Ozone 8 Advanced - questions compared to my gear

[Caine123]

hey guys, ozone 8 advanced is very cheap atm for me and i demo it atm and i like it somehow a lot but! i got too much already, so i might replace my stuff or stick with it but e.g. fabfilter dominates ozone for me so far so i check the modules:

here are my thoughts compared to my gear

Ozone 8 EQ - Not Needed (Q3, F6, Stock EQs etc.)
- i already have Fabfilter Q3 which is ultra flexible, easy and intuitive, i dont think Ozone 8 EQ gives me any advantages, especially when i got my stock EQ and some others like F6 etc, which i should delete after Q3 i think

Ozone 8 Vintage EQ - Not Needed (Waves, Brainworx, NI etc.)
wow, what an ugly UI, this is so bad in design i didnt want even to try it, and i already got so many so called vintage eq emulations from Waves etc. so i guess it is an easy pass

Ozone 8 Vintage Tape - maybe? (Satin?)
i got Satin and other tape emulations, i guess this is only more a gimmick and nothing really needed and no advantage especially over satin?

Ozone 8 Exciter - maybe?
well i got many saturators etc. and Aural Exciter, Bass Exciter, but not a 4 band exciter afaik, so maybe this is a nice one?

Ozone 8 Vintage Compressor - Not Needed (Waves, Brainworx, NI etc.)
again so many comps already from waves, brainworx etc. i guess this is an easy pass

Ozone 8 Dynamics - Not Needed (Pro-MB?)
i guess Fabfilter Pro-MB consumes it?

Ozone 8 Dynamic EQ - Not Needed (Pro Q3?)
i guess Pro-Q3 consumes it

Ozone 8 Spectral Shaper - maybe?
this i dunno, i did test it a bit and while it game me nice results e.g. taming harshness, raising some elements i wonder if Spiff, Soothe and Freiraum.

Ozone 8 Imager - YES?
oh this one is my most caught in the eye one, i checked my vsts and the only thing it seems i got is Tracks 5 Imager but i want to maybe get rid of tracks 5 cause it sounds maybe nice but i dont like their whole marketing, systems, buggy vsts etc. otherwise i dont have a wideness splitter


Ozone 8 Post EQ - Not Needed (Q3, F6, Stock EQs etc.)
same as above EQ

Ozone 8 Vintage Limiter - Not Needed (Pro L?)
i guess Pro-L consumes it

Ozone 8 Maximizer - Not needed (Pro L?)
isnt it just a limiter?

overall it seems the Ozone 8 collection is a waste of money, what i like are the many presets and the LEARN function, to give maybe some ideas, tips but i dont know how much reliable these are, what i really like is the Imager and maybe the exciter for some nice mastering touches as well. the rest it seems is already better covered?

thanls for taking your time, what do you think?

[acousticglue]

Gas. Put pedal to medal. Gas. Or should I hit the brakes? Gas.

Watch the movie Affliction.

[ckam03]

You literally have everything covered 10 fold. Don't bother.

[generaldiomedes]

Not unless you plan on selling a lot of your existing plugins ..

[FapFilter]

You guess that your stuff consumes it?
I prefer to use other tools, simply because they work quicker, both in the UI, but also iZotope product instances all open up like slugs and are resource hogs.
For the quality of the algorithms it really depends on your needs, i personally slightly prefer it's limiter to Pro-L when pushed hard (which i don't do anyway)
The Dynamic EQ in Ozone is also more flexible than the one in Pro-Q.
The rest does nothing special for me, though the Multiband Compressor is also very good if you don't already have a great one, which does not apply to your case.
I'm keeping my copy of Ozone 7 for „mastering“ when/if i feel i need a change from my more practical stuff, but for the actual composition and mixing i actually never reach for it.
Purely for mastering it can of course be a weapon that does not get „consumed“ by other stuff, but it's also not needed if you already have other great tools.
They're all just cooking with water, after all

No idea about the „auto mastering algorithms“ in O8 though. Only you can decide whether those are beneficial to you or not.

[plexuss]

I used ozone a lot over the years but I moved away from it. Its very clean and transparent. However I found myself using other software and moving away from ozone. I never "gelled" with neutron in terms of adopting it in my workflow. so in the end I sold both. I dont even think about it anymore.

They are both good bundles of tools with some really unique things. But if you have a lot of other similar tools, for example FabFilter, DMG, MacDSP, etc. you may not have much use for Ozone. Only you can say.

[Caine123]

thanks so much guys! im still testing and will test the rest 9 days of demo period!
e.g. i dont like the Maximizer cause with Pro-MB you can also expand and not only compress + it is visually much better, so +1 to fabfilter again!

so far i wonder if you can recommend anything like the EXCITER & IMAGER of Ozone 8?
@imager would be great one which would also show the mono compatibility too and has 4 bands.

[DrMEM]

Imager is free.

[Caine123]

thx but how much advantage does the 4band imager give? i dont know much about stereo widening effects so the 4 band one is prety new to me.

[HighEndMastering]

Whilst I own Ozone 8 I'm not a fan. I don't like it's tonal results.

It functions for me as a pure utility plugin rather than sonic enhancement of any kind, there is better mastering software out there albeit you have to pick and choose individual pieces rather than finding a similar 'complete' package.

Your software list is overwhelming (for a minimalist like me) and you have a lot of crossover. You don't need Ozone 8.

[AdvancedFollower]

I have other compressors, EQ's etc. from Waves, TDR, Sonimus and others, but I only use those during mixing, on buses and sometimes on the master, while Ozone is applied on the entire mixdown after it has been exported.

The main advantage for me with Ozone 8 (Standard, in my case) is that it's a complete solution focused on mastering. So you get a complete mastering chain within one GUI, and typically at a lower price than if you were to pick and choose individual plugins. The included presets and the Master Assistant are a great help to get you to a good starting point, which is hard to achieve with a chain of plugins from several different developers (each with its own presets and browser). For someone like me, who doesn't have the skills, ears or listening environment for "proper" mastering, getting pointed in the right direction like that is extremely useful.

The multi-band imager is useful, but I don't think such a feature is unique to Ozone, so buying it just for that would be overkill. Typically, you'd apply a bit of narrowing to the lower frequencies, and widen the higher frequencies a bit, but there are probably lots of other uses.

[dionenoid]

Ozone 8's Mastering Assistant is a nice feature. Sometimes when i'm stuck with a mix, i run a reference track in it and it points me in a different direction, which can help solve things. But usually what i do after is use other plug-ins to do these tasks

[Caine123]

THX to all! i did some more tests so far and i tend to not buy it!
why?
- the mastering assistant is nice and cool, but it mostly has the same results, some dynEQ, preEQ and maximiser
- i got recommended some VSTs which let you build your own chains
- ozone 8 seems to be really a cpu hungry vst which i dont like while i use other plugins like fabfilter, soothe etc. and are less cpu hungry but more versatile
- i checked some presets and while being a nice giving idea it often was changing the sound not to my taste, somehow always maximizing and less dynamics

[zacha]

If the spectral shaper is one of the main appeals, I’ve found it really handy for taming harshness in voices. But I also haven’t used it much since I got Soothe.

So if that’s one of the main appeals, you might want to go straight to Soothe, and keep waiting to see what’s in Ozone 9 one day.

[Neon Breath]

Not fun to suffer from GAS uh? Feels like having an itch you can never scratch.