Does anyone have any good Ozone 3 presets they would be willing to share? I've been using some of the ones that come with the product, but I hack them to pieces to arrive at something that sounds reasonable to me. I find mastering to be more of an art than a science, and I would certainly like to learn from a few "masters" at the art. All rolled up in the form of a preset of course ;-)

I have to throw in that my favorite preset with Ozone is "Bypass."

Sorry - Had to. I don't see the romance with that plug...

But in any case, there are no presets - Especially for mastering.

If a mix is a little brittle at 2.6kHz by .75dB and there was a preset that says "Reduce brittleness at 2.6kHz by .75dB" then that's the preset you'd want.

Or, you could just make a .75dB cut at 2.6kHz...

And that preset isn't going to work for the next mix.

Presets aren't for normal use -- They're there to show what the plug does. Usually in a very extreme and "non-real-world" manner. And as the ear reacts quickly to change, presets almost universally do much more harm than good. If you don't know what you're listening for, presets aren't going to help - They're going to hurt.

If presets could do what the ear does, there wouldn't be much of an "art" to it...

quote:

If a mix is a little brittle at 2.6kHz by .75dB and there was a preset that says "Reduce brittleness at 2.6kHz by .75dB" then that's the preset you'd want.

MHAHAhAHHHAHAA.........HAHAHAH

Man, you've made my day!

When I first started using Ozone I thought that it was great. Now it seems every time I use it I use less and less of it. Start by turning everything off and just use very little one at a time. Often times I just end up using some other plug lately. Presets never work.

And there's the big issue with pretty much every "all in one" solution.

I know several mastering professionals that use Ozone - But none that I know of use more than one or two "modules" of it. You might use the dither. Or the EQ. Or the SRC. Or (etc., etc.). I don't know anyone who uses the maul-the-band compressor, I don't know anyone who uses more than one band of the imaging tool.

quote:

Presets never work.

Exactly.

OK - I get the picture. I should have known better than to ask that question. Pardon me for the intrusion in your forum.

Mr. Scrip: I read on your web page that you hang out in these forums because it’s good karma? Well I’m not feeling it, but have a nice day anyway.

I don't think John was being rude or dis-respecting you if that's the impression that you got. He's just being honest and giving you a professional opinion and some good advice if you ask me. I don't post alot on this board myself, but I do alot of reading and learning here. I've seen very little negativity. Just sometimes people take things the wrong way.

Hey dcasey,

Sorry you're taking these comments wrong. John's one of the good guys and you can learn alot from this forum if you hang around a while.

Your question is more general than perhaps you know. How would you answer me if I told you that I had a new Sony stereo receiver and wanted suggestions for bass/treble and volume settings?

I would agree with you that mastering is both art and science. ME's I know are pretty methodical in their approach, which includes problem determination before problem resolution. Anyone worth listening to would never suggest a solution without knowing what problem you're actually trying to solve.

Now, if you had specific issues like removing plosives from a vocal performance or eliminating specific kind of noises, etc., you might get more specific answers to your questions.

John did suggest working with one or two modules for certain tasks which I think is a good suggestion. Also, you said you start with a preset and hack from there. That sounds like a good method to me to learn how the program works and responds.

I think personally it's a bad approach to slap a tool on a mix and just hope it somehow sounds better. You might get lucky, but you don't learn anything and success will be limited. You're better off listening to masters you really enjoy and working on identifying what it is you like about them. The same goes for masters that are lacking and what it is you don't like about them. This will lead you to being fairly articulate with expressing a problem you may want some help with, and the responses will be more helpful.

I wish you the best of luck and hope you stick around.

Steve

Yeah... Let's put the brakes on here for a minute... I certainly didn't mean anything "personal" there... I'm merely suggesting that (A) there are no such things as "presets" when you're listening. There are a hundred presets that one might put on that will instantly sound "different" and many ears will see that difference as "better" - even presets that warp the sound into something much worse. And with "all in one" units, it's not just one thing that's changing -- It could be 3, 4, maybe 6 "modules" with two dozen parameters all changing simultaneously.

Listen - And do what the mix is telling you to do. There's no preset for that - And it's really the only way to learn.

Hey, I downloaded the demo for Ozone, and I think it's a hoot. Thing is, I'm not a professional engineer, just a musician who is hopefully headed toward a working knowledge of making a decent recording. What I am finding is there are one or two packaged presets that I'm using over and over, but like the guy who started this thread, I'm getting better results by tweaking this and turning off that. My biggest challenge is the preset used on the master channel brings the recording to "life" but really thins out the tone of my acoustic instruments.

I don't know if I will buy a copy when the demo expires, but I might. I'm sorry the original post got to be the butt of a smart remark...but it was pretty funny...and from a mastering professional's point of view, most likely true. I may not have thought as much so if I had been the guy who asked the question. A direct straight answer might be go to an Ozone user forum (if there is such a thing) for shared presets. If you really want to get your feathers ruffled, go talk politics on the OT section.

But even that - and I don't mean to beat a dead horse - isn't going to really help.

Example of presets that are actually useful -- Say you've got a POD (guitar processor) and you find a preset that says "Rhoads Les Paul" -- If you have a Les Paul and you want a sound like Randy Rhoads, you're probably off to a good start.

