Mastering Workflow

I've always mastered in another application. I'm now twiddling with using sonar and ozone 7 for mastering.
 
If I bring all the stereo tracks for an album into a sonar session, along with a stereo track for a reference file, I have some workflow issues. 
 
If I put ozone on the mater bus, I can't use separate FX on each track and also when I switch to my reference, it has the ozone FX on it as well. 
 
If I put Ozone on each individual track, I can't do things like capture the reference EQ from the reference track or compare metering with the reference track. 
 
Of course I can create a separate project for each song instead of pulling all the songs into one project. But then I can't compare back and forth between the songs on the album.
 
If I use ozone in standalone mode, I can do some of what I want but I don't have the same options for some things that I do in sonar. 
 
So, how does everyone else organize and create a workflow for mastering an album in Sonar?
 
Thanks, gabo
 
NOTE: I want to keep this conversation about the workflow, organization, and audio routing and NOT get sidetracked on how to do the actual mastering.

I think the single biggest thing you can do is send the reference track not to the Master bus that has Ozone in it, but to the hardware outs where the master bus terminates.
 
For example - I'll bounce my tracks to a new, stereo mix track that has an effect in the master bus. Now if I want to listen to the new stereo mix track, I just send it directly to the hardware outs so I can hear it without any master bus effects, and A/B it to the tracks that do go through the master.

Plus 1 on Craigs suggestion.  I do this all the time (that is, set the reference buss or track output to go directly to the hardware outs (thus bypassing the master buss and any of its mastering FXs).

timidi
Why can't you use separate FX on each track?

 
I guess that wasn't stated very clearly in my original note. 
 
- I have a separate track for each song of the album.
 
- I have a separate track for a reference song, actually I have a couple of reference tracks. So I have 12 tracks, 10 of them need to be mastered individually and two of them need to have NO FX on them. Maybe this is not the best way to handle it, but it seems like a good idea so I can compare each song not only against several reference tracks, but also against each other. I want a consistent EQ and level across the entire album of songs.
 
- If I put the Ozone mastering FX on the master, the same FX is going to apply to EVERY song. AND it's also going to apply to my reference tracks. Every song doesn't need the same treatment and I certainly don't want to apply FX to my reference tracks.
 
-If I put Ozone on the individual tracks. There are things in Ozone you can do, like capture an EQ curve from your reference track. But I can't do that if the Ozone FX is on the individual track.
 
It looks like the predominate method most people use for this is to put the FX on the master and send the reference tracks directly to the hardware output.
 
However it seems to me that if I'm going to put all the songs on the album into one project so I can conveniently compare tracks that it might be better to build a sub bus for each track and do it that way. 
 
So my current take away is this.
 
- Create a sub bus for each track and put Ozone on each of those. Route my individual tracks to their respective sub bus and all the sub buses to the master.
 
- Send the reference tracks directly to the master. If I want to capture an EQ curve or other things, I can temporarily re-route the reference track to the appropriate sub bus, then move it back to the master once I've done the capture.
 
- This will also allow me to put a metering app, like izotope's insight on the master bus to allow me to compare visually between songs/references.
 
- With this arrangement I can put a group on the mute of a reference track and an album track and switch back and forth to compare. I can also do that with two songs of the album as required. And when I switch between things, the metering package is also switched so I can visually compare along with audio compare.
 
I think this might give me the best flexibility but always interested in what other people are doing and maybe come up with a different workflow. 
 
FYI, I've never really done it like this in the past. I've always mastered one song at a time and done it outside of sonar. I'm just looking for a better way to be able to compare things and also a better way to archive my finished album. With this method, once the album is done I have one project that contains the final master for everything.
 
thanks, gabo

Don't know what sub busses for each track accomplishes. Must be an ozone thing.
Anyway, all I can offer is that it would probably be easier going between tracks using exclusive solo and not mute.
 
And yes, The reference track should go straight to the main outs whether or not you buss it or not. My recommendation above was simply to make it more convenient to see everything in the console view and to have a stereo solo available. If everything is on it's own track, then you can use the tracks for soloing.

When you capture EQ with Ozone, can you save it? Then you could flip between different instances of Ozone, each with track specific settings.

I simply bounce down to a 'Mix' track, and work just with that, soloing it and putting Ozone7 on it. I use the bypass inside Ozone to A/B. When happy I bounce that down to a 'Mastered' track.  Am I missing something by not using buses?