Finishing a Track 5 : Mastering with Izotope Ozone 9 

I will add a comment that is totally personal opinion, but that comes from 20 plus years of creating my own music. First, I was reluctant to master my own music as mastering was mystified - we would usually send stuff to mastering engineers. However ,things change, and while i prefer to get my tracks to be mastered by mastering engineer still, I can do it myself. I observed your workflow and it is very similar to mine. From creatin to recording, how you arrange and all that. However, one thing that we all do - we use lots, lots of sound saturation even before we get to the mastering phase. I also run my finalized tracks through tape to saturate it a little and also squish it - remember that tape has way lover dynamic range than digital domain stuff so it also tends to do unintentional compression together with the saturation. Anyway back to the point. While Izotope Ozone is a beautiful set of tools, i would encourage you, and everyone else, to try and get as much work done in the mix, prior to mastering. Once you start adding dynamic eq, multiband compressors, you change the definition of the track. What mastering really is about is - to be able to hear everything (great monitors, acoustically treated room), and a few extraordinary tools - mastering is usually removal of few frequencies that we dont hear in the mix, but very gentle and subtle. Same thing with any dynamic processing. and since all these things emulate saturation, together with all saturation we add to our instruments and machines, it can sometime be too much, so watch out for a limiter with "tube" character, might muddy up your lower mid-range. The nature of your track (s) is such that your instruments are very self-defined and there your content isnt "crowded". That is of course mostly because of your composing and arranging skills. However, many people tend to oversaturate their mixes and think mastering will save them. It will not, especially nowdays with loudness wars and mixes being mastered super loud, so those muddy mixes are easy to turn into very noisy mass of booooom. I have noticed that your approach is very minimalistic in the best possible way, both in composing and recording and mixing, but not all the people approach stuff that way - and being that you want to educate people, a good thing to mention would be - do not over use mastering tools! Use one or two modules, good linear eq, fast surgical compressor and a limiter and that is it! I know these tools offer much more, but that is a rabbit hole. Most of the modules in Ozone are there for FIXING bad mixes, rather than ehancing good ones:) Anyway, just wanted to share this thought, and to tell you to keep on and produce great music and content. Maybe we get to do a collab sometimes:)

Thanks for the walkthrough. I use the same workflow recording everything as a stereo signal, but have never ventured into the mastering side of things. Might have to give it a go!

Wow. Inspiring workflow i need to try out. I'm a hardware guy myself but found out i can't escape from my daw Ableton to take it a step further. Spent some money on plugins so it feels good to use them again. My sound is sometimes kind of muddy, not that i think that is very bad, but it can be better. Using Overbridge with the Digitakt and the Digitone gave some small syncing problems. Always have problems with midi from a daw. Prefer the mpc2000 as a sequencer. So for me recording everything on one track in Ableton and use my pedals more during the recording and then chop it up is definitely what im going to try out, no midi tracks this time:). Already had my thoughts about doing it like this, but helps to see somebody doing it and in a way that is so clear. I also have Ozone for mastering, still learning it. Magical!! I got a lot of inspiring tips from you in every stage, from the creative process to the mastering. And i use simular kind of hardware and software. That helps also. Thanks a lot man!! I will be checking out more of your video's for sure.

Can't wait 👍

great stuff, is this ozone 9 elements? or advanced?

What kind of speakers are in the thumbnail? Thanks.

Was Finishing a Track 4 removed?