Context:
I long maintained a stance that I never wanted to master my own audio - learning composition, arrangement and mixing was enough and I wanted to trust others with a non-biased ear to handle it. Today is different as my music career has ventured into different directions than I had expected. I want to release a slatter of material and paying $100-$150 for mastering each release when I may never see $100-$150 come back for each release just isn't economically viable in the continued Pandemic age.

At that same time, I learned that newer versions of Ozone had "smart" or AI-directed mastering in it and one place had Ozone 8 standard for $50. So I bought it. A lot of audiophiles likely bristle at the idea of AI mastering instead of a trained ear, but I don't. I think modern AI auto options have come a long way and can get me where I'd really like to be here.


What I Want To Do:
I'm aware that a $50 program is not going to be the same quality as a 30 year trained professional charging $100 a song. For these types of releases, I don't really need THE best mastering audio quality, I just need the bare minimum of getting it to sound good enough.

1. Getting frequencies all "colored inside the lines" and not bleeding out or being too much, etc.

2. Getting frequencies and song volumes all consistent within the same album release.

3. Getting the bare minimum amount of clarity for the instruments and accompaniment (maybe related to item #1 above?).

What I'm trying to do is build myself a solid process for doing this like I have for my final mix-down and loop-point setting stuff so I know what to do and can just do it quick and efficiently. Again, this is just for "less significant" music tracks that I do - commissioned music and music that I think should have better mastering I'll still be trusting to professionals. This is a solution for me releasing other material that needs to be mastered but really just doesn't need/justify a busy expensive professional for that.


Questions:
I've played around with it some, but I have not really achieved much yet as, obviously, I have some questions.

1. What things do I need to get and put in Ozone? For example, I know I'm missing a METERING plugin that I read is supposed to be what helps me gauge and get volume levels consistent. I have Zynaptiq Intensity that I have a reliable preset for and use on everything. What other essential components like a metering plugin should I look for?

2. How do I get stereo width consistent on all tracks? Is that what I use the "Imager" plugin in Ozone 8 for? How perfectly aligned does each track have to have its stereo image with each other to be acceptable?

3. I have reference tracks that I want my tracks to sound like when mastered. Does Ozone 8 automatically try to get my track to match the waves/levels of the reference track when I use the Master Assistant? Am I supposed to get the output waves to physically (as it appears on screen) to match the reference track waves?

4. This might be a dumb question, but it is If I get one of my tracks in Ozone 8 sounding the way I'm satisfied with, is it appropriate or stupid to try to save this as a preset to process all the other songs I want to put in as a means of getting consistency in the frequencies?

I might have other questions, but that's the main crux of it for now.


Answers I'm Not Looking For:
Almost every time I ask a question on an audio forum, if I get any responses at all, most of them are usually unhelpful and fall into these categories:

"Just use [some other program/service entirely] LOL"

"Just hire a professional to do it LOL"

"Just learn how [every single tiny component of art] and do it yourself. Learn how compression works. Learn how limiting works. Learn how [xxxx] works. Read books, take classes, listen to lectures, train your ears, spend 5 years and thousands of dollars to do something from scratch instead of however you're trying to do it. I'm telling you this because this is ironically the preset answer any "serious" audio person should answer your questions with because I can't be bothered to actually read the topic or assume you have ever considered such a basic concept before LOL"

"Ever heard of Google? LOL"

Please understand these responses are not helpful. I chose to do a form of audio mastering with this program for a specific purpose and for specific reasons, I'm not going to go with a completely different direction at this point. I have already used Google and I still have some questions. If you haven't used Ozone 8 Standard or know what I'm talking about, you don't need to respond.

Long post, very specific, but hopefully detailed enough that I have explained my context and my questions well enough. Thank you!

 

There is a lot of ground to cover in your post.

1. The mix should be good enough to hold up absent of mastering.
2. The imaging or spread, should be done track by track. Proper stereo field or mono placement.
3. Mastering should not be used to try & fix problems in a mix. A good mastering engineer will only make sure a mix is ready for the
targeted delivery platform(s) and maybe, being competitive level wise.

This is a recent video done by Marc Daniel Nelson explaining his varied approach to a hip hop track before sending it out for mastering. The overall approach can be applied to any genre of music as he explains in the video.

 

Free LUFS meter e. g. Youlean or https://www.tb-software.com/TBProAudio/dpmeter5.html

Best on track level, but it can vary among the tracks due to arrangment.
But yes, that's what the imager is for - at least sort.

The levels, yes, but the content could be completely different, so this is not a guarantee for an appropriate sound.

That would require that you arranged and mixed all your tracks in the same way in terms of levels, frequencies, dynamics and pan and this is probably not the case. But you could use it as a starting point for very similar mixes and songs.

 

Prior to iZotope and Ozone, this has all been a daw based skill for the last 20 years.
And a daw should also be able to do yur indexing for CD.

 

No Avenger's got some excellent (and concise! I don't get that combination very often) answers that helps my queries.

