How to master a song from start to finish in 2024

Advancements in modern mastering plugins and software have made the audio mastering process more accessible and intuitive than ever. Follow along as audio engineer Sam Loose shares how to master a song from start to finish using modern AI-powered modules and stem separation technology in Ozone 11. From improving clarity of your master to correcting your stereo image, learn how to utilize the most advanced mastering technology to give you loud, clear masters.
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Learn more about mastering with tips and tutorials: www.izotope.com/en/learn.html...
00:00 - Intro
01:13 - Starting a new session for mastering
03:38 - Listen and take notes
05:56 - Using references
06:48 - Fix levels with Master Rebalance
09:23 - Alter the impact of your track
11:08 - Improve the Clarity of your track
14:12 - Correct or enhance your stereo image
17:14 - Correct tone with EQ
20:51 - Add clarity with Low End Focus
23:42 - Alter mix elements with Stem Focus
26:37 - Final loudness and limiting
33:11 - Preview your master
35:50 - Outro
#izotope #proaudio #mastering #ozone
SYNC ID: MB01KGCCYYIVEJQ

[@paulhaullussy8662]

Always very clear, handy and userful videos, Sam!

[@EftimStudioRE]

Very useful! Thank you, Sam!

[@HoodHandyman]

This really helped I didn't know Ozone 11 did all this stuff. Wonderful

[@alexanderjovanic1982]

Lovely Video for beginners of Ozone! Thank You Very much and all the best from Vienna! :D

[@abmwc]

The Ozone 11 video walkthroughs are getting better, bit by bit, but, guys, let’s go all-in. Let’s work with a track where the listener doesn’t have to mentally sift through reverb to hear what’s happening. Let’s use a track whose mix isn’t already good. Let’s review the modules and their controls in-depth to rescue a mix. I don’t think anyone who is interested in this sort of content is going to stick around just because it features an over-produced sample track with a catchy melody or riff. We’re here to make a difference- to improve on something- while trying to make sense of all the controls available in Ozone 11. Make us a playlist with a 30m video on each module, each of which explores and reveals the intent and effect of all of the module’s controls. Top it off with a 30m summary lesson that draws upon the punch lines from each of the previous segment videos to pull it all together. This “How to master a song from start to finish in 2024” video is a step in the right direction-and better (more in-depth) than anything I’ve seen on Ozone 11 before-but let’s move the needle a bit further, away from entertainment and more toward education.

[@ffxsam]

My kingdom for an iZotope video that isn't about pop music. Not once have they done a video working on orchestral film score.

[@walterdeminicis737]

You are not supposed to rescue a mix with mastering or master a bad mix in the first place XD

[@jeffsilver5131]

I think the "rescue the mix" idea is a great one. Every mix doesn't come out a masterpiece so a real-world fix-it tutorial would be excellent.

[@abmwc]

@@walterdeminicis737 Admittedly so, but exaggeration can be useful as a teaching/learning tool, and that's really the point here: how does Ozone 11 work its magic, and how do you use its levers and dials to achieve that efficiently ?

[@dustyowl8070]

Totalny agree with 'Let’s work with a track where the listener doesn’t have to mentally sift through reverb to hear what’s happening. Let’s use a track whose mix isn’t already good. Let’s review the modules and their controls in-depth'

[@EndTimesSigns]

Great video. Professionally presented and logically explained. Love to see these detailed walkthoughs again with more genres, particularly rock.

[@miyasanta01]

This was really a really good!!! Thank you! 🔥

[@kqsystemzrecordings]

This was Great!!!!

[@aangovan]

oh, that's very good information, thanks a lot man. keep 💯

[@NightSonoran]

This was amazing.

[@worldofvideoshorts]

This is amazing!

[@txfaulk795]

Sounds good to me👍🏾

[@IanMalam]

Yes indeed very useful!

[@williamlovitt]

Very informative video!

[@tayronzallex3394]

I only use ozone, it was really perfect

[@jeromeclinton2448]

Just upgraded, so thanks for great info. Best tutorial so far. Also, great vibe from the track you're mastering. Half the time, I don't like the music being mastered and have to bail early! Haha

[@EdVizenor]

Master!

[@mischamar]

…destroyers!

[@glynnhodgesmusic3140]

Thank you Sam. I have Ozone 11. I compose mostly classical music. Is the Mastering Assistant useful for this type of music or is it a little “overkill”. Thanks again, great video.

[@tonstudio-imst]

Great Video. Thank you. How do you do the mastering for a complete CD or Album with Ozone.11?

[@stuartwrigglesworth9339]

Good video

[@bradparsonsmusic]

Really great vid! One question.. why not bring the vocals or drums upon the mix stage rather than on the master? I feel there may be a quality downside to this?

[@santiagovanegas3812]

Really great tutorial! What's the recommended workflow for mastering a full amlbum vs single tracks? Does one master each track to each of their specific needs, or master the full album in one long session? Or something else? Thanks!

[@aye5kay]

Thanks for this. Would you be able to share what your album mastering process is with these tools? I haven't seen much made recently with the trend being singles, and albums and EPs don't get the same kind of cohesive plugin use as mastering on singles tutorials do.

