it is too hard to get an overview of settings at once, but at least it is fairly easy to edit compared to some other plugs (such as PSP's).

The presets give you a nice sense of just how far you can go with Ozone in changing the basic character of a pre-master mix. I tend more towards subtlety most of the time, but wear many hats so do indeed come across projects that benefit from full-on use of every mastering module in Ozone.

The thing of it is, at such a low price, even if you end up using other tools for multi-band dynamics or mastering EQ, the limiter is worth the price on its own. I find it more transparent than any other than TC Electronic's BrickwallLimiter/MD3 combo (which cost 5x as much), and moreso than even the well-respected Oxford Limiter (but this is just in my personal experience, and I am not even close to being one of this forum's most talented members).

The Matching EQ feature is also excellent and comes in handy for making your mixes sit well next to each other in the context of an album, but I find TC Electronics Assimilator ($200 and requiring the Powercore platform as there is no native version) to be far superior in terms of flexibility of use and audio quality. The Matching EQ feature in Ozone is somewhat hidden amongst the Paragraphic EQ module but definitely adds value.

jgest · Post by **jgest** » Thu Aug 09, 2007 2:33 pm

mhschmieder wrote:Ozone is amazing value, and even without considering its price, is a very good quality mastering tool.

I usually make myn own presets, but occasionally start with one of the factory presets, many of which are quite good.

I think they have a trial demo available, but you can check their website.

I recently bought a TC Electronic Powercore Firewire external DSP engine and have a demo of the $1000 MD3 mastering suite derived from System 6000. Most reviews put it at or near the top when it comes to multi-band mastering. But I just haven't had much success with it yet, due to limited time. I already know Ozone and amd able to get professional or near-professional sounding results from it, so am sticking with it until I get more caught up on my projects.

I would recommend starting with its presets and downloading the extras from their website, and pretty much shutting off the reverb (when it is used by the preset) and the more esoteric stuff like the stereo widener, until you are more comfortable with its interface and with some of the more detailed settings in the Limiter module (such as MBIT+ dithering, accurate mode, etc.). It is a weird interface that I do not like as it is too hard to get an overview of settings at once, but at least it is fairly easy to edit compared to some other plugs (such as PSP's).

The presets give you a nice sense of just how far you can go with Ozone in changing the basic character of a pre-master mix. I tend more towards subtlety most of the time, but wear many hats so do indeed come across projects that benefit from full-on use of every mastering module in Ozone.

The thing of it is, at such a low price, even if you end up using other tools for multi-band dynamics or mastering EQ, the limiter is worth the price on its own. I find it more transparent than any other than TC Electronic's BrickwallLimiter/MD3 combo (which cost 5x as much), and moreso than even the well-respected Oxford Limiter (but this is just in my personal experience, and I am not even close to being one of this forum's most talented members).

The Matching EQ feature is also excellent and comes in handy for making your mixes sit well next to each other in the context of an album, but I find TC Electronics Assimilator ($200 and requiring the Powercore platform as there is no native version) to be far superior in terms of flexibility of use and audio quality. The Matching EQ feature in Ozone is somewhat hidden amongst the Paragraphic EQ module but definitely adds value.

not go ot, but are you happy with you powercore firewire, I think I remember a prior post when you were debating if the pci would suit your needs more? These days (and hopefully for ever) I am laptop only, but I hear of various issues on the firewire that pci peeps don't seem to have.

chagmusic · Post by **chagmusic** » Thu Aug 09, 2007 3:09 pm

thank for the insite. it was so well priced i worried about it.

emulatorloo · Post by **emulatorloo** » Thu Aug 09, 2007 3:32 pm

Ozone demo here -- works for 10 days:

http://www.izotope.com/products/audio/o ... wnload.asp

----

andrewj · Post by **andrewj** » Sat Aug 11, 2007 2:31 am

have ozone and the waves masters bundle and waves L3! all offer a good quality! All are also nice on critical single channels. and you can do nice mastering with them.

however IMO the best "plugin" for mastering is here. 100% stable, the unit itself has no latency, 100% compatible with any operating system and all DAWs, and it will never ever sound harsh or digital in any way!

kassonica · Post by **kassonica** » Sat Aug 11, 2007 3:12 am

Also in the current SOS magazine is an article about mastering in DP which is quite good. Worth a look.

buzzsmith · Post by **buzzsmith** » Sat Aug 11, 2007 5:50 am

I'm certainly no mastering engineer, but I'm enjoying Ozone.

I especially like the apparent volume boost I can get when trying to match the "loudness" of a commercial CD track.

Also the paramteric EQ to add that "sheen".

I don't use the reverb, either.

Buzz

midilance · Post by **midilance** » Sat Aug 11, 2007 9:27 pm

kassonica wrote:Also in the current SOS magazine is an article about mastering in DP which is quite good. Worth a look.

Which issue are you referring to? I just checked the July issue and didn't find it.

kassonica · Post by **kassonica** » Sat Aug 11, 2007 9:32 pm

Yea the August issue just came out, if you subscribe to SOS you can log in and read it online

mikebeckmotu · Post by **mikebeckmotu** » Sun Aug 12, 2007 9:37 am

Over at the SOS forums they've mentioned that the combination of the ongoing bad weather as well as the postal strike has delayed shipments of the current issue. I don't have mine yet, either.

HeadMaster · Post by **HeadMaster** » Sun Aug 12, 2007 5:43 pm

FMiguelez wrote:.

Hi.

I don't have Ozone, but I've heard great things about it. What I do have is Waves. Qualitiy/soundwise I could not recommend them enough. They are top notch.

We are currently having issues with their customer support, and lack of DP 5 official support, but other than that they are awesome.

If you are using DP 4.xx you would not suffer from this, only if you use DP 5 x.

Check them out. I believe they have usable demos. If you decide you like them, and want to buy them, make sure you understand and agree to their WUP system.

I'm shure you'll have differing opinions shortly. Just listen, and, when possible, get the demos, so you can decide for yourself.

Good luck!!!

"We are currently having issues with their customer support, and lack of DP 5 official support, but other than that they are awesome"

. . .
HM