Ozone , tell me why

[AugusteBeagle]

I'm also a hobbyist who has been producing for a little over a year, and I found Ozone Elements to be very useful if you want to focus on production and mixing instead of dedicating a lot of time to learning mastering in depth. Just be aware that the Ozone mastering assistant can EQ things way too dramatically for your tastes (especially if you're doing bass-heavy music), so you still need to use your judgement. I tend to use the mastering assistant more as a way to get a "second opinion" on my mix. You can get Ozone Elements for free if you sign up to SoundBetter (also free), and it's also often a freebie on other sites. Never pay full price for Izotope products IMO. Also I don't think you really need Ozone Advanced or Standard, but other people might disagree. I find the most useful parts of Ozone are in the Elements version, so I never felt the need to shell out money on an upgrade.

[LeVzi]

4 instances of Pro-L 2 in series... f***

On topic... Pro-L 2 is superb, as is Limitless - both are better than the Ozone Maximizer in my opinion.

Interesting shootout Pro L vs Limitless, I've always loved Dave Gambles stuff, so i'd assume Limitless is pretty damn powerful too, but it never seems to get much love ahead of Pro L.

Well if I had to choose one it would probably be Limitless. It often sounds slightly clearer and wider to me than Pro-L 2 - and it's definitely deeper and more flexible in terms of manual control. It's really close though, almost splitting hairs.

Would be an interesting shootout over different genres tbh.

[MogwaiBoy]

4 instances of Pro-L 2 in series... f***

On topic... Pro-L 2 is superb, as is Limitless - both are better than the Ozone Maximizer in my opinion.

Interesting shootout Pro L vs Limitless, I've always loved Dave Gambles stuff, so i'd assume Limitless is pretty damn powerful too, but it never seems to get much love ahead of Pro L.

Well if I had to choose one it would probably be Limitless. It often sounds slightly clearer and wider to me than Pro-L 2 - and it's definitely deeper and more flexible in terms of manual control. It's really close though, almost splitting hairs.

Would be an interesting shootout over different genres tbh.

Definitely! Also comparing with Limitless as a wide-band processor.

In my experience I bought Pro-L secondhand, then upgraded cheap, and got pulled in by the awesome GUI and effortless setup. But then at some point I thought I should compare renders with Limitless pulling the same amount of gain reduction. Blindtested, I realized Limitless was not surpassed by Pro-L 2. I would happily use either though.

[hoxclab]

All you need is Ozone Elements which I got for free or next to nothing when they had a deal/sale. It's all I use to master my projects. I select the same setting every time. It works for me.

[LeVzi]

4 instances of Pro-L 2 in series... f***

On topic... Pro-L 2 is superb, as is Limitless - both are better than the Ozone Maximizer in my opinion.

Interesting shootout Pro L vs Limitless, I've always loved Dave Gambles stuff, so i'd assume Limitless is pretty damn powerful too, but it never seems to get much love ahead of Pro L.

Well if I had to choose one it would probably be Limitless. It often sounds slightly clearer and wider to me than Pro-L 2 - and it's definitely deeper and more flexible in terms of manual control. It's really close though, almost splitting hairs.

Would be an interesting shootout over different genres tbh.

Definitely! Also comparing with Limitless as a wide-band processor.

In my experience I bought Pro-L secondhand, then upgraded cheap, and got pulled in by the awesome GUI and effortless setup. But then at some point I thought I should compare renders with Limitless pulling the same amount of gain reduction. Blindtested, I realized Limitless was not surpassed by Pro-L 2. I would happily use either though.

Yeah I have 100% faith in Dave Gambles stuff, and Fabfilters rep is equally as high, and roughly the same price bracket, so one day I will take the plunge, until then i'll stick with what I have , mixture between L2/L3 , Limiter 6 GE, and brickwall by IK

[BernieBass]

Ozone Elements 11 Help!
I bought it from Plugin Boutique for £36, installed it, but as soon as I insert it onto my Tracktion Waveform master track and hit analyse, the DAW crashes. It's a cpu problem and i can overcome it (sort of) by un-sandboxing all the VST instruments. I used to have Elements 9 and that worked ok.
Secondly, the "AI" suggested eq don't match the genre of my tune. If I select a different EQ curve do I need to re analyse my tune?
Thirdly, The white oscilloscope trace of my tune does not match up or resemble the Blue target EQ curve. Is Ozone actually doing anything? I could go back and tweak my mix, but whats the point of Ozone?
and lastly It's too bloody loud. how can I limit the peaks to abuot -3db?
Any advice please?

[kidslow]

Ozone Elements 11 Help!
I bought it from Plugin Boutique for £36

Free copies of each of the iZotope Elements are often available. My advice is use this opportunity to take advantage of any return policy and get your money back for incompatibility with your DAW. I have a few Ozone Elements licenses that were never registered. Says they were Ozone 9 but you can try one and see if they'll give you 11 when you register. Sometimes they'll make you current upon registration. Just DM me.

[dblock]

For me, since I (usually) can't seem to making my masters better than Ozone, it only makes sense to me to use a plugin that's smarter than me with better ears so to speak. There is a lot less knob twirling for a better product and good for ear training. I use Ozone Smart comp 2, Smart Limit and Focusrite Fast EQ in conjunction with a bunch of plugins I like that aren't AI. I always try and get my mix as good as possible before I use the smart ones and each time I get a little closer to what these smart plugins do but that's assuming you like what the smart ones do as a starting point which isn't always the case for me. There are times where I like what I've done better than what Ozone comes up with. I either tweak Ozone or drop it altogether in favor of what I did.

[BernieBass]

Thanks everyone. My hearing is not so good, and for me, the more parameters and sliders the plugin has, the more chance you have of messing up your mix. So AI is the way to go for mastering. But I should have done some research first.
Thanks dblock for the info about Smart Comp and Fast EQ they look really good. I'm goung to reinstall Ozone elements 9 because unlike V.11 you can access and tweak the individual modules.