Mastering with Izotope Ozone 4/Waves

[Bee Dub]

I recently upgraded (for christmas) to full Live 8 as well as got my hands on Izotope Ozone 4 as well as the Waves main bundle.. not cheap

I am looking to master my own productions that I am creating in Ableton Live 8 (not suite). I have a few solid plug-ins (nexus, Massive, FM8, Gladiator, Electrax, Warmverb) that I use for the majority of my sound design/creation and am looking to expand to mastering my Ableton Productions..

I have been experimenting with a lot of different sidechain methods as well as leaving -3 to -4 db of headroom in my ableton mixes that I export at 24 bit 44100 Triangle dither (is that right??) and started by using Logic Pro 7's 'Waveburner' where i had a multimeter>linear phase EQ>multipressor>limiter and am looking to now utilize izotope ozone 4 and waves the best way i can to replace this way of 'mastering'.

my question is which Waves plug-ins (or Izotope settings) are best recommended for mastering my Ableton recordings and in what order i should do them..

also does anyone know if the waves sidechain compressors are better than the ableton internal compressors??

Any help or links would be amazing as im slightly stuck with the massive amount of plugins and i want a simple, but effective wave of using Waves and Izotope to mastering my Ableton recordings (if that means using Logic Pro 7 for the mastering phase).

I dont want to destroy my mixes by using too much, yet i want to utilize the power of these plugins the most effective way i can.

hope someone can help..

[UKRuss]

Dithering is the last thing you do and you should only do it once ideally. So export at 24bit with no dither, then master.

Ozone is a useful programme but if you don't know what you're doing or what the functions are then just use a preset. Some of the presets include a dither algo, so then in abes when you render the mastered file, you can select 16bit, assuming thats what you ant to do, and keep it it at no dither and Ozone will dither for you.

But all this is a bit premature.

First: Read Bob Katz; Mastering Audio.

Second: Read Bob Katz: Mastering Audio.

Finally, pay someone else to master your tracks.

(There is also a Groove3 Ozone tutorial vid you may find interesting.)

[Winterpark]

The thing with Mastering is... no matter how good your plugins are...it still requires:
a good understanding of how frequencies interact with each other
a well trained set of ears
a revealing set of studio monitors
a well treated room
a well balanced stereo mix

now... that said... with the plugins you have available...

I'd suggest:
*an analyzer plugin like Waves PAZ... so you can see what the frequency response of the incoming audio is.
*Logic Channel EQ, or Waves Q10 EQ cutting frequencies below 30Hz
*Another EQ... maybe the Waves Linear Phase EQ.... giving subtle boosts around 80Hz and above 6k
*Waves L3 or Ozone 4 with only the limiter on set to intelligent II "transparent" setting... To bring up the level to a reasonable level... and the master out of the plugin set to -0.3
*another PAZ analyzer.... to see what your EQ and limiting has done.
*brainworx solo (free plugin)... to check the M/S levels and frequency balance.
*TT dynamic range meter (another free plug)... to check your mono signal, and also to ensure that you're not squashing the life out of your mixes with the limiter.

good luck with it.

[UKRuss]

I did a blind test once mastering the same song using T-Racks3, Ozone and Live native plugs. Most listeners preferred the Live native version.

Not really making a point here, just perhaps saying if what you are after is rough and ready home mastering (which is fine, most of us do that if it isn't for commercial release I guess) then Lives plugs are quite capable of producing an acceptable result.

My favoured set up for mastering at the moment though is T-Racks. Just love the vintage emulations and the cluster of analysis tools, works for me.

Ozone had more tools but the quality of each compnent varied a little I felt.

Still, whatever works for you really.

[Tarekith]

If you're mastering it yourself, all you need is the limiter in Ozone, do the rest in your mixdown Here's some more ideas:

http://tarekith.com/assets/mastering.html

and before you start applying boosts and cuts to your song with an EQ after the fact, make sure you NEED boosts and cuts:

http://tarekith.com/just-because/

[Khazul]

If you're mastering it yourself, all you need is the limiter in Ozone, do the rest in your mixdown

Well a limiter certainly - but I would suggest allmost any limiter other than that one!

