Ozone 5

[Ermz]

I've never used fgx in a master, makes everything sound harsh and glassy, really not digging it at all.
Ozone is great though

+1

Version 5 is just them cementing its place as king. Absolute win.

 

[Slate]

I have yet to hear the Ozone, but I like the company and I'm sure its great. But if you're gonna say something "owns" or "pawns" the FG-X in terms of straight up transparent loud, then prove it.

Post a mix with headroom. Then post it with the new Ozone limiter. I'll use the FG-X. And I'll also post one where I use the unreleased FG-X 2 algo we're working on.

It'll be fun.

Happy Holidays,
Steven

 

[Maybelater]

New FG-X? This should be interesting.

 

[Clark Kent]

I have yet to hear the Ozone, but I like the company and I'm sure its great. But if you're gonna say something "owns" or "pawns" the FG-X in terms of straight up transparent loud, then prove it.

Post a mix with headroom. Then post it with the new Ozone limiter. I'll use the FG-X. And I'll also post one where I use the unreleased FG-X 2 algo we're working on.

It'll be fun.

Happy Holidays,
Steven

+1

I've been using Ozone for mastering for years now and I do own the Ozone 5. However I just got the FG-X and I must say I like it a lot better for the time being. It does exactly what's promised: transparent mastering. And I mean TRANSPARENT! I can get a mix RMS peaking -8dB and not really hearing any difference when A/Bing with the "constant gain monitoring". This is something I would normally struggle with using any other limiter/loudness maximizer.

Ozone is an amazing plugin and the match EQ is the best there is. The loudness maximizer is also amazing but if I wanted my mix as loud as I can have it on the FG-X I'd have to tweak it for a looooooooong time.

I'll do a quick A/B of them just in case...

 

[Clark Kent]

This is a very quick master on a crappy mix so don't expect to hear anything ground braking. Also I was testing this purely from a loudness war point of view. (which is the only point of view that makes sense to me in comparing these plugins)



I used the API-2500 (very transparent) as a glue comp for the Ozone. I trusted the FG-X mastering comp. This was actually the "Rock Master" preset.

So both takes were maxxxxxxed to about -8dB RMS peaking... I couldn't get the Ozone there quite as easily so it's a bit lower in volume. TBH the difference is very small since both are very transparent.

You can be the judge on which of these sounds better. Personally I like the fact that I could go further than -8dB on the FG-X and also you can hear that I left some headroom for the FG-X since it simply sounds a bit more articulate and dynamic. (although clearly there are no dynamics left in these tracks)

 

[jangoux]

I think FG-X is NOT transparent, but it is very good. It is glassy as Lasse says, it is too resource hungry and it fucking crashes Cubase on every project it is in (Trigger and VCC also do this, BTW, and despite doing what tech support says, it still happens).

Btw, it would be a great oportunity to Slate answer the Trigger Midi-problem thread, wouldnt it ?

 

[Jaymz]

That test would be much more apparent had the drums been seated upfront rather than a very guitar driven mix, since drums are the one thing that suffers the most with heavy limiting.

 

[Donovan S.]

I think FG-X is NOT transparent, but it is very good. It is glassy as Lasse says, it is too resource hungry and it fucking crashes Cubase on every project it is in (Trigger and VCC also do this, BTW, and despite doing what tech support says, it still happens).

Btw, it would be a great oportunity to Slate answer the Trigger Midi-problem thread, wouldnt it ?

Doubt it will happen. Slate support totally ignored the support ticket I sent over 2 weeks ago. Great products, terrible support.

I don't want to derail this thread with that though.

I'm probably going to be buying Ozone 5 this Friday!

 

[Slate]

I think FG-X is NOT transparent, but it is very good. It is glassy as Lasse says, it is too resource hungry and it fucking crashes Cubase on every project it is in (Trigger and VCC also do this, BTW, and despite doing what tech support says, it still happens).

Btw, it would be a great oportunity to Slate answer the Trigger Midi-problem thread, wouldnt it ?

If you're not getting FG-X to be extremely transparent, there is a good chance you are setting it wrong for the particular material. Either post something in a new thread and I'll show you settings, or send it to me at slate@stevenslate.com

I can tell you for one thing, the presets on FG-X are really bad for most stuff.. one of the programmers made them right before release and I just haven't had the time to actually have them redo a version with MY presets.

I'll search for the TRIGGER MIDI thing.

Doubt it will happen. Slate support totally ignored the support ticket I sent over 2 weeks ago. Great products, terrible support.

I don't want to derail this thread with that though.

I'm probably going to be buying Ozone 5 this Friday!

Hi Donovan, I'm sorry your ticket got ignored, but if you email me the ticket number to slate@stevenslate.com, I'll not only get support to help you out, but I'll also slap them around a bit until I figure out what happened, because i fucking HATE when people don't feel like they've been properly supported. Not that its much of a defense, but we recently switched some personal so there are some transitional pains in that dept.

Cheers,
Steven

 

[jangoux]

If you're not getting FG-X to be extremely transparent, there is a good chance you are setting it wrong for the particular material. Either post something in a new thread and I'll show you settings, or send it to me at slate@stevenslate.com

Steven, I actually love FG-X, man, I've been mastering with it for the last one year or so. And it is not like it sounds like L2. It is 'transparent' in a way but it DOES leave its sonic blueprint, like O5 also does. I just feel I am getting the same loudness with less effort using O5, it consumes much less CPU and it doesn't crash my C6 (or C4, when I had it) every time I close a project with it. I think you really should not ignore it and see what can be improved on your product

 

[Slate]

Ivan, please send me your support ticket, as I use C5 and C6 and cannot get it to crash with FG-X on Mac or PC (I just tried). As for sonic imprint, its physically impossible to not leave anything, but if set well, the FG-X's artifacts are very very subtle if even audible at times. The biggest problem with FG-X are bad presets and the fact that it is very easy to misuse. For instance, The Transient and Dynamic knobs should have 50% of the scale that they do, since they are way to easy to abuse..

Its starting to look like I'm hijacking the thread so I'll bow out now and say that anyone can send me mixes or seek settings advice from me at slate@stevenslate.com