Ozone question

I've decided to pick up the latest copy of Ozone (6) to try to get some of my projects to the more polished state. I have around ten to twelve songs I'm trying to line up. My question is do I open a new project and import each song (wave file) to its own track and install ozone into each song track because each song has its own mastering needs?

Next:
After the first song plays out..... A few seconds of dead air and then the next song track will begin? And so on and so on to create roughly a 50 minute ( give or take) project? Is this he way I should proceed?

Thank you for your time. Ken

A separate project with all the songs?

My method is to master each song in its own project, with Ozone (or other limiter) on the master bus, export as 32-bit with no dithering, and then open a separate CD-mastering project and load each song into that.
 
An instance of Ozone on the mastering project's master bus supplies the wordlength reduction and dithering, the "prevent intersample clipping" option is turned on, and the limiter mode is "brickwall" with a threshold of -0.03 dB. Sometimes I also use Ozone's EQ as a rumble filter, with a steep rolloff around 30 Hz.
 
A prerequisite for this method working is that each song should be mastered to a common loudness standard. That way, all the songs are going to already be pretty close in volume. A volume envelope in the master project can be used for minor tweaks (identify the quietest song in the collection and adjust everything else to it), generally no more than 1 or 2 dB to match volumes.
 
I load each song into a single stereo track in the mastering project. That makes it easy to re-sequence them if I want, and to precisely set the gaps and crossfades.
 
I don't ever use the standard 2-second gaps that CD-burning software sticks in by default. Instead, I set the gaps by ear in the mastering project. For example, a transition from an up-tempo rocker to a ballad might warrant a longer silence. I like to count beats as I'm listening, so that the next song comes in on the beat of the previous song. I'm also fond of crossfades, which works great when two consecutive songs are in the same key with similar tempos.
 
This procedure lets me preview a CD album in its entirety, exactly as a listener will hear it. Once I'm happy with the sequence, volume-matching and gaps, I export the whole shebang as one big 16-bit wave file. 
 
At this point, your CD-burning application sees only one file, and will create only one index marker. You have to now go in and manually set index markers on each song. Most CD-burning software will let you do this.
 
WARNING: if you send this master out for replication, be sure to send along a note that they are NOT to put in gaps between the songs. Tell them it's gapless. I had a thousand disks come back with 100ms gaps between every song after having painstakingly adjusted every crossfade. And it was a live album, so it sounded especially weird. I would have been furious had it not been my own damn fault for failing to give explicit instructions.

Yup.

What I do is mix the project to a new track.  Then apply Ozone 5 to that track.  Export that track letting Ozone 5 dither it to 16 bit/44.1Khz. 

I believe with the new Ozone you can also load the individual wav files into it in standalone mode. If your happy with the mix this may be one method to consider. Personally I like to do all three. On my last project I would mix and master the song on a per project basis then export the file and use a "mastering" project for all the finished mixes. I would also import the wavs into T-racks standalone and have a go with that.

bitflipper
My method is to master each song in its own project, with Ozone (or other limiter) on the master bus, export as 32-bit with no dithering, and then open a separate CD-mastering project and load each song into that.
 
An instance of Ozone on the mastering project's master bus supplies the wordlength reduction and dithering, the "prevent intersample clipping" option is turned on, and the limiter mode is "brickwall" with a threshold of -0.03 dB. Sometimes I also use Ozone's EQ as a rumble filter, with a steep rolloff around 30 Hz.
 
A prerequisite for this method working is that each song should be mastered to a common loudness standard. That way, all the songs are going to already be pretty close in volume. A volume envelope in the master project can be used for minor tweaks (identify the quietest song in the collection and adjust everything else to it), generally no more than 1 or 2 dB to match volumes.
 
I load each song into a single stereo track in the mastering project. That makes it easy to re-sequence them if I want, and to precisely set the gaps and crossfades.
 
I don't ever use the standard 2-second gaps that CD-burning software sticks in by default. Instead, I set the gaps by ear in the mastering project. For example, a transition from an up-tempo rocker to a ballad might warrant a longer silence. I like to count beats as I'm listening, so that the next song comes in on the beat of the previous song. I'm also fond of crossfades, which works great when two consecutive songs are in the same key with similar tempos.
 
This procedure lets me preview a CD album in its entirety, exactly as a listener will hear it. Once I'm happy with the sequence, volume-matching and gaps, I export the whole shebang as one big 16-bit wave file. 
 
At this point, your CD-burning application sees only one file, and will create only one index marker. You have to now go in and manually set index markers on each song. Most CD-burning software will let you do this.
 
WARNING: if you send this master out for replication, be sure to send along a note that they are NOT to put in gaps between the songs. Tell them it's gapless. I had a thousand disks come back with 100ms gaps between every song after having painstakingly adjusted every crossfade. And it was a live album, so it sounded especially weird. I would have been furious had it not been my own damn fault for failing to give explicit instructions.

Thank you Mr. Bitflipper, sir, for your confirmation of the way that I mix/master.. finish out my songs.. i thought that I was doing it backwards ... thanks

Question: when converting audio to a wave file to send into stand alone to work on, what is the best dB level to convert at or to? Also, my songs are recorded @ 64 bit, when converting to a wave, should I drop to 24 or 16 bit for Ozone? Thank You.

He may have recorded it at 64 bits, that is an option. A waste of disk space, but it is supported by SONAR.
 
In any case, it's best to export the data as 32-bit floating point for Ozone (or 24-bit integer if that's how it was recorded), and leave at least 6dB of headroom (8-12dB even better) so Ozone's limiter has some room to work in. Dither is not necessary when exporting. Ozone will take care of that, and has an excellent dither algorithm.

Ozone probably can't deal with 64-bit audio, but you don't want to go all the way down to 16 bits. Export it at 32 bits, no dither. Then just check the MBit+ box in Ozone to use its own dither algorithm.
 
BTW, there is no benefit to rendering at 64 bits within SONAR. You're just burning up twice the disk space for no benefit. Set your render bit depth to 32.

bitflipper
Ozone probably can't deal with 64-bit audio, but you don't want to go all the way down to 16 bits. Export it at 32 bits, no dither. Then just check the MBit+ box in Ozone to use its own dither algorithm.
 
BTW, there is no benefit to rendering at 64 bits within SONAR. You're just burning up twice the disk space for no benefit. Set your render bit depth to 32.

That would probably explain my diminishing disk space.... Thank you Mr.

It can't actually record at 64 bits. All recordings are 24-bit (or 20-bit plus 4 bits of noise if you want to get picky about it) but is converted to 32 bits within SONAR by simply tacking on some zeroes. If you specify 64 bits, it just tacks on a bunch more zeroes.

Be sure to post your results in the Songs forum when you're done, Ken. Lots of experienced songmakers there who'll happily offer advice.
 
BTW, bit RATE refers to the sample rate, how many samples per second, e.g. 44.1 KHz. Bit DEPTH, or wordlength, refers to the number of bits in each sample, e.g. 24 bits. So it's bit DEPTH that you've adjusted, not bit rate. Not to nit-pick (bit-pick?), but getting the terminology straight will help in future conversations.

Question, Let's say I have all twelve songs completed in ozone 6. How do I send all tracks to disk ( using stand alone mode ) can I preview all of the songs from start to finish without having to manually start each song to check for proper spacing?

After all is good at the end of working with my songs in Ozone, what are the benefits of Sony cd architect? Is it a wise purchase?