iZotope Ozone 12

[telecharge]

Why is everything a crusade here these days?

Sign o' the times? I blame Big Audio.

[muzicxs]

And there it is.

If this - or literally anything - doesn't offer value for money for you, don't buy it. Why is everything a crusade here these days?

I don't respect any company not respecting their customers. I can afford, but I won't because their ethics don't align with me.

[elxsound]

They’ve always had a f**ked up pricing model. Nothing new there.

This might be in line with the NI model, of steep discounts, right before a new major release (which is similar to IK, but at least they offer upgrades). I don’t think we really know if they’re following the NI model until the next big release.

THE BIGGEST surprise to me is that seems to still use their own licensing system? Anyone bought this able to confirm? I really expected everything to go through NI at this point and Native Access.

I’m out mostly because I don’t see the value in it. Not enough features that matter to me, and I’m still phasing out Ozone. I’m likely all in on M4L in Live very soon.

[fisherKing]

And there it is.

If this - or literally anything - doesn't offer value for money for you, don't buy it. Why is everything a crusade here these days?

I don't respect any company not respecting their customers. I can afford, but I won't because their ethics don't align with me.

what ethics issues (outside of aligning with NI )? i've gotten customer support when i've needed it, i get a lot of use out of ozone (since OZ 10). turning out 'pro' masters; certainly worth $199 to me.

apps cost what they cost, and am willing to pay, but only for what i want & need. i want this,so i paid what it cost; seems reasonable (until we abandon capitalism, which probably won't happen until tuesday...)

[dayjob]

We'll be on to venture capitalism soon.

it's called vulture capitalism

[Subatomik]

UPDATE: I complained to iZotope multiple times about the very short grace period. After sending multiple requests, trying to keep it respectful with them, I did get a message back extending the grace period to 30 days for all users.

Ozone - a great product. Izotope, not so great. Not only is their upgrade price unreasonable, but get this - they only offer a grace period of 1 week. I bought the Ozone 11 Advanced upgrade ($199) two weeks ago. No idea they were about to drop a new version. Reached out yesterday to see what I need to do to get the 12 upgrade. No can do was the response.

[sockofgold]

Yeah, I'm not even sure how I got it or when, but I apparently have Ozone 11 Advanced, and I generally like it. I really don't care about trying to get top-tier pristine radio-friendly mixes, as I just do this for fun and personal fulfillment, so I'm happy taking 3 minutes to let it "analyze" my song, generate a "starting point" that is WAY overboard on all the settings, and then dial everything back until it sounds decent again. Generally speaking, I like it. But I really dislike iZotope as a company and know I will never pay the insane upgrade prices again.

If you haven't already, you should check out FasterMaster: https://www.masteringthemix.com/products/fastermaster

It doesn't have as many modules, but the price is much better, and MTM is a really solid company. I have been liking it somewhat, although I'm having the issue that it's always clipping my final output for some reason. I'm sure it's user error, but that alone so far has stopped me from buying it yet—just need to figure out WTF I'm doing wrong.

[Sekops]

Other than feeling like a mug for paying for this upgrade, IRC 5 CPU optimizations needs some love.

Test cases in both Bitwig and Live, 44.1K, 2048 samples on buffer, on M4 Max with 64GB Ram., no other devices or plugins other than Ozone 12 on the master.

With IRC 5 enabled, including Soft Clip and Transient Emphasis (using the balanced master preset) it's sitting at 22% CPU load **without** the transport even playing in both DAWs. Remove Ozone, CPU drops to 0%. Removing the Maximiser and Spectral Shaper demonstrate they are the biggest contributors...

Posted to the NI Forum: https://community.native-instruments.co ... ram#latest

[billinder33]

Ozone - a great product. Izotope, not so great. Not only is their upgrade price unreasonable, but get this - they only offer a grace period of 1 week. I bought the Ozone 11 Advanced upgrade ($199) two weeks ago. No idea they were about to drop a new version. Reached out yesterday to see what I need to do to get the 12 upgrade. No can do was the response. 100% corporate greed.

