RE: CD Mastering Windows Software

[CarlJacobson@cakewalk.com]

Jonathan,

Yes I do mix down first. I'm very comfortable with the SONAR environment 
and
I can work very quickly in it, so there's no need for me to go to a 2 
track.
The advantage that I find in SONAR over Sound Forge is that I can tweak my
effects in real-time while the file is playing rather than with off-line
processing.

-----Original Message-----
From: Jonathan El-Bizri [mailto:ssrndpty@hotmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, November 06, 2001 7:15 PM
To: Loopers-Delight@loopers-delight.com
Subject: Re: CD Mastering Windows Software


Hi all,

    Long time no see.

> I just found a new mastering plug-in that I'm probably going to start
using.
> It's by Izotope and the plug-in is named Ozone.
> http://www.thedirectxfiles.com/manufacturers/iz_ozone.htm. The sound
quality
> is awesome (it uses 64-bit processing) and it features a paragraphic EQ,
> loudness maximizer, multiband dynamics, multiband stereo imager (keep the
> bass tight, spread the harmonics, etc), multiband harmonic exciter, a
> mastering reverb, and spectrum and phase meters all in one plug-in. I
really
> like the interface, you'll need to see it to understand.
>

I agree. This is the best all-in-one mastering tool I've seen yet - forget
T-rex, (which sounds awful IMHO - so much pumping and wobbliness -
completely unusable). If you have the cpu for it, it's currently the last
word in mastering. It's almost more intuitive, though nothing about
multiband compression and eq will ever be completely devoid of some 
fumbling
around in the dark for me :>

> My only complaint is that it's really processor intensive, and I can only
> run 4 or 5 of its effects simultaneously in SONAR on my decrepit Pentium
II
> - 333 MHz with 384 MB of RAM. I'm running SONAR on a system under its
> minimum requirements so I guess I shouldn't complain.
>

Yes -  it's a total hog, but that's to be expected - you are running the
equivalent of 8 64-bit plugins back-to-back. Ouch.

You say you are mastering in sonar. I assume you are you mixing down first?

I would recomend using an offline editor, such as sound forge, to use all
the processes at once. Using my almost similarly decrepit dual PII 400, I
take snippets of the song, stuff them together to make a shorter, newer 
file
with representative portions of each part plus any trouble spots, master
that file, and then master the original with the same settings.

Jonathan