Ozone 11 standard vs Sonible plugins for mastering

[gcat]

Hi, I was going to buy Ozone 11 Standard to do the final mastering of my tracks in Reason, but I installed the 10 days free trial and I am experiencing a big issue.

I put Ozone as an insert FX in the master section of an empty Reason song, then I import the wav of the song I want to master to an audio track, but then 90% of the time when I click on Open in the Ozone vst it gets stuck in the opening screen (the one with the buttons to register it or keep using the trial mode).

It is very frustrating, and basically I am not able to test the software, and also I am not sure the paid version would not have the same issue.
Do anyone knows if i am doing something wrong? My pc is relatively new and should handle Ozone without any issue (I have no issues at all with Reason, even using dozens of instruments and effects at the same time).

While investigating this issue, I have found some posts recommending Sonible plugins for mastering, so I am trying their suite made of an EQ, a Compressor and a Limiter (https://www.sonible.com/smartessentials/).
I still have to dig into it but the limiter seems to be especially good.

Both Ozone Standard and the Sonible suite are similarly priced, so I am thinking of buying Sonible instead of Ozone. Thing is, Ozone seems to have more stuff in the mastering chain, while the Sonible suite is only made of 3 plug-ins. Do you think that would be enough for a decent mastering? I have no professional needs, I just want my mediocre songs to sound decently loud and balanced to be published to Youtube or Spotify.

[selig]

I’ve not had any issues with Ozone 9/10/11 in Reason over the years, and it’s $80 right now (at Sweetwater) so a great deal. That said, if all you need is ‘decent mastering’ the default mastering suite in Reason fits that bill just fine.

Sorry but I have no experience with Sonible to compare, but I can add that the widener in Ozone is one of the few I can actually use on most material.

IMO both of these options are well beyond ‘decent mastering’ for Youtube or Spotify!

[mind2069]

Hi

I just watched a video about mastering and he covers Sonible and ozone11, maybe this will help you. They are both among his prefered tools

From what I can see, Ozone is a much more complete set of tools depending on the version.

[gcat]

Hi

I just watched a video about mastering and he covers Sonible and ozone11, maybe this will help you. They are both among his prefered tools

From what I can see, Ozone is a much more complete set of tools depending on the version.

Thanks! Unfortunately in the video he is comparing Ozone Advanced against just Sonible Limiter, so not exactly the products I am looking to buy.

But now it seems like the issue with Ozone is fixed, so I will be able to try out both and see what works better for me.

[tomusurp]

I have Ozone 9 adv, but mostly only use their Maximizer which I'm a big fan of. Their plugins are a bit CPU-heavy but I only really use that one module for whatever reason. Sonible are bit better on CPU but I've never tried their limiter. I have their Smartcomp which I use for sidechaining vocals and SmartEQ is solid too for tonal shaping

[gcat]

I have Ozone 9 adv, but mostly only use their Maximizer which I'm a big fan of. Their plugins are a bit CPU-heavy but I only really use that one module for whatever reason. Sonible are bit better on CPU but I've never tried their limiter. I have their Smartcomp which I use for sidechaining vocals and SmartEQ is solid too for tonal shaping

Thanks, I am currently testing 3 mastering chains:
- Ozone 11 Standard
- Music Hack Master Plan
- Sonible SmartEQ + SmartComp + SmartLimiter.

I honestly find the 3 of them pretty good, if I don't tweak too much the presets the results does not seem to differ much between the 3.
Still a bit difficult for me to understand how much I can raise the output on the limiter without it being too much.

[selig]

I have Ozone 9 adv, but mostly only use their Maximizer which I'm a big fan of. Their plugins are a bit CPU-heavy but I only really use that one module for whatever reason. Sonible are bit better on CPU but I've never tried their limiter. I have their Smartcomp which I use for sidechaining vocals and SmartEQ is solid too for tonal shaping

Thanks, I am currently testing 3 mastering chains:
- Ozone 11 Standard
- Music Hack Master Plan
- Sonible SmartEQ + SmartComp + SmartLimiter.

I honestly find the 3 of them pretty good, if I don't tweak too much the presets the results does not seem to differ much between the 3.
Still a bit difficult for me to understand how much I can raise the output on the limiter without it being too much.

