ProAudio Review - October 2008 - (Page 32) STUDIO | REVIEW of Ozone in Pro Tools with all modules engaged before my CPU overloaded. Why, that’s enough to master a whole record! Under all conditions, the GUI loads painfully slowly (about 4 seconds), partly due to their intense graphics displays. Not just pretty light shows, Ozone contains a comprehensive suite of informative, user adjustable metering. To help relieve the processor strain, clever iZotope allows toggling of all meters. Great for the user-manual averse, one click of the question mark icon launches online help for that module via web browser. iZotope’s website guided me through several features, such as EQ matching, that I didn’t previously know how to use. Over my first three days mastering with the plug-in I kept myself enrolled in Ozone Online Community College. SUMMARY Ozone is complex, but well worth the learning curve. Now, after getting to know it myself, I feel guilty for having unwittingly exposed my musician buddies to such an elaborate feature set. No doubt through their continued use of Ozone they got a thorough education into nearly all that is possible in spectral and dynamics manipulation. I auditioned this plug-in exclusively in a mastering role, but its powerful features could certainly produce stunning and creative results on individual tracks or subgroups. A must have for DAW-based mastering engineers, iZotope’s Ozone 3 is the most powerful (enough to get into a lot of trouble), fully-featured mastering plug-in I’ve used, with sound quality equal to or better than any other. The EQ sounds smooth and analog rich, the crossovers are musical and transparent, the harmonic exciter tone-elevating, the multiband dynamics capable of magic tricks, and the loudness maximizer state of the art. Even the M-Bit dither says, “Come hither.” Alex Oana is an award wining engineer, who mixes and masters at his studio in Los Angeles. IZOTOPE Continued From Page 31 highs to increase perceived punch of the low end. There are two reasons this can be effective: 1.) Low frequencies are slower and take longer to get to us. Advancing the lows just a millisecond can line them up acoustically in your room, and 2.) The loudness maximizer won’t have to work as hard if it doesn’t have to limit the energy-heavy lows at precisely the same time as the rest of the spectral content. Ozone’s imager goes to another level by offering band-specific image control; for instance, one might want to make the low frequencies mono to increase punch, then expand the width of the midrange to push the guitars wider. A phase correlation meter is integral to the module. Ozone offers plate and room type reverbs that can be blended with the dry signal at any ratio. In small amounts, these short RT60 verbs can add depth to overly dry masters. Whenever faced with the dilemma of CPU performance vs. sound quality, iZotope claims to have favored sound quality. At 44.1k, I could run 12 instances 32 | ProAudio Review | October 2008 www.proaudioreview.com http://www.mil-media.com http://www.proaudioreview.com
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