OZONE 10 - CRACKS AND AUDIO Abandonment

[Milton Sica]

When using Ozone 10 to master, during processing the application presents several clicks, stutters in playback and often abandonment of the audio card.

Tips to stop this from happening are very welcome.

Thank you very much.

[John Vere]

Ask your self if you really think you need it?  It doesn't really do anything you can't do yourself with standard processing tools. It was sort of invented to be used by people who don't no how to use processing tools and would be a magic button you push to improve your mix.  

They make some good stuff but most of Isotopes effects are super inefficient CPU hogs. 

But to answer your question it's always going to be max out your audio buffers or buy a better computer. The quality of your Audio interface ASIO driver also can play a part in drop outs.

Example Motu M4 256 buffer= Audio glitches,

Same project same computer Zoom L8 or Focusrite Scarlett 6i6 at 256 buffer = no audio glitches. 

Edited June 25 by John Vere

[Glenn Stanton]

for the "mastering" part of the process - increase your buffers to the maximum. make sure your CW / Sonar as added to your A/V exceptions. turn off your networking. bounce / freeze soft synths to audio etc to prepare as clean as possible. and don't touch anything while you're exporting. no surfing the web (remember you turned off the networking), no games, etc etc etc. go get a beverage, check the mailbox outside, get a snack etc. anything which generates interupts (like moving a mouse) can cause disruptions even on the most tuned system. 

Ozone is an excellent tool but as pwal noted it is a resource hog when loaded up, but you'll be hard put to find a better collection of tools in one package.

[Mr No Name]

get rid of it, I used the elements 10 version to "master" an already mastered track as an experiment, It sounded awful.

if it really was as clever as it thinks it is, it would have known it was already mastered.

[Glenn Stanton]

pretty sure if you were using Ozone to "master" an "already mastered" track, it wouldn't "think" anything (it's a tool, and the elements version is very limited in features). however, the person using the Ozone suite to "re-master" the "master" would likely think it was a poorly exported mix track where the mix engineer forgot to leave room for the mastering engineer... LOL.

[Mr No Name]

Ozone 11 is supposed to be better, maybe they got better on that one.

it seems whatever you put in there even if it's - 5 lufs, it will try to make it - 4, instead of saying "hang on a minute" and realising it sounds rubbish and should be at -8 lufs.

 

The moral of this story is don't use ozone to master your songs, use a person.

[Mr No Name]

it has a thing that "listens" to your song and masters it accordingly, so yes, some type of AI,

not a very bright one.

[Glenn Stanton]

Ozone is algorithmic. it has a number of "profiles" and "presets" it can apply when it "analyzes" the audio and then tries to apply a set of modules to match those "as a starting point". Ozone is not a mastering service like any number of online services, it's merely a tool with some options to get an approximate set of adjustments.

in some cases, it will overdo it. in others, it can be fairly minimal. you also need to do some work to set up the levels (for example) and profiles (pop, jazz, EDM, etc) that you are targeting. then run the "mastering assistant". done correctly, the master version won't be any worse than the online services. 

-- however -- as with all "AI" (marketing or not) -- YOU NEED TO CHECK THE RESULTS AND CORRECT AS NEEDED ? whether it's your auto-wreck feature on the phone or the "automatic orchestral magic" instrument, or the video with people have 4 or 6 fingers and other weird sh*t, AI is, at the very least, a crap-shoot at this stage.

for me, like most other stuff, i have my Ozone templated for mix level "pre-mastering" as well as my "mastering" ones. and occasionally i will run the assistant just to cross check because in a few cases i've been surprised with the output (in a good way).

 

[Mr No Name]

robot mastering engineer with 6 fingers ?

 

tbf I have heard good reports about the version 11

but I have no intention of trying it myself.

on a side note bandlab have a self mastering algorhythm,  which I tested to try, and although not fantastic, wouldn't be bad for a rough loudened master.

and also is free.

[John Bradley]

I’ve used Ozone 9 (as an effect on the Master bus) on dozens of songs. The ‘AI’ listens to the part of the song you feed it, and configures 4 modules accordingly.

• an EQ to get the overall tone balance ‘good’ (as seen in Tonal Balance Control)
• a multiband compressor if needed (it very rarely enables it on my projects)
• a dynamic EQ to cut certain freqs to ‘help’ the limiter
• a limiter to attain the desired LUFS output and prevent clipping on the final output

Point being, it doesn’t do very much at all. The EQ tends to have subtle effects – wide Q, few bands, and maybe 1-2 dB of boost or cut. The dynamic EQ I can’t hear doing much of anything. Mostly the limiter is the only thing that has a large effect, dramatically increasing the perceived volume.

it’s convenient having ‘AI’ setup reasonable starting values for the modules, which you can change or disable as you see fit. For my purposes it mostly just makes my mixes suitably loud without changing the to any appreciable degree.

YMMV.

It’s quite possible it does more in Ozone 10 or 11. Dunno. I see no reason to upgrade.

As for the OP question, yeah, set the interface to the largest buffer size (1024 on my Focusrite 2i2), freeze everything worth freezing, etc. If the errors appear during audio export, you can bump up the export buffer size beyond the audio driver’s to 40, 60, 80, etc. milliseconds.

[Milton Sica]

Firstly, I would like to thank all the tips provided, which were of great value, as they gave me horizons to look for the best configuration.

The exception is those that suggest increasing the machine, increasing the machine, increasing the machine.

I tested several configurations and got better results in my current structure, without adding more processing or memory.

Go into the Ozone 10 settings and set the types from HYBRID to DIGITAL and reduce the buffer sizes as much as possible.