Izotope OZONE User Manual

4.5 (2)

Mastering with Ozone™

Tools, tips and techniques

© 2003 iZotope, Inc. All rights reserved. iZotope and Ozone are either registered trademarks or trademarks of iZotope, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Other product or company names mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................

 

4

What’s Wrong With My Song? ..................................................................................

 

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Intended Audience For This Guide ............................................................................

 

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WHAT IS MASTERING? ..............................................................................................

 

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The “Commercial Sound” ........................................................................................

 

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Consistency across the CD ......................................................................................

 

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Preparation for Duplication ......................................................................................

 

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WHAT IS OZONE?.....................................................................................................

 

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A Mastering System ...............................................................................................

 

7

64-bit Audio Processing ..........................................................................................

 

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Analog Modeling ....................................................................................................

 

7

Digital Precision .....................................................................................................

 

7

Meters and DSP .....................................................................................................

 

7

UI Efficiency..........................................................................................................

 

8

GETTING SETUP FOR MASTERING ...............................................................................

 

9

Software and Sound Card........................................................................................

 

9

Mastering Effects ...................................................................................................

 

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Monitors .............................................................................................................

 

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Headphones ........................................................................................................

 

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SEVEN SUGGESTIONS WHILE MASTERING .................................................................

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EQ........................................................................................................................

 

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What’s the Goal of EQ when Mastering? ..................................................................

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EQ Principles .......................................................................................................

 

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Using the Ozone Paragraphic Equalizer....................................................................

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EQ Shapes ..........................................................................................................

 

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EQ the Midrange ..................................................................................................

 

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EQ the Bass ........................................................................................................

 

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EQ the Highs .......................................................................................................

 

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EQ’ing with Visual Feedback ..................................................................................

 

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Spectrum Options ................................................................................................

 

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Snapshots...........................................................................................................

 

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Digital or Analog EQ .............................................................................................

 

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Matching EQ........................................................................................................

 

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General EQ Tips...................................................................................................

 

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MASTERING REVERB ...............................................................................................

 

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What’s the Goal of Reverb when Mastering?.............................................................

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Reverb Principles .................................................................................................

 

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Using the Ozone Mastering Reverb .........................................................................

 

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General Reverb Tips .............................................................................................

 

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MULTIBAND EFFECTS ..............................................................................................

 

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Using Multiband Effects in Ozone............................................................................

 

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Setting Multiband Cutoffs ......................................................................................

 

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Crossover Options................................................................................................

 

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Multiband Main Points...........................................................................................

 

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MULTIBAND HARMONIC EXCITER..............................................................................

 

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Using the Multiband Harmonic Exciter in Ozone ........................................................

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General Exciter Tips .............................................................................................

 

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MULTIBAND STEREO IMAGING .................................................................................

 

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Using Multiband Stereo Widening in Ozone ..............................................................

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Phase Meter ........................................................................................................

 

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Vectorscope ........................................................................................................

 

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Multiband Stereo Delay.........................................................................................

 

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General Multiband Stereo Imaging Tips ...................................................................

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MULTIBAND DYNAMICS ...........................................................................................

 

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Compression Basics..............................................................................................

 

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Dynamics Meters .................................................................................................

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Overall Compression Strategy................................................................................

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Bringing Limiting and Expansion into the Mix ...........................................................

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Limiter ...............................................................................................................

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Compressor ........................................................................................................

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Expander ............................................................................................................

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Limiter/Compressor/Expander Summary .................................................................

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Multiband Dynamics .............................................................................................

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Bass Boost..........................................................................................................

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Warmth..............................................................................................................

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Vocal Treatment ..................................................................................................

54

Noise Gating .......................................................................................................

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LOUDNESS MAXIMIZER ...........................................................................................

56

Loudness Maximizer Principle.................................................................................

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Using the Ozone Loudness Maximizer......................................................................

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General Loudness Maximizer Tips ...........................................................................

59

GENERAL OZONE TOOLS .........................................................................................

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Automation .........................................................................................................

60

History List .........................................................................................................

61

Setting the Order of the Mastering Modules .............................................................