I find each limiter has a “limit” to how much gain reduction it can do cleanly, and might be different for different genres (bass heavy music in particular).

If you want to get a bit geeky, put the limiter in a Combinator and use a gain plugin (AFTER the limiter) to offset the boost a limiter gives when increasing gain reduction. If you lower the threshold 3dB, reduce the gain by 3dB (make sense?). If you put both controls on one Combinator knob you can actually hear what the limiter is doing without being biased by the added loudness. This can be quite revealing if you’re ready to peek behind the curtain a bit.

[tomusurp]

I have Ozone 9 adv, but mostly only use their Maximizer which I'm a big fan of. Their plugins are a bit CPU-heavy but I only really use that one module for whatever reason. Sonible are bit better on CPU but I've never tried their limiter. I have their Smartcomp which I use for sidechaining vocals and SmartEQ is solid too for tonal shaping

Thanks, I am currently testing 3 mastering chains:
- Ozone 11 Standard
- Music Hack Master Plan
- Sonible SmartEQ + SmartComp + SmartLimiter.

I honestly find the 3 of them pretty good, if I don't tweak too much the presets the results does not seem to differ much between the 3.
Still a bit difficult for me to understand how much I can raise the output on the limiter without it being too much.

Never heard of that second method. But I hear you, I was in a similar boat when I first started learning mixing and mastering about 4 years ago. I didn’t understand how many of the popular songs were able to get a good amount louder than mine without going over 0db. But after countless tutorials, experimenting and experiencing, I can hit -2 LUFS in my sleep if I really wanted to and still have the song sound good.

The truth is always have a good mix first and foremost. Because you’ll be able to bring out its qualities more, not only having better headroom. One major tip is how you shape the bass and its volume. The loudest popular songs you’ll ever hear like some dubstep or even pop stuff like BTS (I actually don’t like how they mix some of their songs because they are too harsh in certain frequencies), those songs have very very low bass. The issue with bass is that when it comes to loudness, it takes up a ton of headroom. So if you make EDM for example, I would suggest learning to clean up and gainstage your bass better. If you want to stay bass heavy, then just learn how to clean up and still stay in a healthy bass level.

There’s other tips but that’s a good starting point. And it sounds like you might not have natural or trained ear to understand yet how much is enough like you say, but I would think that will come with more experience. And you simply have to keep learning, there’s no other way. And keep making music along the way. You can make great music at any level. Some of the first beats I ever made when I started as a beatmaker are some of the weirdest coolest beats ever lol

[gcat]

If you want to get a bit geeky, put the limiter in a Combinator and use a gain plugin (AFTER the limiter) to offset the boost a limiter gives when increasing gain reduction. If you lower the threshold 3dB, reduce the gain by 3dB (make sense?). If you put both controls on one Combinator knob you can actually hear what the limiter is doing without being biased by the added loudness. This can be quite revealing if you’re ready to peek behind the curtain a bit.

Thanks a lot! I'll experiment with this during the week

[gcat]

Never heard of that second method. But I hear you, I was in a similar boat when I first started learning mixing and mastering about 4 years ago. I didn’t understand how many of the popular songs were able to get a good amount louder than mine without going over 0db. But after countless tutorials, experimenting and experiencing, I can hit -2 LUFS in my sleep if I really wanted to and still have the song sound good.

The truth is always have a good mix first and foremost. Because you’ll be able to bring out its qualities more, not only having better headroom. One major tip is how you shape the bass and its volume. The loudest popular songs you’ll ever hear like some dubstep or even pop stuff like BTS (I actually don’t like how they mix some of their songs because they are too harsh in certain frequencies), those songs have very very low bass. The issue with bass is that when it comes to loudness, it takes up a ton of headroom. So if you make EDM for example, I would suggest learning to clean up and gainstage your bass better. If you want to stay bass heavy, then just learn how to clean up and still stay in a healthy bass level.

There’s other tips but that’s a good starting point. And it sounds like you might not have natural or trained ear to understand yet how much is enough like you say, but I would think that will come with more experience. And you simply have to keep learning, there’s no other way. And keep making music along the way. You can make great music at any level. Some of the first beats I ever made when I started as a beatmaker are some of the weirdest coolest beats ever lol

Thanks for the tips!