iZotope Ozone 12 assessment: the undisputed mastering grasp?

Superior £479 / Customary £209 / Components £55, izotope.com

Over the past 20 years, iZotope Ozone has grown into one of the vital succesful all-in-one mastering options there’s. The brand new twelfth version brings with it some relatively novel new processors and additional enhancements to the AI-driven options first seen in Ozone 8.

Is it now the undisputed grasp of mastering? Let’s discover out.

What’s iZotope Ozone?

As has grow to be the norm for the product line, Ozone 12 supplies a single ‘mothership’ plugin and, if utilizing the Superior version that I’m working with right here, a collection of particular person module plugins.

The mothership plugin supplies the means to host a full chain of Ozone’s mastering processors, together with extra instruments helpful in mastering, akin to dithering, previewing the impression of MP3 encoding at completely different information charges, and the power to match with a reference observe.

The person module plugins are merely the person Ozone processors packed into their very own plugins. These operate precisely as they do when loaded into the mothership’s mastering chain, however have the complete freedom of your DAW’s routing system, permitting for chains which can be extra advanced than the mothership’s easy serial association. Additionally, regardless of being designed for mastering purposes, lots of the module plugins will be put to good use throughout monitoring and mixing too, a indisputable fact that considerably provides to the worth and utility of the bundle.

Can Ozone 12 grasp for me?

Ozone’s Grasp Assistant, a part of the mothership plugin, is an AI-driven system that analyses a portion of a mixture after which chooses the processors and settings that it considers most acceptable for mastering that blend. It additionally supplies a simplified, intuitive interface by which you’ll be able to tweak and alter the settings with no need to delve into the small print of the underlying processors. Those that do want to delve can swap to the Detailed View, which supplies full entry to the processing chain and the processors inside it.

Enhancements in model 12 carry a brand new workflow to Grasp Assistant that enables the system to be pre-configured previous to analysing a mixture – selecting the processors that the assistant is allowed to make use of, dialling in a goal loudness, and specifying the musical style. To help this, the Stabilizer processor now has a set of 25 style targets, plus the power to create customized targets by analysing a reference observe. This newfound pre-configurability makes the Grasp Assistant much more controllable, saving quite a lot of time in the long term, however the possibility to go away all of those preliminary particulars to the assistant stays, as does the power to change and overrule the assistant’s selections as soon as they’re made.

Grasp Assistant’s outcomes are usually acceptable however hardly ever good, however that is to be anticipated. iZotope stresses that Grasp Assistant is meant as a information, not a choice maker; it takes care of the donkey work, however it’s at all times anticipated that the consumer will adapt the Assistant’s configuration to their very own tastes. Maybe one of the best ways to think about it’s as an keen studio assistant, albeit one that may’t be despatched to make the tea.

The opposite essential AI-powered instrument discovered within the mothership plugin is Stem Focus, which permits the processing chain to be focused at a selected stem inside the combine – vocal, drums or bass. First launched within the earlier model, Ozone 12 improves the accuracy of the stem separation and produces fewer sonic artefacts, however I’m disenchanted that no new stem sorts have been added, not even an ‘different’ class.

What are the brand new processors in Ozone 12?

Proof that iZotope’s neural community know-how can extract an ‘different’ stem in actual time will be discovered within the new Stem EQ processor. This splits the combo into Vocal, Drums, Bass and Different stems, and permits a separate EQ curve of as much as eight bands to be outlined for every stem. This implies you’ll be able to, for instance, add presence to a vocal, take away the harshness from cymbals, and/or fatten a bassline, all with out impacting some other devices inside the combine. It’s an absolute game-changer for mastering engineers, enabling the kinds of corrections that will in any other case require a brand new combine to be produced or requested.

One other widespread drawback that may render a mixture unmasterable is heavy-handed use of combine compression and/or limiting, however Ozone 12 has a repair. Unlimiter restores transients and dynamics in over-compressed sources by way of an easy-to-configure interface.

Unlimiter works nicely when it’s largely the transients of a mixture which have been crushed, and right here it does a powerful job of restoring dynamic area and element. However it’s much less efficient when coping with a mixture that’s extra typically over-cooked, though it nonetheless improves transients. Combining Unlimiter with crafty use of a number of mothership situations and Stem Focus modes does present extra remedial choices, however when you begin needing to resort to such issues, it’s in all probability an indication you want to request a brand new combine!

Transferring on, we come to Bass Management – a remarkably versatile approach of shaping, taming and/or enhancing the low finish of a mixture or stem. It will probably add or take away weight, add punch and/or smoothness, and usually pull the often-awkward bass frequencies into line. Additionally, with low frequencies tending to be the toughest to guage and stability, Bass Management’s visualisations show helpful in highlighting particulars which can be extraordinarily troublesome to detect by ear.

The ultimate all-new function in Ozone 12 is a brand new IRC (Clever Launch Management) mode for the Maximiser. Like the opposite modes, IRC 5 continually analyses the incoming sign and makes use of psychoacoustic rules to form the response of Maximiser’s limiter. However in contrast to the opposite modes, IRC 5 does this utilizing a four-band multiband limiter. This ends in an outstanding skill so as to add loudness while retaining readability and avoiding clipping, crushing, pumping and different undesirable artefacts. If you happen to’re nonetheless partaking within the tiresome loudness wars, there’s little else that may ship such excessive built-in LUFS values with such transparency.

Ought to I get Ozone 12, and which version is greatest for me?

Ozone 12 is available in three editions: Components, Customary and Superior. Components has its makes use of however doesn’t have a lot to supply to anybody searching for a complete mastering answer. The inexpensive Customary version, then again, incorporates all the pieces you want to add the ultimate polish to your personal tracks and mixes.

Though greater than twice the worth of Customary, Superior is the one model that features instruments that may repair gnarly combine issues that will usually necessitate a brand new combine, principally Stem EQ, Unlimiter and Stem Focus. As such, it’s a no brainer for many who grasp different folks’s music. Superior can also be the one version that features the person module plugins. These do add worth in their very own proper, nevertheless it’s a bit tight to make them unique to the Superior version – it’s not like it might price iZotope something to produce the person module plugins with the Customary version.

That apart, there’s no query that Ozone 12’s highly effective, usually modern, processors and assistive AI know-how that by no means interferes can ship masterful masters, whether or not you’re new to mastering or an skilled engineer with credit underneath your belt.

Key options

• As much as 20 mastering processors with AI-assisted configuration
• Suitable with macOS Ventura+ and Home windows 10+
  AAX, AU and VST3
• Mothership plugin hosts processor chain and different mastering instruments
• Ozone modules additionally come as particular person module plugins (Superior solely)
• Improved Grasp Assistant
• Improved Stem Focus algorithm
• NEW IRC 5 Maximiser mode
• NEW Stem EQ (Superior solely)
• NEW Bass Management (Superior solely)
• New Unlimiter (Superior solely)