T-Racks Vs. Ozone

[danielmm]

There seems to be a re-occuring theme here....if the presets for T-racks don't sound good, why not? It would be a huge oversight on any developers work if they did not do their software justice by having presets that gave instant results so that people who demo the product go, "wow".
I'm not sure if it's just a matter of who has the best presets, but if that helps you sell product you better have some decent sound people work on your presets.
For me, I don't have enough experience to build a preset from scratch, so I rely on good presets so that I can tweak.
I've looked at both products extensively and I'm leaning towards Ozone for a number of reasons...it's not that the T-racks stuff is bad...it's just that value for the dollar seems to be met much quicker with Ozone.

dano

[loomchild]

Do you really think presets are relevant when dealing with a chain of mastering plugins?

[Squids]

Someone recently posted that the individual plugs have latency that is not reported to the host, and there's no way to find out what that latency is. Is that true? I've been wondering ever since I read it.
If I've heard wrong, please feel free to correct me.

I would be very interested in hearing a definitive answer to this question also.
I believe mr squids is the dude in a position to answer this, yet it is one point he hasn't yet addressed.
Obviously if this is true it is a serious issue, as it could seriously muck up peoples mixes when using the individual plug ins, & if it is false i would think that it would be in IK's best interests to squash the rumour post-haste.
So what's the deal mr squids?

I would answer that if I knew but I don't. Like I said, I didn't make the plug-in. But, I use it and I haven't had any issues with latency with my plugs apart from what buffer setting is used and the drivers for the sound cards. Sorry I can't give you a more technical answer than that.

[craigmorris74]

If you use TRacks, lay way the hell off the level and saturation knobs to avoid a digital distortion nightmare.

[danielmm]

Do you really think presets are relevant when dealing with a chain of mastering plugins?

Why not?

dano

[TeeLangSun]

Now, Ozone isn't as easy to use. It sounds different. It doesn't sound bad or anything. Some of the things you can do with it seemed interesting to me in a tweaky sort of way but for me if I am going to get "surgical" then Waves is ideal for that (restoration for example of "fixing it in the mastering"). However, if you do good clean mixes that don't need tweaky surgery...

I think its fine when you jump into to promo your own product, Squids - yay capitalism and all that... But cutting down Ozone as only good for mixes needing 'tweaky surgery' is a low blow. Ozone is ideal for any mix!

The truth is Ozone is: far more flexible than TR, far cheaper than TR, and IMO possesses far better sound-quality than TR.

Perhaps you're right and TR compares very favourably value-wise with vintage hardware gear - however as you know, thats totally irrelevant to this thread!

Not to mention that every single plugin and it's brother claims to be have a warm, tube, fairchild, neave, smooth, etc sound, but almost none of them do. In my opinion, TRacks is not an exception to this and I don't believe it's because people who don't find it to sound anything more than "digital" don't know how to use it. Even in "a forum like this".

[diverdee]

Thanks for the honest answer squids, for what it's worse I have a friend who swears by T-racks & his shit sounds good to me.
He uses the standalone version, so any incorrectly reported latency (if such actually exists) wouldn't be a problem for him.

[Squids]

Thanks for the honest answer squids, for what it's worse I have a friend who swears by T-racks & his shit sounds good to me.
He uses the standalone version, so any incorrectly reported latency (if such actually exists) wouldn't be a problem for him.

That's what I'm talking about. If people use it on their music and it sounds great then that speaks for itself. We're from all over the world and this is a forum for expressing all of our opinions. But, sometimes one can get overly picky in conversation about it and miss why people love to use a that product. Of course, if one just wants to talk about music instead of making it then it doesn't matter. But, if you want to get at least close to high end analog hardware gear and have the benefits and savings on software that does an emulation of it then that is what these products offer. They have their place in the modern studio. Just another great tool to have in my opinion.

[somedolphin]

You should really check out FINAL MIX that comes with Tracktion 2. It's worth buying Tracktion just to use it.

[diverdee]

yep - I got the NFR version of tracktion, although i've since moved to live i'm keeping the NFR just so that i can run stereo mixes through final mix.
for free it was a bit of a bargain.

