Mastering music with an automated software (Ozone)?

[teramangala]

Hi, i use the software Ozone 8 (iZotope) for mastering my tracks.
I am using the default settings and find it quite good. What do you think?

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[kometbeats]

Well, I think it gives a great starting point and there’s the argument that if it sounds good then who cares, personally though I wouldn’t hand in a final mix/master with what Neutron or Ozone spits out alone. Definitely a great tool to have though.

[benedictrm]

I think that making and mixing music is a most human of activities.

That means that it can only work well (or even properly) when performed by humans, as humans, with human feelings. this precludes bots as even “starting points” as bots have no feelings.

Until a robot can understand why I might want to hold someone’s hand, or have desire itself to rock now, rock the night, they have no place whatsoever in anything that is Art. At the point they develop any sort of desire, they can indeed make Art, but will their sense of art be remotely like ours? That is a point for later when a positronic man first wants to die in my arms tonight (as opposed to having me just die).

Bottom line, I see such things as clever marketing to extract cash from the fearful, but entirely dangerous as they are the completely wrong direction as that money & time would be better spent in either learning or hiring. If you trust a bot it means that you do not trust yourself. If you can’t trust another person, it also means that you cannot trust yourself.

🙂

BTW, I am not anti-robot. I am all for them. but understand that like fish they will not be “us”. Hopefully, I get to have one as a friend but I will not expect them to live my life for me as life only happens when I do stuff. My stuff.

[pirateman]

I can create a track with little to no thought on Logic etc. I could probably create some painted artwork using free images on a similar painting / artwork platform (I’ve no idea what they are! So probably a bad comparison!)

The point is, making music is art - it is not a computer following a prescribed algorithm with an added randomiser patch attached. I’m mean yes, of course we could throw some beats together with a few loops to make a track.

But music is so much more than that - as is the process of mixing and mastering.

When I compose, I want to create something new, exciting, moving, disturbing, energising - all depending on my brief or mood or requirements.

If it doesn’t do what I want it to do, I redo it until it does. These are all emotions I’m triggering - and to the best of my knowledge, automated systems don’t have emotions. That’s what people pay me for - to use my skill to create something that will hopefully trigger an emotional response from the listener.

So why would I do all that and then leave it for a computer algorithm to polish all off? It has no way of assessing whether it’s mastering approach kills the mood, vibe, emotion etc.

This is not intended to be some arty farty response - but, as a passionate composer and producer, I would hate to hear my music put through an automated mastering tool - I want someone who shares my passion to highlight, enhance, showcase my music sonically. A boost here, a tweak there, a bit of levelling over there…it’s all intended to enhance the listeners experience of the music - and therefore needs a decent pair of ears to make the process work effectively.

Just saying!

[pirateman]

And just to add…that’s probably why I get no work on Fiverr and continue to enjoy my work elsewhere…

As Fiverr appears full of people who want to make a fast buck with little to no skill at the expense of art. (This comment is not aimed at the OP who asked a genuine question - just at the general Fiverr punter who wants everything for nothing!)

Of course the whole industry has shifted in that direction - you only have to listen to daytime TV in the uk to hear the lowest common denominator - but I will not lower my expectations of my own music!

🙂

[benedictrm]

And just to add…that’s probably why I get no work on Fiverr and continue to enjoy my work elsewhere…

As Fiverr appears full of people who want to make a fast buck with little to no skill at the expense of art. (This comment is not aimed at the OP who asked a genuine question - just at the general Fiverr punter who wants everything for nothing!)

Of course the whole industry has shifted in that direction - you only have to listen to daytime TV in the uk to hear the lowest common denominator - but I will not lower my expectations of my own music!

🙂

Amen person with whom I share a point of view (seeing one should not say “brother” lol)

I had a conversation off a BR the other day and this kid had a completed song that I will say was in a Waif shape, thin, didn’t rise far and fell back at the end. Fine as that was the choices made at the time and it was ok. It was the song as it was written.

He decided that if he added some (really cardboardy) timpani out of a (really cardboardy) Nintendo type track, his song would suddenly become really emotively empowering. What I could call a Moon Rocket shape.

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I tried to get across that this needed more than just gluing on some drum sounds to achieve the outcomes he expected as it needed for the song to be rearranged and have a new performance (seeing the ending was emotionally down in the vocal). Under the rules of Art, I would have broken his song if I just glued drums on in the expectation that the emotions would change. (phase inverting a dreary vocal does not turn that frown upside down)

He couldn’t see that so I said I would have to walk away as it felt wrong and I was sure he would not be happy. I got a gobful from him and told how other Producas were willing to do it. He got blocked - good call from me in the first place to pass.

What the problem here is that he thinks that music is about some perfect formulas, like downloading the right photo off Artgrope, using the right drums, the right compression, the right EQ and it will be perfect.

I had another guy come to me with a guitar part played very erratically he wanted edited to seem like a perfect performance. I sent it back. If that is a good as it gets then sing on it just as erratically call the band The Rob Dylans. If it is simply being lazy then I have no solution as he is not ready for his Song - shame as his song is ready for him.

Amazing music that lasts is all kinds of interesting. Nothing is perfect in detail. Listen to Meatloaf “Bat Out Of Hell”, all kinds of “not perfect” but overall stunning human work because it is real and human. It is the sum of human performance - writing, singing, playing, mixing, all the production decisions focused on the underlying universal story that is about life. That makes that whole record far greater than the sum of any amounts of parts downloadable off Artgrope.

🙂

[keichip221]

Since I bought Ozone 9 Standard around September last year, I’d say that iZotope done a good job just for “starting point”. I do let it to place the foundation (and since I don’t have any good headphones and monitor speakers) but for the fine tuning like Mid-side EQ, stereo shaping, and adding saturation (Exciter), I still done that manually.

Using a spectrum analyzer like Voxengo SPAN is also a good idea if you’re learning how frequency distribution work. And in particular, I noticed that Ozone will flat-out the curve (most of my production lacking bass instruments, so it compensate by boosting the low-ends as example). That’s when you should manually tweak the parameters.

But still, remember that we humans are the one who determine the artistic value. Robots (and A.I.) exists to aid us, not to overtake us.