Ozone 5

I've never used a "mastering" software package before, and have had some good mixes as testified by several clients (one, a semi-retired Nashville songwriter and producer).  
 
However, I downloaded the Ozone 5 demo and I'm impressed.  I've also looked at T Racks but that seems to be a more "you buy the basic package and then buy and buy and buy addons".
 
Any thoughts on Ozone 5, or other similar mastering software? 
 
Thanks/Jack

I have been a huge Ozone advocate for years. It really makes a huge difference.

However, I do notice a sameness to material run through it. Recently I have tried to avoid the eq, the Maximizer and exciter, and use tRacks for their much better Brickwall Limiter. The Dynamics control is a thing of beauty, and that little reverb really ties things together.

I bought O3 when it was out and then upgraded to O4 when it was released. 

I decided that was enough on the upgrades for now as O4 does a really fine job. If I didn't have O4 I would get O5. No hesitation. 

It gave a pretty significant lift to the quality of the mix. I use it on everything now. I have created and saved some nice custom presets that I currently use as starting points. 

I am also not above using either 3 or 4 in a track. You can easily disable the modules you do not want or need. I rarely use the Ozone reverb as I find it's overall quality lacking, so it's disabled in almost every project. 

When I advise people asking about it to download the demo and try it, I generally issue a caution as well...... and that is, be prepared to buy it because it's that good and you will definitely want  need it in the DAW.  It's like sex.... once you're tried it, you can't live without it and you gotta have more of it. 

my 2 cents

Hey Firebird--    I own both Ozone 4 and the TRacks Deluxe.  Both are great.  TRacks can be used as a standalone program where you load in your finished Sonar (wave files).  It comes with 9 default components and has some great global presets that are helpful for Mastering.  You can use the individual components as individual vsts, but it does have a shell program that loads them all for use on a bus or better a Master bus for mastering.  Both Ozone and TRacks Deluxe are well worth the money.  I tend to use TRacks more than Ozone but only because I like a little more warmth in the mastering glue, and while it is debatable, TRacks is said by some to add a little more warmth or coloration and Ozone is said by some to be a little more transparent.  Having said that the TRacks Brickwall limiter can be wonderfully transparent when used in its clean mode (it also has several other modes including a saturation mode).

Good luck--you won't go wrong getting either of these two.

I had a trial version of T Racks 3 (standard version) and I wasn't impressed with it.  I never used it, installed it - looked at it and uninstalled it.  It was supposed to be plug ins and standalone, but the plug ins never showed up, either the VST after scanning or the RTAS (PT scans every time it starts).

I now see the "Deluxe" version is the same price as the "Standard" version $199.  Sweetwater shows $399 for the Deluxe Version. 

I've put in a request for a second 10 day demo of T Racks 3 Deluxe and I'll make a comparison.  The $199 would make it the same price as Ozone 5.
 
Edit/Added: I see Version 3 is an "old" product and they are probably coming out with a new version and the reason 3 Deluxe is on sale for $199. 

Well, I sprung for Ozone 5.  I got a demo of T RackS 3 and did some comparision mixes and I wasn't happy with the T RackS 3 mixes.  Also the T RackS 3 presets were crap compared to Ozone 5's.  

Another negative, with all the promotion and drop in price, there is probably a new T Racks S version coming up.  The 3 is relatively old as I see it came out in 2008 (and all the plug ins are 32 bit at least that is how they are listed by Sonar).

Jack

I gave the singer that I'm finishing a CD project two CD's yesterday.  One "mastered" with Ozone 5 and the other T RackS 3.  I didn't mark which CD was what so he wouldn't know.  He picked the Ozone 5 mix right away.  I used default setups in both programs, I didn't tweak or add/subtract anything. 

fireberd


I gave the singer that I'm finishing a CD project two CD's yesterday.  One "mastered" with Ozone 5 and the other T RackS 3.  I didn't mark which CD was what so he wouldn't know.  He picked the Ozone 5 mix right away.  I used default setups in both programs, I didn't tweak or add/subtract anything. 

don't ya love it?