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Dynamics and limiting

While you might think dynamics and limiting processors have been done to death, Ozone 4's stand out with their fantastic sound, clever functions and intuitive operation.

Multiband Dynamics is an extremely versatile multiband compressor/limiter/expander/gate with automatic gain compensation and a new Mix control that gives you instant access to parallel compression.

The Loudness Maximizer keeps it simple, with just threshold, ceiling and timing sliders. In addition to the pre-existing Soft, Brickwall and Intelligent modes comes the even smarter Intelligent II, and boy, does it do a good job of producing loud yet coherent masters!

It's one of the best we've tried, and is easily up there with PSP Xenon and Voxengo Elephant 3. There are also numerous dithering options.

A bit on the side

Mid/side processing is where stereo audio is converted from a left/right pair into centre (mono sum) and sides (difference between left and right), so that each can be processed independently, then decoded back into stereo.

As centre-panned instruments (drums, bass, vocals) tend to have different characteristics to those at the sides (guitars, big synths, reverb), mid/side processing can give greater control during mastering.

Four modules (EQ, Reverb, Exciter, Dynamics) can operate in M/S mode. When switching between mid or side settings, the controls turn red or blue, so you always know what's what.

Mid/side EQing might be used in the following situation: to brighten up a centrally-panned vocal (mid), while adding more low-mids to hard-panned guitars (side). Obviously, with the reverb you can add ambience to the centre only to bring out a vocal or kick, or to the edges for widening the sound.

As for the Dynamics module, with four bands operating in mid/side mode, you essentially have eight separate compressors. In the hands of the more experienced engineer, this can really bring out the best in your material – for example, highlight the thump and snap of drums (mid) without making the guitars (sides) pump excessively.

Mixdown

One great addition to Ozone 4 is the set of six omnipresent blend sliders, which offer a quick way to mix in more (or less) of a particular module.

For example, if you've got some tasty compression on the go, but it's a bit too slamming, backing off the Multiband Dynamics' modules blend slider adjusts the Mix control of each band, which might be all that's needed to tame it. There's also a Global Amount slider for adjusting the overall, er, Ozone level.

The mastering suite now sports a brilliant preset manager, with 100 ready-made settings. Most outstanding are the macro presets, which feature sliders right in the menu, enabling you to audition and roughly tune a mastering chain before committing to it.

You can also load individual modules from a preset, and advanced users are encouraged to make their own macros by linking key controls to the sliders – this can save a lot of time if you're regularly mastering.

Further new goodies include automatic compensation for level changes introduced by Ozone, enabling a proper comparison between mastered and unmastered audio, without being bamboozled by the 'louder is better' effect – excellent!

Ozone 4 also supports Bob Katz's K-system metering and, though it might not be new for v4, we have to mention again the masterstroke that is the Undo History.

Ozone sounds and works a treat. It's just better conceived and easier to use than its contemporaries. What more can we say?

Listen to these clips, each of which features a dry track followed by the same audio processed in Ozone 4: