Mastering Demystified

Even among the most experienced musicians and producers, mastering has been regarded as a black art—until iZotope’s Ozone 3. Not only is the program extremely powerful and intuitive, it features an extensive Mastering Guide that actually demystifies the mastering process. Ozone 3 also ships with a wide array of presets that are ready for many mastering situations—not to mention educational.  Get immediate results by auditioning several presets to find the closet fit—so you spend less time tweaking and more time producing.  For more control, mix and match preset settings using the advanced preset manager!

Analog Modeling

Ozone is the result of extensive research in analog modeling.  Ozone 3 provides compression, equalization and harmonic excitation that recreate the behavior exhibited by analog equipment. Analog processing has certain nonlinear aspects that a mathematician would consider "wrong" but sound better musically. Any analog equalizer, for example, applies a small phase delay to the sound. These types of “imperfections” provide the analog characteristics of warmth, sparkle, depth and an overall pleasing sound. Ozone 3 captures the essence of analog gear to deliver sweet sounding masters.

Digital Precision

While analog modeling can provide a pleasant character or “colorization” to the sound, in some situations precise or “transparent” signal processing is desired. For example, you may wish to equalize or notch out a frequency without introducing the phase delay inherent in analog filters. For these applications, Ozone provides a digital, linear phase equalizer and crossover for a level of surgical precision not possible in analog hardware.

64-bit Audio Processing

When processing audio, Ozone 3 can perform thousands of calculations on a single sample. In any digital system, each of these calculations has a finite accuracy, limited by the number of bits used in the calculation. To avoid rounding errors from interfering with the audible portion of the audio, Ozone 3 performs each calculation using 64 bits. Can you hear 64 bits? No, but that’s the point. Ozone 3 pushes the rounding errors down into the inaudible range.

Useablility Enhancements: Undo History

Ever have a late night recording session only to wake up in the morning with a tinny, horrible-sounding master?  Audio fatigue is a real problem, and in this situation you would have to scrap the work and re-master the track.  Ozone 3 addresses this problem with the ability to undo any and all parameter changes—even between sessions!  As you tweak controls, each movement is captured and displayed in the History list. To hear a previous setting, simply click up the list to the point you want to audition. When working with mastering effects, perhaps most notably EQ and dynamics, it’s very easy to get accustomed to the “new” sound and overdo the effect. The History list lets you quickly jump back for comparisons to refresh your “auditory memory.”

Seven Plug-ins in One Integrated Interface

Mastering requires a specific set of tools and Ozone 3 has them all.  Rather than a bundle of separate plug-ins, Ozone 3 is a single integrated system.  This integration allows for a logical, optimized interface and superior sound quality not possible with a chain of independent plug-ins.  With extensive metering, an integrated preset system and full undo history, Ozone surpasses standard “plug-in” expectations to streamline workflow, save time and keep you focused on creative work