62

Preset Manager ...................................................................................................

63

Shortcut Keys and Mouse Wheel Support.................................................................

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SUMMARY..............................................................................................................

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INTRODUCTION

You’ve just finished recording what you think is a pretty good song in your project studio. The playing is good, the recording is clean and the mix is decent. So you burn it to a CD and proudly pop it in your CD player. But when you hear it played after a “commercial” CD, you realize that something is wrong.

What’s Wrong With My Song?

It’s not loud enough. It sounds wimpy next to other CDs. Turning it up or mixing down at a higher level doesn’t solve the problem. It sounds louder, but not, well LOUDER.

It sounds dull. Other CDs have a sparkle that cuts through with excitement. You try boosting the EQ at high frequencies, but now your song just sounds harsh and noisy.

The instruments and vocals sound thin. Commercial songs have a fullness that you know comes from some sort of compression. So you patch in a compressor and turn some controls. Now the whole mix sounds squashed. The vocal might sound fuller, but the cymbals have no dynamics. It’s full…and lifeless.

The bass doesn’t have punch. You boost it with some low end EQ, but that just sounds louder and muddier. Not punchier.

You can hear all the instruments in your mix, and they all seem to have their own “place” in the stereo image, but the overall image sounds wrong. Your other CDs have width and image that you just can’t seem to get from panning the individual tracks.

You had reverb on the individual tracks, but it just sounds like a bunch of instruments in a bunch of different spaces. Your other CDs have a sort of cohesive space that brings all the parts together. Not like rooms within a room, but a “sheen” that works across the entire mix.

Don’t worry. It’s not that you’re doing anything wrong. There are just some things you still need to do to get that “sound”. You just need the right tools and an understanding of how to use them. You won’t become Bob Ludwig1 overnight (or probably ever) but you can make dramatic improvements in your master recordings with a little work.

We put this document together to help others in their quest for better sounding masters. We don’t claim to be mastering masters. If we could master the next Christina Aguilera hit would we be writing code and manuals or sitting in a mastering studio with Christina Aguilera?

What we can give you is professional quality mastering software (iZotope Ozone™) and guidance on how to use it. But in the end there are no right answers, no wrong answers, and no rules. At least if there are, we still haven’t found them. So in the end just experiment and have fun.

Intended Audience For This Guide

If you don’t know anything about mastering and don’t have Ozone, we still hope this guide will help you. Sure, we think you should use Ozone. But we learned a lot about mastering from “the online audio community” and we

1 http://www.gatewaymastering.com/ Bob Ludwig has won the TEC award for mastering every year he’s been eligible. That pretty much sums it up.

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want to give something back in return (in addition to iZotope Vinyl2). This guide can be freely copied or distributed for noncommercial purposes for that reason.

If you don’t understand mastering but do have Ozone, you’re in luck. Ozone gives you the tool to get “that sound” and this guide shows you how to do it.

If you have Ozone and know the basics of mastering, this guide will still show you tricks or techniques that are possible in Ozone. Just say “yeah, I knew that” when appropriate for the other parts.

2 http://www.izotope.com/products/vinyl/vinyldx.html Analog modeling plug-in for lo-fi destruction. That pretty much sums that up.

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WHAT IS MASTERING?

Although there are many definitions of what “mastering” is, for the purpose of this guide we refer to “mastering” as the process of taking a mix and preparing it for manufacturing. In general, this involves the following steps and goals.

The “Commercial Sound”

The goal of this step is to take a good mix (usually in the form of a stereo file) and put the final touches on it. This can involve adjusting levels and in general “sweetening” the mix. Think of it as the final coat of polish, or the difference between a good sounding mix and a professional sounding master. This process can involve adding broad equalization, multiband compression, harmonic excitation, loudness maximization, etc. This process is often actually referred to as “premastering” but we’re going to refer to it as mastering for simplicity. Ozone was created to specifically address this step of the process: to put that final professional or “commercial” sound on a project that’s been mixed down to a stereo file.

Consistency across the CD

Consideration has to be made for how the individual tracks of a CD work together when played one after another. Is there a consistent sound? Are the levels matched? Does the CD have a common “character”? This process is generally the same as the previous step, with the additional consideration of how individual tracks sound in sequence. This doesn’t mean that you can make one preset in Ozone and just use it on all the tracks so that they all have a consistent sound. Instead, the goal is to minimize the differences between tracks, which will most likely mean different settings for different tracks.

Preparation for Duplication

The final step usually involves preparing the song or sequence of songs for manufacturing and duplication. This step varies depending on the intended delivery format. In the case of a CD it can mean converting to 16 bit/44.1 kHz audio through resampling and dithering, and setting track indexes, track gaps, PQ codes, and other CD specific markings. Ozone is not designed to address these functions by itself, but instead meant to work within dedicated products such as Steinberg Wavelab, Sonic Foundry Sound Forge, Cakewalk SONAR, Adobe Audition (Cool Edit) and others.

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WHAT IS OZONE?

A Mastering System

Technically, Ozone is a plug-in, although it really encompasses several modules to

provide a complete system for mastering (or technically “pre-mastering” as it addresses the processing but not the CD layout, file conversion, etc.) In addition to providing audio processing, it provides meters, tools for taking snapshots of mixes, comparing settings, and rearranging the order of the mastering modules within the system.

64-bit Audio Processing

When processing audio, Ozone can perform hundreds of calculations on a single sample of audio. In a 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 performs each calculation using 64-bits. Can you hear 64 bits? No. But that’s the point. The rounding errors (inherent not just in Ozone but in any digital system) are pushed down into the inaudible range with Ozone.

Analog Modeling

Ozone is the result of extensive research in analog modeling, i.e. creating digital processing algorithms that mimic the character of analog equipment. While it’s technically impossible to model analog equipment exactly with digital 1s and 0s, Ozone provides compression, equalization, and harmonic excitation that recreates the behavior exhibited by analog equipment.

So what is this “character” of analog? There have been volumes written on this topic, and we’re not sure if anyone really can explain it completely. But in the most general sense, analog processing has certain nonlinear aspects that a mathematician would consider "wrong" but many people believe sounds 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, bass, sparkle, depth and just an overall pleasing sound.

Digital Precision

While analog modeling can provide a pleasant character or “colorization” of 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 as which was mentioned above. For these applications, Ozone also provides digital or “linear phase” equalizer modes and multiband crossovers. Which should you use? It’s entirely subjective, and with Ozone you have the choice of processing modes.

Meters and DSP

Some mastering engineers don’t need meters. They only need to listen. They can hear a sound and know its frequency, or hear a level and know when it’s compressing. For the rest of us, though, each module within Ozone combines audio processing controls with visual feedback through appropriate meters. When equalizing, you can see a spectrum. When compressing, you can see a histogram of levels. When widening, you can see phase meters. There is no substitute for using your ears, but think of it like driving a car. When you first start

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driving, you spend a lot of time looking at the speedometer. Over time, you develop an instinct and need the meters less. But from time to time, we’ve all looked down and thought “hmmm, I had no idea I was driving that fast”. Whether using Ozone or not, whether you’re just starting with mastering or have been doing it for years, you can always benefit from the second opinion that a good set of visual displays can provide.

UI Efficiency

A mastering session can be long and tiring. The last thing you need to be stressed about is how to turn a knob with a mouse. There are no knobs in Ozone. It’s pure software, not software stuck in some hardware paradigm of yesteryear3. Instead of spending time thinking about how to make Ozone look like a 1960s compressor, we spent countless hours using it and refining it to make it as usable as possible. It’s flat and simple with support for keyboard shortcuts and wheel mice.

3 We’re not religiously against the hardware look. iZotope Vinyl has knobs and screws and brushed steel. In a simple plug-in that can be fun, but Ozone had far too much depth to continue that “hardware” paradigm.

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GETTING SETUP FOR MASTERING

Software and Sound Card

To master on a PC you need some type of editing software and a sound card. There are plenty of reviews and articles on software and sound cards, so we defer to other sources for you to make your choice.

One important point is that when mastering you’re really just focused on improving a mixed down stereo file. Applications such as Wavelab, Sound Forge, and Adobe Audition (Cool Edit) are designed specifically for working with stereo files. However, you can bring a stereo file into a multitrack program (i.e. SONAR, SAW, Samplitude, Vegas, Cubase, Nuendo, Logic, etc.) as a single stereo track and master it that way. We caution you against doing mixing and mastering in one step, though. That is, trying to master while also mixing the multitrack project. While you could put Ozone as a master effect on a multitrack project, the first practical problem is that this requires more CPU than necessary as the software is both trying to mix your tracks as well as run Ozone (which does require more CPU than a typical plug-in). The second problem is that you’re tempted to try to mix, master, arrange, and maybe even rerecord in the same session. When we’re working we like the separation of recording/mixing and mastering. You focus on the overall sound of the mix and improving that instead of thinking “I wonder how that synth part would sound with a different patch?” Get the mix you want, mix down to a stereo file, and then master as a separate last step4

Mastering Effects

When mastering, you’re typically working with a limited set of specific effects.

Compressors, limiters, expanders and gates are used to adjust the dynamics of a mix. For adjusting the dynamics of specific frequencies or instruments (such as adding punch to bass or warmth to vocals) a multiband dynamic effect is required, as opposed to a

single band compressor that applies to the entire range of frequencies in the mix.

Equalizers are used to shape the tonal balance.

Reverb can add an overall sheen to the mix, in addition to the reverb that may have been applied to individual tracks.

Stereo Imaging effects can adjust the perceived width and image of the sound field.

Harmonic Exciters can add a presence or “sparkle” to the mix.

Loudness Maximizers can increase the loudness of the mix while simultaneously

limiting the peaks to prevent clipping.

• Dither provides the ability to convert higher word length recordings (e.g. 24 or 32 bit) to lower bit depths for CD (e.g. 16 bit) while maintaining dynamic range and minimizing quantization distortion.

4 Like everything in this guide, this is just our suggestion based on the way we work (when we’re working on music and not coding DSP). Work the way you work best.

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We don’t think there’s any single “correct” order for effects when mastering. In Ozone, the default order of the mastering modules (the path the signal follows through Ozone) is:

1)Paragraphic Equalizer

2)Mastering Reverb

3)Multiband Dynamics

4)Multiband Harmonic Exciter

5)Multiband Stereo Imaging

6)Loudness Maximizer

7)Dither

This order can be changed. In fact, you should experiment with different orders. The only exception in all cases that we can imagine is that if you’re using the Loudness Maximizer and Dither they should be placed last in the chain.

Bonus Tip: For a complete guide on dither, we invite you to check out our dithering guide at http://www.izotope.com/products/audio/ozone/guides.html

To change the order in Ozone, click the “Graph” button.

Monitors

This brings up a display of the modules. You can reorder the modules by simply dragging them around.

Note that the location of the meters in the signal chain can also be changed. This allows you to set whether the spectrum is based on the signal going into or coming out of the EQ, for example.

It’s important that you monitor on decent equipment when mastering. If your playback system is coloring the sound, you can’t possibly know what’s in the mix and what’s caused by your playback system.

That doesn’t mean that you can’t get decent results with relatively inexpensive equipment. The key is knowing the limitations of what you’re monitoring on and learning to adjust for it in

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your listening.

For studio monitors, the most common problem is lack of bass, specifically below 40 Hz or so. These monitors just don’t have the size or mass to move that much air at that low a frequency. One solution is to complement a pair of studio monitors with a subwoofer. If so, make sure you adjust the subwoofer so that it doesn’t exaggerate the bass.

How do you do this? If you have a mic that’s flat down to 20 Hz, here’s a quick and dirty way to do it.

1)Take a song with a good range of frequencies in it. We just randomly chose Vasoline (Stone Temple Pilots)5. As long as there’s a broad spectrum, it doesn’t matter (we did say this was the quick and dirty method)

2)Put Ozone’s spectrum in average mode and loop a section of the song. Save it as a snapshot (click the Snapshot button, click Snapshot button A and you’ll see a frozen blue line)

3)Place the mic in the spot where you would be listening from, and play the loop through the monitor/subwoofer combination. We used Cakewalk SONAR with effects on input enabled, so that we could see the result in real time.

