Freeware alternative to Ozone 5?

E

Elephant42

New member
Hey guys,
I want to master my tracks. I want to use iZotope's Ozone 5, but i can't cause i'm a poor student and it costs like 7 bazillion dollars. So, I would like to ask if some of you might know some good freeware (or cheaper) mastering tools for me to use on ableton.
Thanks a lot in advance.
 
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Do a search for free vsts. Just take note of what features Ozone has in it's mastering chain, and add individual free VSTs to your chain. It won't be in a convenient suite... but it's the same concept.

Also look at stillwellaudio.com. Stillwell makes some great sounding stuff. Free unlimited trial. Stay free until you can afford the few bucks for a license.
 
At the risk of saying something controversial... Ozone doesn't really offer much. It is really just EQ, MB compression and a limiter, none of which are that good. Also the package seems to be designed and marketed for people to just throw up a few presets and vacuum pack their tracks, which Ozone isn't very good at. The 'mastering reverb' is just...'reverb' and the spatializier stuff is superficial coloured distortion.


What you should look for is some good metering software first, span is pretty good (incidentally Izotope charge an even bigger amount for their metering add-ons which seem pretty good). Get one that you can use windowed. This is a must in Live.

Live's limiter isn't awesome but if you use it within small compression ranges is good enough. If you want to do 12 dB of compression in your limiter stage maybe you need to rethink your mixing.

EQ-wise I have no reason to think any freeware is going to better EQ8.

Live's Multiband compressor is just that, again I have no reason to think any free-ware is better.

Trouble with freeware stuff and plugins for the master chain, for me anyway, is that ramming in loads of random 3rd party software is just risky. I don't know if its all internally reliable with things like phase correlation. And on day the plugins might just stop working and bugger all your old projects. I'm surprised by how much people seem to be swayed by garish UIs.
 
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MarcDHall said:
At the risk of saying something controversial... Ozone doesn't really offer much. It is really just EQ, MB compression and a limiter, none of which are that good. Also the package seems to be designed and marketed for people to just throw up a few presets and vacuum pack their tracks, which Ozone isn't very good at. The 'mastering reverb' is just...'reverb' and the spatializier stuff is superficial coloured distortion.
Click to expand...

Yea, if you're dishing out a grand to stick some presets on your tracks, you're wasting your time. You gotta learn how to use it to its full extent before it truly starts to shine.
 
/hessian said:
Yea, if you're dishing out a grand to stick some presets on your tracks, you're wasting your time. You gotta learn how to use it to its full extent before it truly starts to shine.
Click to expand...

But you could say that for the standard EQ, compressors and limiters that you get in DAWs... so if anything that logic is a reason to not buy ozone... i.e. you should get to know the standard plugins you have. The issue really is that people don't think their standard EQs and compressors 'shine' so they go looking for 'mastering pluggins'.
 
YES!!! Nobody knows my secret weapon freebie. :victory: :victory:

Keep quiet if you want to continue breathing. ;)

Shouldn't be this easy for people to have gems that should be worth more than commercial products. They ask..make them work for it! It's hard work telling the companies thank you and how much you love and appreciate their products for free.......just to tell people and they download like they deserve them without a thought of the company...no donation or a thank you or nothing. MAKE THEM PAY!!!!! I wish companies make you donate with a limit of $3.

Ozone sucks any way. Ozone 3 was cool. Something happened when 4 and up came out.



Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.....I spoke to soon. :(
 
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The ultimate secret weapon is knowing what you're doing instead of expecting the next magic plugin to make shit right. In most cases, the built-in plugins of just about any DAW are perfectly capable of achieving good results, even though they might not have the shiniest knobz and spectrum displays.
 
+1 for the built in plugins. Unless you're a pro engineer with have ears of gold in a proper acoustically treated room, then yeah you'll probably require better gear. But you can get really far just using stock plugins.
 
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