I used to have a processor with a setting called "Dimebag" - When I plugged in a Jackson with extremely high-output DiMarzio pickups, it was bang-freakin' on. When I plugged in an Ibanez with EMG's, it wasn't even remotely similar.

The short of it is that a preset is only good if you have the same starting point that the preset had.

That mention before about the 2.6kHz... Perfect if you have a mix that's brittle at 2.6kHz. Totally worthless if you have a mix that's anemic at 2.6khz. But if you combine that with some sort of crazy maul-the-band compression that brings the program level up 6dB, the user probably won't notice that there's a huge hole in the mix at 2.6kHz -

You need to start with the opposite of the preset - Or the preset is worthless.

I'm not saying not to "play around" with presets -- That's what they're there for I guess. But if you take a little time - Heck, an hour or less - to learn the processor, you'll do so much better than any preset is going to do...

And again - It's these multi-processors that are much more painful... A preset on an EQ for example -- "Pump up the bass" - There you go. If you have something that needs the bass to be "pumped up," it might be a decent starting point. Not as good as just making the adjustment yourself, but at least something reasonable.

But I would challenge any processor to get the macro and micro dynamics, stereo spread, EQ, limiting, etc. all within reason all at the same time (as each will affect the response of each holistically).

It reminds me of the old Finalizers... You'd run program through it and press the "Wizard" button and it would analyze the program material and automatically create a unique preset for the material.

A preset that almost universally sounded like crap - but was loud. Useless. And that was actually *intelligent* (for lack of a better term).

Hey, Dcasey, if you're still following this thread, I use Ozone and I'll be glad to respond to your post. If you're going to post on forums like this you should probably develop a little thicker skin, though. This group is pretty tame. For god sakes, don't post on Gearslutz - they'll eat you alive.

I've made lots of presets for Ozone but you know what? After each project I delete them. They do me no good in the future.

I love the Ozone presets even though I never use them. They are like instructional tools to show you how to dramatically change the sound in various ways. When you learn what's going on you can use those techniques more appropriately.

The best way to learn Ozone is to read the Ozone Mastering Guide, available for free download on the Ozone page of their web site. It is an excellent primer on general mastering as well as explaining how to get the most from the plugin.

I know John has contempt for Ozone and I'm sure if I had his gear and experience I would too. But for what I do this plugin is nothing short of phenomenal. I use it for more than mastering. I occasionally use individual modules on a track, such as the harmonic enhancer on a dead sounding guitar track, and it can do some nice things to a mix.

I've even gotten good results from the multiband compressor which seems to be roundly criticized by ME's. Used judiciously it can really glue a mix together and provide a more coherent sound. I probably use it about a third of the time.

I very seldom use the Ozone EQ because if something's wrong with the eq of the mix I go back and fix whatever is out of place. This is perhaps the greatest benefit of doing your own mastering - if you're willing to spend the time. I find that mastering a song takes about 1/3 to 1/2 as much time as it took to mix the damn thing. That's because the mastering phase seems to expose flaws in the mix that I go back and correct. For me mastering is an iterative process where I go back and forth between mastering settings and mix settings until I get the sound I want.

The limiter is very clean if you don't push it too hard. I can't get my masters all the way to ear splitting commercial levels and I don't even try. But using Ozone I can get a mix in the ballpark of a commercial CD and in fact, I think my masters sound better than many of the commercial CDs I compare them to. The reason isn't that Ozone is so good, it's because I don't smash the hell out of the songs.

Anyway, Ozone (and mastering) is big commitment to learn. There's really no way to get good at it but to try lots of different things and keep improving your skill. I've used Ozone on over 300 songs and I'm still learning.

quote:

I very seldom use the Ozone EQ because if something's wrong with the eq of the mix I go back and fix whatever is out of place.

The question that I have is why don't you do the same when you use your multiband compressor?

quote:

The question that I have is why don't you do the same when you use your multiband compressor?

In a sense, I do. When the limiter is applied (and maybe the multiband compressor) sometimes the balance changes. The vocal may sound quieter in the mix, for example. I'll go back and increase the level of the vocal and maybe adjust the compression settings in the mix and then try the limiter again.

The multiband comressor in my experience does something different than compressing each track individually, however. The best way I can put it is that it "glues the mix together." Depending on the mix this can be a good thing or a bad thing but in some cases it makes the mix sound smoother and more professsional.

The only module I use all the time is the limiter and it does a pretty good job of preserving the punchiness if I don't overdo it. I always start with just the limiter. Then I'll put in the multiband compressor, play with the settings, and then switch it in and out to see if I like it better engaged or disengaged.

I'm with 8th-note. I create presets as place savers because it takes me a lot of time to master tracks. I'll continue to tweak and update a preset. Then maybe re-visit the mix to fix some problems. Sometimes I'll walk away and I'll have a fresh perspective another day.

I own and use Ozone and presets really do not make a lot of sense, every piece of audio requires totally different processing if processing is used.

The only thing I can think of that presets would be used for is destroying your music in some way.

I listened to 3 or 4 and then immediately learnt everything in each module individually, it's the only way you can make this tool work.