iZotope Ozone 3 RTAS Mac

I wish to submit a correction to my above post / critique. My real beef is still with Izotope's lame customer support. After days of frustration, I finally found my answers on a message board. I downloaded an updated version of Ozone 3 directly from Izotope, and I'm now 'in business'.

The interface is cool looking...very high-tech, outer-space green. Bypass functions a little confusing (there are 2). I validated mine on-line by simply submitting my serial #. The printed manual that comes with it is a joke.

I used to use Waves L1 back in the OS9 days, and loved it. This plug-in will do maximizing, but not quite as good as the L1 did. There's alot of other stuff available but I haven't had the time to explore yet. I just wanted everyone to know that it finally is working. I have basically defaulted to the "CD Master" preset which seems the most natural and useful.

I saw alot of rave reviews for this product, and the $180 price seemed a bargain. This kind of a device, with the exception of reverb, is generally not processer-intensive.

Been making music for 30+ years...am a guitarist/bassist with some keyboard. Am running ProTools 7.3 on a MAC Mini OSX 10.4. I do alot of jingle work and vocal overdubs for people. Also some radio production.

Sad to say, this product is not working at all. The installation went too quickly. And when I went to open it in ProTools, it wasn't there in the plug-in list.

Can't rate what I can't hear.

I paid $180 for...nothing??

easy presets for beginners, tons of options for more advanced users.

it can produce a ton of different sounds, which tend to be rather drastic. i think though, that people confuse a 'different' sound with a 'better' sound.

if you have no idea what your doing and want to get in to mastering, this might be worth while. if you cant afford waves, uad, sonnox, this might be worth while. otherwise......i'd pass.

I've been playing guitar since age 10, started recording on MBox in my dorm room and on an 8 track 1/4", eventually upgraded to a Digi 002R and went to the Conservatory of Recording Arts & Sciences.

My current setup is the 002R maxed out at 18 in, with a PreSonus Eureka, Mackie Onyx 800F in through lightpipe, Line 6 Bass PODxt Pro, Line 6 Vetta, all into an Apple Power Mac Quad-Core G5 with OS X.4 and Pro Tools LE v7.0

I use plugins from Digi, Bomb Factory, iZotope and Waves so far. I enjoy mixing a lot but the majority of what I've done has been with mastering for commercial non-music product, radio, and television. I do record demos and albums for local bands and produce professional sounding, radio ready products for a fraction of what it would cost to do it on higher end gear.

I monitor through a pair of Alesis actives, Sennheiser HD280 headphones, my computer speakers which have been my sole sound source for 3 years, and of course any car stereo I can play with.

At first I was intimidated by Ozone because of the lack of a super-bubbly GUI. No effort was made to make it resemble any piece of hardware. I STRONGLY suggest taking the time to read the PDF provided on the disc to learn the plugin.

The interface has 6 different screens as well as other layers of controls and settings that are accessible. Even with the 6 main pages there is a lot more than meets the eye. Parameters can be controlled by a number of different means.

For example, if your mouse has a scroll wheel, when playing with the paragraphic EQ, your scroll wheel is adjust the Q on the band in question. The scroll wheel can also be used to change the input/output gain on the meters. There are also generally 3 different ways to change any parameter; bar/meter adjustment, numeric entry, graphic adjustment.

It is NOT the most intuitive setup in the world, but once you get the gist of it, you realize that it is an extremely efficient plugin to make the changes you need to make.

Pretty much every single one of the 150+ parameters are automatable.

Ozone 3 is VERY POWERFUL. And thus it is very easy to make GREAT sounds with it, and it is also easy to abuse and butcher yours or your clients' creations. You have to really take the time to understand what each section is doing for you and adjust it accordingly depending on what you want to do.

The multiband dynamics and harmonic exciter are not to be taken lightly. They can drastically change the tonality of the music. Remember that just because you've got 6 toys in 1 here that you don't need to use them all.

Thus far I have no complaints about the sonic quality I've gotten from this plugin. In fact, I think that it is probably the best thing that has ever happened to my production quality. It can make a great mix great and might be able to salvage a not-so-great mix.

Here is an example:
This is a tune I recorded one afternoon in my friend's livingroom a few months ago. At that time I was still lacking a few mics so the kick was just a D112 inside and that was it. The toms were ghetto mic'd with a mish-mosh of general purpose mics. This was mixed on my old computer, an iMac G4 800MHz using mostly Digirack and Bomb Factory plugins. I originally tried to master it by mixing stems with the original stereo mix and slamming it through layer after layer of compression to get that big-label, in-your-face smack.

http://tarktones.com/media/TellMe.mp3

Then a few months later I got Ozone. So I went back to just the original stereo mix, and utilized all 6 functions of Ozone to get the clarity and punch that I wanted. Biggest differences are the clarity in the high end, the kick is a lot deeper and cleaner, the snare is slightly less trashy and the effects vocals (the phone filtered delay) is less present.

http://tarktones.com/media/TellMeRemastered.mp3

In actuality it was just listing for $200 but I got it for $300 bundled with Spectron and Trash as well (from my new favorite place http://www.audiomidi.com/). I would say if you are looking for plugins that are inexpensive to get great results, get the izotope bundle and Metric Halo's Channel Strip. You're looking at $550 of investment for incredible sound quality and flexibility.

Ozone 3 has become an INDISPENSIBLE part of my setup and I would take Ozone over the Waves L3 Multimaximizer any day (and yes I have A>B's them). Save your money and get the Ozone. This is one of the best values I've ever come across. Don't hesitate to add this very powerful and flexible plugin along with the other goodies from iZotope; Spectron and Trash.