Ozone 9 Advanced is why the MPC Live/X can never master

Yeah, it's a bit clickbaity (congrats on participating in this thread! ) but I'm serious - the new Ozone 9 Advanced just made me realize that trying to master in an MPC Live/X is an exercise in insanity (not that I've ever bothered to seriously try).

Check this shit out:

https://www.izotope.com/en/products/ozone.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yVesdLOXOM


I've had Neutron 3 Advanced and Ozone 8 Advanced for some time. Might consider upgrading...

I passed on a sale for 8 a while back and went with a Fabfilter bundle instead. I've been very happy with them but always wondered if I'm missing some of the visual features from Izotope. I may consider the the Production Suite 3 and am curious what they updated in 9.

Bezo wrote:I may consider the the Production Suite 3 and am curious what they updated in 9.

Looks like the big ticket items for 9 are:

• Improved CPU performance
• Resizable GUI/UX and high dpi/4K support
• Improved metering
• Master Rebalance - new module
• Low End Focus - new module
• NKS Support
• Improved Imager and EQ

The big difference is Ozone's machine learning - it does truly help shave time and effort off of starting your master. I don't rely on it 100%. but it certainly gets me in the right ballpark saving me precious time, and time is money.

It also has inter-plugin communication, so that's pretty bad ass. I've heard good stuff about Fabfilter, but ultimately I went with Ozone (and Neutron) just because of the machine learning and inter-plugin communication.

The MPC isn’t a tool for mastering any more than a Roland Fantom. I just don’t understand why people even consider it as such. If you (not you OP, using “you” in general) want to call anything you do in an MPC “mastering”, that’s cool. Do you. But anyone serious about releasing commercial music knows that it’s impossible to the same things in an MPC.

I do get it though, for many people it’s about trying to avoid the costs of mastering, which can run lots of $$$, but in the end, you’re not mastering in the proper sense.

Eyalc wrote:The MPC isn’t a tool for mastering any more than a Roland Fantom. I just don’t understand why people even consider it as such. If you (not you OP, using “you” in general) want to call anything you do in an MPC “mastering”, that’s cool. Do you. But anyone serious about releasing commercial music knows that it’s impossible to the same things in an MPC.

I do get it though, for many people it’s about trying to avoid the costs of mastering, which can run lots of $$$, but in the end, you’re not mastering in the proper sense.

Its just pushing the stand-alone concept to the extreme. Its a poor use of time though, one of those "just because you can, doesn't mean you should".
- Unreall

EnochLight wrote:

Bezo wrote:I may consider the the Production Suite 3 and am curious what they updated in 9.

Looks like the big ticket items for 9 are:

• Improved CPU performance
• Resizable GUI/UX and high dpi/4K support
• Improved metering
• Master Rebalance - new module
• Low End Focus - new module
• NKS Support
• Improved Imager and EQ

Thanks. NKS support sticks out to me; I use a KK S49. And resizable GUIs are always a plus.

EnochLight wrote:The big difference is Ozone's machine learning - it does truly help shave time and effort off of starting your master. I don't rely on it 100%. but it certainly gets me in the right ballpark saving me precious time, and time is money.

It also has inter-plugin communication, so that's pretty bad ass. I've heard good stuff about Fabfilter, but ultimately I went with Ozone (and Neutron) just because of the machine learning and inter-plugin communication.

Yeah, the machine learning & inter-plugin communication were the selling points for me & I'm still very interested. I do what I call rough masters and I could use all the help I can get.

I ended up taking the plunge, but I went through JRR Shop and got 15% off, so I upgraded Ozone 8 Advanced to 9 Advanced for $126 USD out the door. Not too shabby!

For those who are interested, the JRR Shop group buy coupon automatically appeared in my cart when I went to checkout. Not sure if this applies to sales outside the US, though.

EnochLight wrote:...For those who are interested, the JRR Shop group buy coupon automatically appeared in my cart when I went to checkout. Not sure if this applies to sales outside the US, though.

Sale plus group buy discount? Might be time for me to take the plunge as well. I'm going to watch a couple of vids to remind myself why I wanted the production suite.

Unreallystic wrote:

Eyalc wrote:The MPC isn’t a tool for mastering any more than a Roland Fantom. I just don’t understand why people even consider it as such. If you (not you OP, using “you” in general) want to call anything you do in an MPC “mastering”, that’s cool. Do you. But anyone serious about releasing commercial music knows that it’s impossible to the same things in an MPC.

I do get it though, for many people it’s about trying to avoid the costs of mastering, which can run lots of $$$, but in the end, you’re not mastering in the proper sense.

Its just pushing the stand-alone concept to the extreme. Its a poor use of time though, one of those "just because you can, doesn't mean you should".
- Unreall

I agree. IMO, definitely shouldn’t lol

EnochLight wrote:I ended up taking the plunge, but I went through JRR Shop and got 15% off, so I upgraded Ozone 8 Advanced to 9 Advanced for $126 USD out the door. Not too shabby!

For those who are interested, the JRR Shop group buy coupon automatically appeared in my cart when I went to checkout. Not sure if this applies to sales outside the US, though.

You got a great deal. I had Ozone at version 7. Stopped using it when I switched over to UAD plugs with Wavlab. But aIways thought Ozone was one of the best mastering tools out there.

I did discover that there's a bug in Ozone 9 standalone. If you run iZotope's own Insight 2 as a plugin, you can no longer resize its window. D'oh!

It's dope; got it, and already using some of its new features in mastering.

Fanu wrote:It's dope; got it, and already using some of its new features in mastering.

Congrats!

Yeah, it's probably the best mastering suite on the market, IMHO. Freak'n love Ozone (and Neutron as a channel strip). Simply nothing else like it on the market.