Wierd how you like it and I hate it

To be fair, its actually fine for gentle limiting, but then so are most limiters of that type - even Lives own limiter can be ok. A really good limiter however (for modern loud production that is) manages to preserve a decent level of transparency when pushed much much harder than the ozone limiter can ever manage - and this is where the UAD limiter scores well I find, though it eventually degreades into distortion rather than pumping, then distortion - different algorythms I guess.


As a complete end to end collection Ozone 4 aint bad and in fact perhpas one of the best all-in options there is - just you can do alot better with individual components, but then you might end up paying alot more for them all, and you might find them much harder to use - no end to end chain presets that you can tweak etc, so Ozone might let you get much better results that you could from separate bits.

Where Ozone really comes into its own is if you dont happen to have you own starting point chains and other components to suit your production styles, and/or you dont really know what youu are doing or just need a quick preset that can be quickly tweaked so you can dump a preview out as mp3 that doesnt sound too bad/quiett etc, or quickly process something to stick on soundcloud etc.

OTOH, if you are going to send it off to a label to be published, or itunes, beatport etc - send your track to a mastering house instead (regardless of how good you think you are at mastering - benefits of fresh ears and all that).

People are generally better with the tools they can use the easiest, rather than nescessarily the tools that are technically the best etc... basic use of Ozone to get acceptable promo/mp3 level results is easy. Other stuff may be alot better, but if you cant get better out of - then it aint better for you

[Tarekith]

Funny. In my tests lats year Ozone's limiter was in second place behind elephant for remaining transparent when pushed hard. Though these days I think it maybe have been regulated to 3rd behind Pro-L.

[Khazul]

Funny. In my tests lats year Ozone's limiter was in second place behind elephant for remaining transparent when pushed hard. Though these days I think it maybe have been regulated to 3rd behind Pro-L.

Bizarre - maybe down to the kind of material pushed through it?

Anyay - much as I lke the UAD stuff - going to sell it off soon. Cant see the point of it when a very fast PC and so many other good alternatives around now.

[Rationalizer]

I don't use Ozone myself but here's a video of a guy that do use it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMFq0c0Tu1I

Not that I recommend working that way. As Tarekith said, first you need a good mix to start with. There's no plugin that makes a bad mix to a good master.

[Tarekith]

Bizarre - maybe down to the kind of material pushed through it?

>>> Could be, I know I turn to different limiters depending on what kind of material I'm mastering. <<<

Anyay - much as I lke the UAD stuff - going to sell it off soon. Cant see the point of it when a very fast PC and so many other good alternatives around now.

>>> That's more or less the reason I sold my UAD card too. That and until just this week they really didn't have a good solution for laptop users who didn't want to go the expresscard route. <<<

[gjm]

I don't use Ozone myself but here's a video of a guy that do use it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMFq0c0Tu1I

It always strikes me as contradictory when a person who promotes him/herself as being an 'expert' in audio/music/production/teaching etc has something like the narration to their video's sounding well... nothing like what they are trying to promote.

[Rave]

I recently upgraded (for christmas) to full Live 8 as well as got my hands on Izotope Ozone 4 as well as the Waves main bundle.. not cheap

Maybe you could start by purchasing the plugins you KUNT

[IP]

My favoured set up for mastering at the moment though is T-Racks. Just love the vintage emulations and the cluster of analysis tools, works for me.

Ozone had more tools but the quality of each compnent varied a little I felt.

+1!
unfortunately i sell all of my t-racks plugins because of the problems with live and now im not able to get the same or better sound with anything else i have tried (havent try many things to be fair but i cant get it with live's plugins, ozone or any free :p).

except 1a/670 - the very clean opto comp/LP eq/limiter (or the limiter clip modes) the loudness suggestion meter was so damn useful !
nice to know anytime how loud you are ;p
I had it set to dance and was trying to keeping it at the end of the green bar

with ozone i dont know why, but i couldnt make things so loud without to f*** everything. The same with live native plugs! Can give a great result but not when pushing hard (in my opinion of-course)

[UKRuss]

Problems with TRacks in Live? I dont have any issues. It is a great tool thats for sure.

Rave, calm down or don't post, seriously wtf is up this week, stop being a knob.

[Rave]

Problems with TRacks in Live? I dont have any issues. It is a great tool thats for sure.

Rave, calm down or don't post, seriously wtf is up this week, stop being a knob.

LOL I am calm. Stop misreading situations like a knob.