4)Adjust the subwoofer level until the sound picked up by the microphone (the green line) is close to the spectrum of the source (the blue snapshot).

It’s not exact and there are several variables here (the response and location of the microphone being the most significant) but it can get you close.

You’ll never get a perfect listening environment, and you can never predict how what you’re listening to will translate to the systems others will use to playback your song. With that in mind, here are some tips we’ve picked up over the years for learning to master on studio monitors:

1)Listen to music that you know well and have listened to on many systems. Spend some time “getting to know” your monitors. Play your favorite CDs through them. You probably know how these CDs sound on a home system, a car radio, etc. and this will help you learn to adjust your listening for your monitors.

5 Not entirely randomly, as we like STP and the CD was nearby. But there’s no scientific reason.

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2)The bass will typically be under-represented on small studio monitors.

3)Monitors are very focused in terms of their soundfield, and the imaging is typically more pronounced than on other systems.

Headphones

Heaphones are another option for monitoring. There are entire sites and forums dedicated to headphones (such as http://headroom.headphone.com) so again we’ll leave our hardware recommendations out of it and just advise you to ask around on forums.

When working with headphones, here are a few things to keep in mind.

1)Bass is sometimes under-represented on headphones, since bass on loudspeakers is often perceived from physical vibrations (what you feel) as well as from the acoustics (what you hear)

2)Imaging on headphones is very different than imaging on speakers.

3)Equalization can be very different on headphones compared to loudspeakers. The listening room, your head and even your outer ear have filtering properties that alter the frequency response of the music. This “natural equalization” is bypassed when you listen on headphones. If you’re interested in learning more about this phenomenon, look into “diffuse field” headphones.

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SEVEN SUGGESTIONS WHILE MASTERING

Before you jump into a marathon mastering session, here are seven things that are good to remind yourself of periodically.

1)Have someone else master your mixes for you. OK, in most project studios we realize that the same person is often the performer, producer, mixer, and mastering engineer. At least get someone else to listen with you. Or find someone who will master your mixes if you master theirs. You’re too close to your own music. You’ll hear things other listeners won’t hear, and you’ll miss things that everyone else does hear.

2)Take breaks and listen to other CDs in between. Refresh your ears in terms of what other stuff sounds like. OK, the pros just instinctively know what sound they’re working towards, but for the rest of us being reminded from time to time during the process isn’t such a bad idea.

3)Move your listening position. Studio reference monitors are very focused and directional. The sound can change significantly depending on your listening position. Shift around a bit. Stand across the room for a moment.

4)Listen on other speakers and systems. Burn a CD with a few different variations and play it on your home stereo system, or drive around and listen to it in your car. Don’t obsess over the specific differences, but just remind yourself what other systems sound like.

5)Check how it sounds in mono. Check how it sounds with the polarity

inverted on one speaker. People will listen to it this way (although maybe not intentionally) and while your master probably won’t sound great this way hopefully it won’t completely fall apart either. Ozone provides a quick check for this by clicking on the Channel Ops button. You can quickly switch to mono, switch left and right speakers, and flip the polarity of speakers.

6)Monitor at normal volumes, but periodically check it at a higher volume. When you listen at low to medium volumes, you tend to hear more midrange (where the ear is most sensitive) and less of the lows and highs. This is related to something called the Fletcher-Munson effect, which involves how different frequencies are heard differently depending on the playback volume. So check from time to time how it sounds at different volume levels.

7)When you think you’re done, go to bed, and listen again the next morning.

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EQ

A reasonable starting point when mastering is equalization. While most people understand how equalizers work and what they can do, it’s not always easy to balance a mix with one.

What’s the Goal of EQ when Mastering?

When we’re trying to get our mixes to sound good, what we’re shooting for is a “tonal balance”. Any instrument specific equalization has hopefully been done during arranging and mixdown, so we’re just trying to shape the overall sound into something that sounds natural. Sometimes that’s easier said than done, but there are some general techniques you can use to get a decent tonal balance.