[kevvvvv]

Hmmm ... how many times have I read this thread over the last 3 years

IMO the T-Racks equals Pultec/Fairchild argument is pure bull in 2005.

Top end analog quality has been measured to death by coders and everybody now includes some type of classic analog warmification with their kit.

Nowadays, it's just a matter of taste. But certainly, aged rack gear no longer equals must-have.

Ozone steals points off T-Racks when you consider that Oz is now on version 3.

That means it's had 3 important upgrades. These weren't just bug fixes but lots of major new features and enhancements.

I like upgrades with all my software. I feel it's important to stick with suppliers who offer ongoing upgrade paths.

Oz now ships with a shedload of presets.

These are very helpful as they open new production concepts to the non-mastering professional that might otherwise have been missed.

They've helped me learn a lot.

My experience with T-Racks has been limited, but the impression, false or otherwise, was of the solid black bar school of loudness production - though I'm sure it can do a lot more than that in the right hands.

There's more:

T-Racks is 32 bit, while Oz is 64 bit.
TR offers 5 sounds processors, while Oz offers 7.
Oz also has built in automation
Yet Oz is only $250 compared with T-R's $400.

My own feeling is that TR is a bit long in the tooth for such a quantity of bucks.

There are a lot more choices available today inc Kjaerhus, Voxengo, Ozone, PSP and some brilliant freebies.

But on the other had, if you like yellow ...

[danielmm]

Hmmm ... how many times have I read this thread over the last 3 years

IMO the T-Racks equals Pultec/Fairchild argument is pure bull in 2005.

Top end analog quality has been measured to death by coders and everybody now includes some type of classic analog warmification with their kit.

Nowadays, it's just a matter of taste. But certainly, aged rack gear no longer equals must-have.

Ozone steals points off T-Racks when you consider that Oz is now on version 3.

That means it's had 3 important upgrades. These weren't just bug fixes but lots of major new features and enhancements.

I like upgrades with all my software. I feel it's important to stick with suppliers who offer ongoing upgrade paths.

Oz now ships with a shedload of presets.

These are very helpful as they open new production concepts to the non-mastering professional that might otherwise have been missed.

They've helped me learn a lot.

My experience with T-Racks has been limited, but the impression, false or otherwise, was of the solid black bar school of loudness production - though I'm sure it can do a lot more than that in the right hands.

There's more:

T-Racks is 32 bit, while Oz is 64 bit.
TR offers 5 sounds processors, while Oz offers 7.
Oz also has built in automation
Yet Oz is only $250 compared with T-R's $400.

My own feeling is that TR is a bit long in the tooth for such a quantity of bucks.

There are a lot more choices available today inc Kjaerhus, Voxengo, Ozone, PSP and some brilliant freebies.

But on the other had, if you like yellow ...

...well said....

dano

[v1o]

Where T-racks lacks in flexibility it makes up with ease of use. T-racks really is the easiest all-in-one solution to master a song. It literally takes minutes. The quality of sound is really a matter of opinion, you can't convince everyone but T-racks does sound very warm to my novice ears.

[CypherOne]

But on the other had, if you like yellow ...

[finnbio]

Even if you have a UAD you still might want to use TRacks for specific things as well. I do.

I believe that TRacks is a nice piece of kit - I just think that for what it does, it's a wee bit expensive. Ditto Amplitube. If either of them were half the price, I probably would have already bought them. I know, IK isn't the worst in terms of pricing (look at the SONY Oxford plugins). But, Feature for feature, it get's beaten by iZotope or Kjaerhus plugins once you figure in the price. And as I'm not crazy about accurate vintage sound (as long as it sounds GOOD,I'm happy) I just can't get myself to go for IK stuff. And the tube-y ui bugs me. But that's a matter of taste. I am just really thankful to iZotope to put these excellent tools into my hands for a really fair price.

The problem with software compared to hardware is also that it becomes pretty much worthless after updates - which does not necessarily happen to hardware (I just mention Fender Bassman...)

cheers
Alex