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Dear All,
I use Ozone for 'mastering' my tracks. I am obviously not a mastering engineer but so far I had no complaints as to the audio quality or loudness of my submissions. Out of curiosity I would like to ask fellow members using Ozone (and its 'assistant') whether you go for the streaming friendly or the hotter CD mastering option as a starting point when submitting to Taxi. As you can tell, I have a very simplistic approach to 'mastering' my tracks and therefore want to try to keep it as simple as possible (i.e. just making the mix louder and ensuring there are no true peaks - if something stands out I simply fix it in the mix if needs be). Would you say that hotter 'mastered' tracks are still what most members go for or is the typical screener's ear also comfortable with the more moderate streaming 'standard'. I know gaining more knowledge about mastering should be up on my list but I like to spend the time on composing and mixing and for the time being treat mastering more like an icing on the cake if that makes sense.
Please let me know your thoughts.
Cheers,
Matt

Hey Matt!

I don’t use ozone, but I would suggest the hotter mix as the better option. Here’s why:

1) Louder is usually perceived as better sounding. If there is any chance at all that the music library or music supervisor are skimming through a bunch of songs to find “the one” without adjusting their volume for each track, I want mine to jump out of the speakers and smack them in the face with awesomeness.

2) Mastering tracks for a streaming service makes sense if that’s the only avenue in which it will be used, since most of those services have a normalization to all their tracks to keep things fairly even. Putting stuff past their recommended output has no real benefit since it’s just going to be brought down to their standard. Since (I’m assuming) your tracks are going to libraries and music supervisors and not intended for streaming, I’d say it’s better to have it mastered louder.

Hope that helps some!

Andrew

ResonantTone wrote: ↑

Thu May 30, 2019 12:45 pm

Hey Matt!

I don’t use ozone, but I would suggest the hotter mix as the better option. Here’s why:

1) Louder is usually perceived as better sounding. If there is any chance at all that the music library or music supervisor are skimming through a bunch of songs to find “the one” without adjusting their volume for each track, I want mine to jump out of the speakers and smack them in the face with awesomeness.

2) Mastering tracks for a streaming service makes sense if that’s the only avenue in which it will be used, since most of those services have a normalization to all their tracks to keep things fairly even. Putting stuff past their recommended output has no real benefit since it’s just going to be brought down to their standard. Since (I’m assuming) your tracks are going to libraries and music supervisors and not intended for streaming, I’d say it’s better to have it mastered louder.

Hope that helps some!

Andrew

Thanks Andrew! That all makes sense. I will implement this moving forward.
Have a great weekend!
Cheers,
Matt

"the Maximizer’s ceiling and threshold are set to hit the Streaming, CD, or Reference target you selected when you started Master Assistant. "

1. streaming- average loudness for streaming services
2. cd- This gives you the a few different intensity options that dictate how often the Limiter reacts to your audio.
3. reference-Master Assistant will learn the EQ curve of your reference track as well as your reference track’s loudness.


1. general, no fuss, normal intensity
2. more creative, options that deliver more, less, or same intensity as the normal intensity of number 1, the streaming option.
3. matches the character of a chosen track, essentially no options as the reference controls the intensity

so essentially, the cd target has different presets for adjusting the threshold (the level at which the limiter engages) and ceiling ( lowering the output ceiling always causes more gain reduction). Operates on the principle of lowering the threshold
and lowering the ceiling causes more gain reduction, allowing you to increase the overall volume, thus decreasing or limiting the dynamic range, or decreasing the difference between whispers or loud screams. The good being that low signals
can be heard and loud signals can be tamed so they don't overload and distort, the bad being that some low noises should be left low, like teeth clatter, and louder signals shouldn't be on the same level as low signals. Really more of a corrective measure for balancing not ideal situations, or matching signals to the ideal parameters of the medium. Much of this is achieved in the mixing stage. Mastering is primarily aimed to provide the optimal parameters for the format medium, whether
for cd, streaming, tape. vinyl, radio, ...

https://www.izotope.com/en/blog/masteri ... one-8.html
This is basically how I interpret what Ozone is saying about their product, and what I think it means.

Andrew has the right idea.

Unfortunately we are not the end user of the music, so mastering for streaming is sort of useless. If your music is less impressive to the ear because its a few dB quieter and its not picked up by the library because of that - that's just a shame.

Do what the big players do - listen to major league production music libraries and make your stuff comparable.

You will find that's going to be CD loudness - which incidentally is about -10dB RMS in Ozone 8 using the mastering assistant.

If you are using ref tunes ripped from audio CD's then you can use the reference option and the loudness should be close but take care that you like the frequency balance of the ref piece as Ozone will push the eq curve to be like that.

If you are using tunes that you have somehow captured from YouTube or some other service that has loudness compensation then I wouldn't use the reference option - as those tunes are usually turned down at least a few dB - so Ozone won't push the master as loud.

andygabrys wrote: ↑

Fri May 31, 2019 4:15 pm

Andrew has the right idea.

Unfortunately we are not the end user of the music, so mastering for streaming is sort of useless. If your music is less impressive to the ear because its a few dB quieter and its not picked up by the library because of that - that's just a shame.

Do what the big players do - listen to major league production music libraries and make your stuff comparable.

You will find that's going to be CD loudness - which incidentally is about -10dB RMS in Ozone 8 using the mastering assistant.

If you are using ref tunes ripped from audio CD's then you can use the reference option and the loudness should be close but take care that you like the frequency balance of the ref piece as Ozone will push the eq curve to be like that.

If you are using tunes that you have somehow captured from YouTube or some other service that has loudness compensation then I wouldn't use the reference option - as those tunes are usually turned down at least a few dB - so Ozone won't push the master as loud.

Really, really helpful guys! Thanks a lot.
Cheers,
Matt

Hi, I really like Ozone tools.
But I find you have to use delay compensation when you have for example
2 or 3 tracks with Neutron on.
(windows 10 16gig ram 3.10Mhz iCore)

The mastering tool can be useful if your song
fits the preset style.
General setting are very 'generic'
not very useful...
Tweaking is fun but can be a waste of time when you have to deliver!

Hope this helps
Pierre