EQ Principles

Here’s a basic review of the principles of equalizers before jumping into the process.

There are many different types of equalizers, but they are all meant to boost or cut specific frequencies or ranges of frequencies. Our focus here is on parametric equalizers, which provide the greatest level of control for each band.

Parametric EQs are typically made up of several bands. A band of EQ is a single filter. You can use each band to boost or cut frequencies within the range of the band. By combining bands, you can create a practically infinite number of equalization shapes.

The picture below shows the equalizer screen in Ozone, but the principles are the same for most parametric EQs. There are 8 sets of arrows, which represent 8 bands of equalization. One band is selected, and has been dragged down to cut the frequencies in the range of 3753 Hz by –3.5 dB.

The bright red curve shows the composite or overall effect of all the bands combined. The darker red curve shows the effect of the single band that’s selected.

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Each band of parametric equalization typically has three controls:

Frequency

The center frequency dictates where the center of the band is placed.

Q and/or Bandwidth

Q represents the width of the band, or what range of frequencies will be affected by the band. A band with a high Q will affect a narrow band of frequencies, where a band with a low Q will affect a broad range of frequencies.

A Narrow Filter (Q=12 )

A Broad Filter (Q=0.3)

Q and bandwidth are related by the formula Q=(filter center frequency)/(filter bandwidth). So as Q gets higher, the bandwidth of the filter gets narrower.

Gain

This determines how much each band boosts (turns up) or cuts (turns down) the sound at its center frequency.

Using the Ozone Paragraphic Equalizer

Ozone includes a parametric equalizer presented in a graphical way, which is often referred to as a paragraphic equalizer.

The paragraphic equalizer has 8 adjustable filter bands which can be used to boost or cut frequencies. To adjust the gain of a band, you grab the center and move up or down. To adjust the frequency, you drag left or right.

To adjust the Q or width of a band, you can grab the side handles of the band and drag them apart.

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Izotope OZONE User Manual

EQ Shapes

Any of the eight filters in Ozone can be configured to be a bell (also referred to as a peak filter), lowpass, highpass, lowshelf or highshelf. You can specify the shape of a filter by clicking on the “Show Info” button and selecting a different shape for the filter from the table.

Bell Filter

As shown below, a bell filter has a width (Q) as well as a gain. The gain can be positive or negative – to boost or cut the specified range of frequencies within the bell.

Lowpass and Highpass Filters

Unlike a Bell Filter, Lowpass and Highpass filters only have one “side” to them. You specify the point that you want to start attenuating frequencies, and any frequencies below that point (for a highpass filter) or above that point (for a lowpass filter) are filtered. The Q control for lowpass/highpass filters specifies the slope of the filter, with lower Q values providing more gradual rolloff.

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Lowshelf and Highshelf filters

Like lowpass/highpass filters, these filters also are “one sided”. Shelf filters, however, don’t drop off indefinitely. Instead, they resemble, well, a shelf, as you can see below. In this case, the horizontal handles provide a slope control which specifies how tall the shelf should be – or how much cut should be applied before leveling off to a constant (horizontal) line.

Controls for Adjusting EQ Bands

In addition to basic mouse support, Ozone supports the following controls for adjusting EQ bands:

1)You can use the arrow keys to adjust a band up/down or left/right. If you hold down the Shift key when using the arrow keys the adjustment is accelerated.

2)You can adjust the Q of a band by using the wheel of a wheel mouse or the PgUp/PgDn keys.

3)You can select multiple bands by holding down the Ctrl key and clicking multiple bands. To adjust them as a group, drag the first band selected and the rest will move with appropriate relative motion (or use arrow keys to move the entire group). This is useful if you have an overall shape that you like but want to raise or lower the gain of the entire curve.

4)If you hold down the Alt key and click on the spectrum, you have an audio magnifying glass that lets you hear only the frequencies that are under the mouse cursor, without affecting your actual EQ settings. This is useful for pinpointing the location of a frequency in the mix without messing up your actual EQ bands. Releasing the mouse button returns the sound to the actual EQ. You can set the width of this filter in the Options dialog.

