Vst for a good mix

Is there a vst plugin like Ozone 4 for mastering but it is for mixing?
I like how ozone 4 has all the mastering tools in one plugin. But what I need is an all in one plugin like ozone 4 for mixing.

Yeah, I need one of those, too.

Use Ozone for it all.

insert O4 into a track and shut off the modules you don't need.

I use singles from my T-Racks all the time.
Toon has a plug called EZMix

Thanks for all the suggestions everyone.

where do you apply your mix plugin? I now have IO Alloy and wondering if I set it up into the master bus or to apply it to specific tracks.

Ozone is best for stems and busses, due to latency issues, even in 64-bit windows-sonar.

Izotope Alloy and perhaps Nectar ... do well for many of my instrument and vox stems, tracks, and/or busses; both are swiss army knifes quite similar to Ozone with 100's of presets etc. ... but I'd probably trust 'other' reverbs and delays (preferably on busses) as these cause my I7 64-bit meters to strain.

Unfortunately, Alloy and Nectar are a chore to automate and neither seem to me as good as individual plug-ins made by others.  But, I haven't gone wrong with either.

Stems are each individual track in a song/mix.

sharpdion23


so basically it's another word for tracks?

http://en.wikipedia.org/w...m_mixing_and_mastering

I see a bit of confusion there. IKObi is not quite correct there. Individual tracks are as they titled. Stems and busses are a very similar thing. I don't think they are individual tracks at all. The opposite in fact.

A stem is a group of tracks. ie you might have 5 acoustic guitar parts that occupy 5 tracks. You may decide to route all 5 of them to a separate buss and call that the acoustic guitar buss. It is quite fine often in a mix situation to group a number of very similar things together and send them to their own buss. Vocal harmonies are another good example. 

Advantages of busses: You can process that stem/buss as a whole. ie nice compression over all the drums. A nice EQ over all those acoustic guitars helps to bring them all together a bit more. The stereo image is created from the track panning so the stem retains all stereo information. You can process the stereo image. You can raise and lower a stem all at once. eg all 5 acoustic guitars can come up a tad or go down a tad. (The balance of those acoustic guitars is set in the tracks)

When you are exporting just the vocal harmony parts for any reason then the word stem applies more so. As a soundtrack composer I was sometimes asked to supply my music not only as a final stereo mix but each cue might have 3 or 4 stems. It means they (director) can drop things in and out eg rhythm sections  of a music cue the way they might want it.  Other stems might have been string sections and melody lines.  As long as stems are all lined up from the same starting point they wll play properly. (usually) So the word stems here is referring to the 3 or 4 stereo files that were provided to create the final music cue that ended up in the documentary.

In a mix situation I think the word stem refers to whatever is playing over your busses. Busses can be soloed as well for quick checks into them. Because the individual tracks are present, you can alter the balance and placement and treatment of any individual element within a stem mix going down its own buss.

Busses are very useful. Even if you don't move or do anything to them they are easy to create and route to. The busses of course output their stems over to the final master buss where everything meets up. They are good for keeping an eye on gain staging at various points in your mix. It is nice to automate busses. Busses definately add class to a mix and can make it sound better.

With large complex mixes you tend to use busses a lot and get it down to a manageable lesser number of busses that you are actually tweaking at the end. It is much easier to manage 8 stereo busses as opposed to 64 tracks! I like doing live fader moves on busses too, I feel it adds something human to a mix.  Imagine how much life could be put into a mix when you start manipulating busses. It can make the music breathe a bit more.  In terms of levels I use K system levels on all the tracks. (eg my k ref level might be -14db) Then busses can also be set to the same K system level. (ie total mix buss level reaching -14 db) If you have well balanced K system levels on your busses then they will all add up nicely to form your overall master K level. (ie still at -14db)

Thanks Herb that was easy to understand.