# Isotope Ozone 5



## paulcole (Jun 16, 2012)

Who is using Ozone 5 here and if so, do you get into it forensically, or do you mostly use the presets and take it from there? If you're doing orchestral music, which presets, if any, are your favourites?


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## playz123 (Jun 16, 2012)

I purchased ver. 5 after using ver. 3 and 4 in the past, and most times I go through each module step by step and make my settings. The presets can be useful in some circumstances, but quite honestly for me most times they could only be called a starting point because each composition requires its own settings. Presets could be handy I guess if Ozone was used on a single instrument rather the on the Master bus. Anyway, since mastering is part art and part science, tweaking, for me, is preferred.
By the way I recently mastered a pop song and for some reason was getting better results with Ozone 4. Still haven't figured out why yet, but I'm working on it.


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## paulcole (Jun 17, 2012)

Thanks for your input Frank.

I have a track I will post using Ozone 5 for the first time and perhaps you might listen to it and give me some feedback on the mixing and mastering, albeit it WILL sound amateur. 

:D


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## mark812 (Jun 17, 2012)

Ozone is great, best software mastering package in my opinion.

For orchestral music mastering check this - http://www.beat-kaufmann.com/cubase/mastering/index.html (http://www.beat-kaufmann.com/cubase/mas ... index.html) 

There are many great presets that come with Ozone that you can tweak to your liking. "Add richness and depth" and "Excitation and widening" are really nice presets that I use often.


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## ghostnote (Jun 17, 2012)

Presets are a great starting point. You can go in, choose one of the 4-band presets (warm mids is great) and start with the learn function, click autogain, correct the amount of compression/saturation a bit, reduce the bass-stereo with the stereo imager and adjust the lvl/dither with the maximizer. Et voilá, you get a decent master. I normally go a bit more into detail.

Here's a nice vid by Mike Patti who is showing a bit how he's (or was) using Ozone5: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hp6bKIJ-chQ&feature=channel&list=UL (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hp6bKIJ- ... el&amp;list=UL)


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## paulcole (Jun 17, 2012)

Thanks Mark and Mike. Very good advice.


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## jlb (Jun 17, 2012)

Do you guys just slap Ozone on the output when you bounce down, or bounce down to a file/or stems and re import them, then apply Ozone to them?

Jlb


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## mark812 (Jun 17, 2012)

jlb @ Sun Jun 17 said:


> Do you guys just slap Ozone on the output when you bounce down, or bounce down to a file/or stems and re import them, then apply Ozone to them?
> 
> Jlb



I normally export a .wav mixdown of a project and then import it and apply Ozone.


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## jlb (Jun 18, 2012)

Great thanks :D


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## midphase (Jun 18, 2012)

I use Ozone 4 religiously as a mastering final step to my stereo output. However I have yet to update to version 5 (and I doubt I will) considering their rather crappy upgrade pricing structure.


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## whinecellar (Jun 18, 2012)

midphase @ Mon Jun 18 said:


> I use Ozone 4 religiously...However I have yet to update to version 5 (and I doubt I will) considering their rather crappy upgrade pricing structure.



+1. I tend to leave my final mixes unprocessed and import them into a dedicated mastering session. That way I keep my unprocessed mixes in case the budget affords "real" mastering - the Ozone version then becomes my vision for the track, hopefully made better by a fresh set of ears geared for mastering.

As for presets, I've never once found them useful since they tend to be suggestions at best. I just reference a commercial track in the same ballpark and aim for that. Less is definitely more with Ozone though - it's such a powerful tool that it's too easy to mess things up. Disable each module and use only what you need!

My other favorites for feaux-mastering are Flux Alchemy & Slate FG-X. They all have their strengths...


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## midphase (Jun 18, 2012)

Almost forgot, V.I. Magazine did a really great step by step tutorial of Ozone 4. I found it to be extremely useful to wrap my head around the concept of what everything does.

Perhaps Nick B. could post a link to it?


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## paulcole (Jun 18, 2012)

midphase @ Mon Jun 18 said:


> Almost forgot, V.I. Magazine did a really great step by step tutorial of Ozone 4. I found it to be extremely useful to wrap my head around the concept of what everything does.
> 
> Perhaps Nick B. could post a link to it?



Yes that would be great and extremely useful.


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## Beat Kaufmann (Jun 18, 2012)

Hello all
I also use OZONE. It includes really great features: 
You can vary the stereo image within 4 different frequency bands. So you are able to narrow the bass range to mono (below 80 Hz for example)
The same for bands you get with the exciter (enhancing the lows of a piece) and... 
finally you get a multiband compressor with the four bands as well which is able to treat the music by m/s-technique... 
Further: Dithering, Limiting... great 

More common: The EQ section. You can get such an EQ with other plugins as well 
Though iZotope has improved the reverb with the new V5 this is still the weakest effect (my opinion). It is not a bad reverb but you don't need to buy Ozone5 if you are looking for a reverb.

And here is the Link of iZotope's Masteringtutorial


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## paulcole (Jun 20, 2012)

Thanks Beat. Maybe you could do a youtube video on mastering an orchestral track with Ozone 5 as well as your written attachments. Pictures tell a 1000 words in my case.


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