5)If you hold down the Shift key and drag an EQ band, the EQ band will be "locked" in the direction that you're dragging. So if you just want to change the gain without affecting the frequency (or vice versa) just hold the Shift Key while you drag.

6)If you'd rather use numbers as opposed to visual EQ bands, clicking on the Show Info button gives you a table view of the EQ band settings. You can enter values for the EQ bands directly in this table, or simply position the

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cursor over a value and change it by turning the wheel of a wheel mouse. You can also disable bands with this table by clicking on the square box to the left of a band.

7)You can select the shape of a filter by holding down the Ctrl key and right clicking on the EQ filter. This will cycle it through the lowpass, highpass, bell, lowshelf, highshelf shape options.

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EQ the Midrange

So you’re ready to EQ. Now what?

Listen and try to identify any problems that you hear. Start with the midrange (vocals, guitar, midrange keyboard, etc.) as this will typically represent the heart and soul of the song. Does it sound too “muddy”? Too nasal? Too harsh? Compare it to another mix, perhaps a commercial CD. Try to describe to yourself what the difference is between the two mixes around the midrange.

Too muddy?

Try cutting between 100 to 300 Hz (Band 2 in Ozone is set at 180 Hz by default. Try cutting the gain a few dB using this band)

Too nasal sounding?

Try cutting between 250 to 1000 Hz. (Band 3 in Ozone is set by default at 520 Hz for this purpose)

Too harsh sounding?

This can be caused by frequencies in the range of 1000 to 3000 Hz. Try cutting this range a few dB. (Band 4 in Ozone is set at 1820 Hz for this purpose)

Hopefully, using a band or two in these regions will give you a better sounding midrange. Remember that you can use the Alt-click feature to focus just on specific ranges and highlight what you’re hearing. Another common technique is to start by boosting a band to highlight a region of the spectrum, and then cutting it once you’ve centered on the problem area.

You’ll get the most natural sound using wide bands (Q less than 1.0). If you find yourself using too narrow a notch filter, or too much gain, you may be trying to fix something that EQ on a stereo mix can’t fix. Go back to the individual tracks and try to isolate the problem that way. Note also that the wider the band, in general the less gain you need to apply.

In addition, your ears quickly get used to EQ changes. You may find yourself boosting more than necessary to hear the difference. Use the History window (click on the History button) to go back and audition settings prior to making changes. Comparing the difference before and after a series of subtle EQ changes can help prevent you from overdoing boosts or cuts.

Ozone™ Mastering Guide

Page 19 of 66

©2003 iZotope, Inc.

EQ the Bass

In comparing your mix to commercial mixes at this stage, you’re probably tempted to boost the bass using the equalizer. Resist the temptation. Don’t worry, your mix will get that low end punch, but we’ll do it using a multiband compressor.

A reasonable use of EQ in the low end is to apply a shelf or highpass filter below 30-40 Hz. Purists might find this alarming, as yes, we can hear down to 20 Hz and some musical information can be lost. Typically what people consider “bass” though is in the 50100 Hz region, and the audio in the 20-40 Hz range can usually be rolled off. The benefit is that you can remove some low frequency rumble and noise that could otherwise overload your levels.

Keep in mind that for bass, or any EQ change for that matter, every action has an opposite reaction. If you increase one frequency, you can mask another frequency. The flipside of this is that cutting one frequency can be perceived as a boost to another frequency. Each change that you make can affect the perception of the overall tonal balance of a whole.

Bass guitars and kick drums can span a wide frequency range. Where the “oomph” of the kick drum can be centered around 100 Hz, the attack is usually found in the 1000-3000 Hz region. Sometimes you can get a sharper sounding “bass” sound by focusing on the higher frequency attack, as opposed to the 100 Hz region which can cause “mud”.

On the other hand, if you want to add that hip-hop style “ring” to the bass, try a peak at 50-60 Hz as shown to the right.

Ozone™ Mastering Guide

Page 20 of 66

©2003 iZotope, Inc.

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