#264

Oh, thatā€™s a very good question. Interested in the answersā€¦

1 Like
#265

Gotta have a midi-controller. Havenā€™t yet even thought about using it live, butā€¦ I would think one could make some super interesting things happen with it, with a bit of planning. Canā€™t yet attest to itā€™s predicability in a live environment, either, as itā€™s just been a solo basement companion for me, thus far.

The thing I would be wary of is the CPU hit. Depending on what youā€™re doing with Cycles, it can take a lot of ā€¦ erā€¦ CPU cycles. So youā€™d want to plan ahead and it probably depends more on computing horsepower availability than anything else. I can easily make my new Mac mini hit the wall with this thing, depending on what I dial up.

With that said, it is absolutely one of my all time favorite plug ins, already (and I am just scratching the surface). It is very much worth buying - if you have some decent computing horsepower.

In fact, I love it so much, it has me eyeing more powerful computer options, just so I can make more use of it. And it is the only thing I have on my system that drives that sort of thinking.

5 Likes
#266

This suite of granular plugins is $20 right now, which at any other time would be the price of a single one of them. Iā€™m sure someone will dig. Puremagnetik is pretty good stuff for the price.

9 Likes
#267

Iā€™m definitely going to jump on this!

#268

Just did myself. While I was doing it, I realized 90% of my music is fundamental Osc shapes, granular synths or the OP-1. But Iā€™ll always get more granulars

2 Likes
#269

Ozone is awesome. Dangerously easy to be lazy, run master assistant, and call it a day. They tend to have a great sale during Black Friday/ Cyber Monday.

Mu usual go-to for plugin deals is https://reddit.com/r/audioproductiondeals

4 Likes
#270

I got the Izotope Music Production Suite (or whatever itā€™s called) with Ozone, Neutron, Nectar etc - really good price on Black Friday. But of course, it didnā€™t take long before there was an upgrade for 3-400 bucks. So, now Iā€™ll have to wait for a sale on an upgrade or something. Still havenā€™t used/learned all the stuff. (this is a repeating scenario, in my case).

1 Like
#271

Same deal for me lolā€¦

Iā€™m still rocking ozone 8. Nothing really calling to me to upgrade. It does what I want it to and Iā€™m 90% hardware anyway. Mostly just do vocals, final mixing, and noob level mastering in the box. If for some reason isotope decided to stop allowing me to use 8, I have a ton of other plugins to use. Iā€™d probably follow a similar plugin chain that Ozone uses to magic my stuff up.

I have neutron full and nectar elements, donā€™t really use them very much. It is cool that they communicate with each other on each track to adjust to the mix. Though I do have the fabfilter pro line. Their pro-q 3 is awesome and will subtly highlight frequency bands that might be muddy or busy.

Also. Trackspacer by wavesfactory is amazing. Sidechained eq with 32 bands. Bunch of other magic stuff to it. I love using it on a finished beat: I sidechain the instrumental to my vocals to help my vocals fit better, then run the mix through a compressor to glue it.

I only have a vague idea what Iā€™m doing. Technology is awesome.

5 Likes
#272

rock nā€™ roll :slight_smile:

4 Likes
#273

nectar is fun, but ozone is great / near indispensable. IMHO it has been just as great for at least a couple of versions and i wouldnā€™t feel too much pressure to upgrade. (TBH i kind of prefer the feature sets of ozone 6, 7.)

besides ozone and RX, iā€™d say trash2 is the other izotope offering that really stands out in terms of longevity / utility / value.

6 Likes
#274

a good mastering tool is something Iā€™ve certainly been missingā€¦any feeling on whether to grab Ozone Standard, Advanced or Elements?

#275

mmā€¦ honestly i dunno; just depends on what you want / needā€¦

personally i find a lot of use out of the individual ozone modules as mix elements and not necessrily end-of-chain mastering. [*] bread-and-butter EQ/dynamics modules. (the filter module in trash2 is also deceptively useful; it has quite a few filter models tucked in there.)

the ā€œvintageā€ modules in ozone standard/advanced are nice; personally i value the ozone stuff more for transparency and surgical processing, more than for coloration; but YMMV.

iā€™m also not a professional engineer and donā€™t find much value in workflow/efficiency-enhancing features per se. (like: extra presets, ā€œmix targetā€ and ā€œassistantā€ kind of things; neutronā€™s track control stuff - itā€™s technically cool but doesnā€™t really impact me.)

and of course it depends on your budget for things like this. (IIRC i got the mix production suite in an extremely generous sale, so you may just want to wait for one of those.)

anyways, my advice would be to make use of the trial period to see what features you gravitate to. sorry thatā€™s not particularly insightful.

[*] re: mastering in general, i will definitely use ozone for end-of-chain on little self-releases, videos, whatever, as a final step in media preparation for general purposes.

but i always hire a mastering engineer for actual album releases of music. a good mastering engineer brings much more than technical capabilities; the step of exposing the work to another set of ears is equally valuable.

7 Likes
#276

I just had a look and counted all the different ā€œindividual pluginsā€ that my bundle came with - in total close to 40 :wink: - The RX family was included too and a Vocal synth. I have some studying to do.

#277

Also a good mastering engineer will have full range speakers down to 30hz at least, and a room tuned properly. Anyone who doesnā€™t have this is not really a mastering engineer, certainly not for electronic music. I see a lot of people call themselves mastering engineers, but even with good ears and good speakers, you canā€™t be reliably professional without a good room.

1 Like
#278

totally agree. space and speakers (not to mention skills and experience) are part of what i mean by ā€œtechnical capabilities.ā€

iā€™m just sayinā€™ that even engineers can benefit from having another engineer take over at that stage in album release process, simply because of the untainted perspective. (these days itā€™s also not uncommon for final master to also be a remix to some degree.)

anyways, for day-to-day stuff itā€™s still useful to be able to do a little judicious end-of-chain processing yourself, even a doofus like me.

1 Like
#279

Agree on all points. I tend to use DMG Equilibrium (usually Sontec curves) and Limitless. I am tempted to get the Softube Weiss DS1

2 Likes
#280

Check it against Fabfilterā€™s Pro-DS. I like FFā€™s implementation a lot too. In fact I prefer their plugins for almost all the classic mastering toolkit, personally. Softube I tend to use in the mix, more.

3 Likes
#281

I just like the Softube because itā€™s ported Weiss code and sounds like it. I was speaking more of the compressor sound in parallel.

I like Fabfilter DS too, especially for something that just works on vocals and their gate (because of the interface).

For a limiter, Limitless is definitely my overall favorite, though. That thing is so open sounding. I used to use Voxengo Elephant.

I like Essence a lot for de-essing cymbals and the like. People swear by the Weiss for that, but I didnā€™t dig into that much yet, nor the maximizer.

#282

Is anyone using any subharmonic synthesis plugins?

#283

The other day I realised / remembered that the 16n is a midi controller, so I tried it out with cycles. Super easy to map within the plugin and crazy amounts of fun, especially with manual control of envelopes / filters!

4 Likes