Keeping in mind that, absolutely, I will need to make adjustments to each track or mastering profile that goes in in terms of frequencies and width, my follow-up questions are as such.

1. Is there any plugin program that can you can set limits for stereo width and have the program automatically stretch/narrow the track down to those limits? I guess like the stereo imaging equivalent of a proper Limiter.

2. Is there a type of metering plugin that can help me see/get frequencies in batch songs (all the tracks in an album) lined up so that I can see what kind of work I need to do to make all the bass, mid-bass, mid, mid-high, high, etc. reasonably consistent with numbers/colors/markers and such?

As you might have guessed by now, I use much more visual data from audio processing plugins than my ears to achieve results. For a few reasons, I don't trust my ears to "know" when it's loud enough or when shit's consistent. I need numbers and markers and so forth and the new era of "smart" plugins and AI, like I stated above, is really quite a game-changer for someone like me with real world limits for far I can get doing something like mastering the conventional way.

 

If there's something relevant to that Zelda picture here, I haven't found it yet.

 

I haven't tried myself, but the two SideMinder versions are supposed to be capable of this https://www.raisingjakestudios.com/plugins.html.

You mean several freq response curves in a single plugin? Voxengo SPAN Pro, but not in offline process.
Or you use one free SPAN instance on every track (all in one project).

I could give you several examples why this isn't sufficient, but believe me, it isn't - and I'm a big friend of measurements.

That's a matter of experience and taste - and depends on the track/genre. Classical music sounds horrible at -6LUFS, EDM to weak at -16.

 

I use Youlean as my loudness meter. I just pick the Youtube preset and get everything as close to its default setting as possible and it's worked well so far.

I'm no pro so maybe I'd get scolded if I did this in a real studio but I literally open Ozone, switch presets while the track is playing until I find one that sounds the best and then maybe tweak one or two things. Other than that I just leave it alone and now I have 4-5 go-tos which I always try first. As was said above, the mixing stage is what matters.

I also think aspiring musicians like us get too hung up on the process and whether we're doing things in the 'right' way, instead of focusing on the result. If it sounds good to you, then that's what really matters. There will always be some audio snob who claims they can hear something wrong with it but the average consumer of music can't, so unless you REALLY don't know what you're doing it will probably sound fine.

 

As a person who used Ozone a lot,
to use ozone as a finishing polish and as the only only plugin to do the finishing polish you risk to end up with a rather dull track.

 

Wht do you use following treatment in Ozone? Tips appreciated

 

Sorry, but with an EQ, multiband compressor/limiter/exciter that's not Ozone's fault.

 

My advice is don’t rely with any level of confidence that’s its Ai mix correction features will fix a mix. Especially if your track is very dynamic.

 

iZotope has an official guide for Mastering with Ozone: http://downloads.izotope.com/guides/iZotopeMasteringGuide_MasteringWithOzone.pdf

Yes, it's a bit older and originally for Ozone 6 I believe, but the main components are still the same, so I think it's still very useful for people starting with Ozone.

 

I didn't ask anything about fixing a mix. Mixing I'm pretty competent with; hardly an expert but having done some 70 tracks by now that have been successfully mastered by others, I'm confident in my ability to get a song's audio quality at least good enough to be mastered. What I'm doing here to trying to finalize it where audio quality meets a different set of standards and procedures than the mixing stage usually requires.

 

probably its just me but im a bit puzzled by your post because you sound so "right" in all your phrasing, mature (mix-wise) in your tone but at the same time your questions are strange as in not that experienced really as you either believe yourself to be or want to be, so it all seems a bit contradictory. was thinking maybe you could post a sample of your work, maybe it would make it more easy for the seasoned souls here to figure out where you are really. don't take it the wrong way, just trying to help you getting the guidance you seek because way to many times appearances differ so much from how things really are. cheers

 

Last edited: Dec 14, 2020

It would seem that you will need to examine whether or not Ozone is the correct approach for what you are trying to accomplish.
There has been plenty of good input not really knowing anything about what you actually want to apply this to. Just good input based on common approaches. None of which are written in stone.

Andrew Scheps said it best. "The only thing that matters is what comes out of the speakers".

 

Oh yeah, I agree. In my case the problem is between the keyboard and the screen for 99%,
for me it's hard to figure out why ozone and me separated years ago. But my current tool set is a lot more foolproof.

I think especially the "colored" modules don't impress me one bit,
Yes the sterile modules (EQ/exciter/maximizer/multiband) are fine, if not perfect.
Irc III might have been ground breaking some time ago, at least I thought it was.

But the colored modules seem to be very minimalistic to my taste
The Eq only seems to implement "vintage" curves and not transient response and harmonics,
the comp seems to only have "vintage" ballistics but no ratio to frequency inconsistency we all know and like.

And to top it of, I should not be touching any stereo widener on the master bus.

 

lots of Compression and TC Electronics Finalizer Youde be amazed end result

 

I can tell you why O5 and I separated years ago. Too many options/parameters and a too harsh sound - the latter could've been my fault.