Be patient, within a month or so 'number not go up' and they will be sending you deep discounts in a desperate attempt to meet the annual quota.

30 days is still pretty a crappy, anti-customer policy.

[elxsound]

Ozone - a great product. Izotope, not so great. Not only is their upgrade price unreasonable, but get this - they only offer a grace period of 1 week. I bought the Ozone 11 Advanced upgrade ($199) two weeks ago. No idea they were about to drop a new version. Reached out yesterday to see what I need to do to get the 12 upgrade. No can do was the response. 100% corporate greed.

IK, NI & Izotope all the do the same thing. You will know a major version is coming out if they heavily discount their products.

So you buy “cheaper” than the usual price, but once the new version is out, the upgrade price is kinda stupid, as in more expensive than the sale price of what you just bought.

Rinse and repeat.

I personally love what equates to loyalty discounts, and in your case, grace periods so a new customer isn’t screwed over. That just leaves a bad taste, at time when there’s lots of competition.

[cryophonik]

...especially now with things like Faster Master that basically almost does everything Ozone can do. (for $60)

If you haven't already, you should check out FasterMaster: https://www.masteringthemix.com/products/fastermaster

Thanks for the tip, guys. I spent some time last night checking out FasterMaster videos and plan to buy it this weekend and put it up against Ozone for a song I'm finishing. My only minor complaint with FM is that I wish I could see all the modules in one large view rather than individual tabs (maybe it's possible and I just missed it?).

[don1thedon]

...
THE BIGGEST surprise to me is that seems to still use their own licensing system? Anyone bought this able to confirm? I really expected everything to go through NI at this point and Native Access.
...

yeh uses iZotope Product Portal for install & licensing (I think subscription may be different though).

[Scoops]

Yep,

I was a big NI fan, until one day (this was a couple years ago) Native Access uninstall function deleted my MS office, and not the NI app I was deleting. I sat and watched it do it. I reported it, and the forum board/help desk ridiculed me, and said that it was impossible. Then one day someone else comes along and reports the same issue. In the meantime, all NI products get sky high prices, and customer support becomes a nightmare, and the forum continues to be a hostile place to visit.

I own "everything" Izotope up to RX/Ozone 10 and UCE14. I've been with NI since Komplete 2, and Izotope with Ozone 6

I quit buying NI/Izotope stuff for many reasons.
- Too expensive, and the loyalty offers are a joke
- Doesn't always install well
- Other products on the market work better!
- NTKDaemon is always running (No need for this auto updater) I now have that service turned off, but I learned my lesson the hard way.
- Ozone 10 automation actually sux. Prove it to yourself. Take a prerecorded song that has been released for air play and run it through the automation. Pure suck I say!
- A lot of the Kontakt stuff gets tricky because of the versioning, and you may wake some morning only to find that NA has updated your stuff, without your consent, and is now in demo mode.
- Download speeds at NI are below 3rd world country setups, making something like UCE14 nearly impossible to load in anything less than a couple days, if it does download. And yes, I'm on a 1G hardwired connection. It doesn't matter. Still slow
- No direct person to talk to in customer support
- AI support runs you around in circles, and doesn't provide the answers to questions above
- No real new product development, and what appears to be EOL for some of the old standards like Absynth.

[osiris]

I've been checking out a lot of Faster Master videos and I think I would love it,but what it does not have is Master Rebalance, which I have found VERY useful especially for vocals that I don't have the proper level on.

[fisherKing]

I've been checking out a lot of Faster Master videos and I think I would love it,but what it does not have is Master Rebalance, which I have found VERY useful especially for vocals that I don't have the proper level on.

the new stem EQ takes rebalance much further; you can change the gain, AND the eq, of individual elements (like the voice, drums...) and it works very well. OZ12 is an impressive upgrade.