[@spikesguitarcamp]

I always like to throw the Vintage Limiter on the end of the chain regardless of the outcome, and use either the Fast and Compressed preset, or the Hard and Punchy, (then adjust accordingly)..for metal mixes it just pumps it up.The Stem Focus trick is something I never thought of. I've always thought that the limitation of Master Rebalance was that you can only adjust the volume of one of the faders, and not all, but if I throw another instance of Rebalance before the mothership, I'll be able to adjust more than just the one instrument? It would be nice to see a more hard rock/metal track being worked on...great vid! 🤘

[@IamSavoiiMusic]

Everytime run the smart assistant, the dynamic EQ oicks those same two freq that it draws down and then it puts a shelf up high. Every single time. So if that is to allow the maximizer to work more efficiently and it dies it every single time anyway, why not build that into the maximizer and have that as a controllable feature? It seams odd to have that as a default setting that AI ways applies to one module that helps another module? Maybe just buold it in to Maximizer so the dynamic Eq can be used for your music and not a different modules efficiency.

[@OfficialAlexZitto]

Very Good tutorial 👍🏾

[@fallenleaf24]

The over head light did you real dirty on the thumbnail Someone was not looking happy!

[@dawmix]

I appreciate the update. Maximizer has changed so much it threw me That's why I came here initially. I like the way that the Assistant has access to the levels in the modules for sound shaping without leaving it, though I am very comfortable with going into manual mode. Nice tip on Soft clip vs Limiter and how finding a balance is key. I was unaware of the Insight module and when I added it to my output chain I was surprised that it was full screen width and I cannot shrink it. So it is a bit cumbersome in my Mac OS Ventura. I plan to update to Sonoma soon and perhaps that will be resolved there? IDK. Overall a great overview touching on a lot of things. I may have been surprised by you not mentioning that the Maximizer is now a very different interface (from 10) and this is why and how it is improved because of it. But I understand this is not about Ozone 10 it is about what is in Ozone 11. Having the Ability to focus on certain aspects such as vocals, bass or drums in a separate Instance on Ozone in the chain is a very good use of this technology. Nice job. Thank you.

[@thirstyrosestudio8288]

There's alot to unpack in Ozone 11 and you've done a masterful job (sorry,couldn't help myself) in clearly explaining so much information. Thank you!!!

[@jeromeclinton2448]

Is the artist listed? I didn't see it. Anyway, nice mid-90s vibe like Cranberries. I miss that genre.

[@CZPagano]

Hello, very useful video, thank you for this. :-) could you please also do the detailed walkthrough video where you mix and master whole song and all tracks by just using iZotope plugins? Guitars, drums, bass, vocals etc? :-) this would be very helpful.

[@paulmark992]

24:20 cant this be done with nectar?

[@ukeesoundhalfyardstudios]

I always add a limiter on master fader on mx to-1db (premaster). you don't?

[@selbalamir]

Ozone 11 is amazing. My only criticism is that it feels very much tailored to streaming consumption, with the emphasis on bright, punchy output, which sounds amazing, but is fatiguing over an album length of material.

[@JDCottonMusic]

Nice video. But why matter a new mixdown wav file instead of in the mastering buss in Logic? That is, why create an extra file?

[@DexDex4u]

cpu load reduction is my guess

[@hilaryburrows9487]

I don't really get the big onus on reference tracks at the mastering stage. I would think if I wanted my track to sound a certain way I would try to integrate that in to my mix. Seems like 'sows ear' syndrome to me. I would listen to the track and see what would enhance it on its own merits.But I may be missing something here.

[@garyclement5527]

I want to use Ozone 10 for de-click and De- hum. If I have mouth sounds like smacking in my audio book tracks, can Ozone 11 do the same kind of cleanup of the tracks?

[@iZotopeOfficial]

You can take iZotope products for a 10-day test drive to demo all features and hear how they work for your sound. www.izotope.com/en/products/ozone.html

[@CelticStone]

any chance of the extra $50 coupon you were doing at xmas? Looking to upgrade my ozone but missed the deal

[@CelticStone]

well that was cool.... upgrade from 9-11 only cost $72. thank you who ever was listening. 💫💫💫

[@jacksolarmusicmastering]

that reeverb sounded overcompressed to me, also gain match when you A B so we can get a honest comparison

[@metalbassist187]

Q: do you know why 10 & 11 got rid of the standalone, and the ability to add all the Metadata info?

[@iZotopeOfficial]

While we know that many people have grown to love and rely on this app, the usage analytics showed that only 3% of Ozone users were using the standalone application. Meanwhile, adding new features and maintaining existing code in both the standalone app and Ozone plugins proved to be a large burden slowing down our development teams. support.izotope.com/hc/en-us/articles/7192108885533-Ozone-Standalone-Application-Discontinued

[@jonaspaulsson4977]

Hello! I produce reggae. Do you have any examples of how to work with Ozone 11 in terms of the music form? I can't find any examples online

[@ricklee7732]

It has reggae presets. I've used them and its very good. Plus you can always use Audiolens for a specific sound

[@elimusickorba9308]

I want to buy Ozone 11, but I am facing problem in purchasing. I don't have an international card.I am from India, is there any other solution?

[@iZotopeOfficial]

That's hard to tell from KZbin. Please contact us through our support channels: support.izotope.com/hc/en-us/categories/8963091237789-Purchase-and-Account

[@mirothedjplaylist]

Never used Ozone had no idea it was not its own program guess its assumed to know this before attempting to instal 10 times in a 2 day period as YOU will not see an icon to open or even basic heads up that thier plugins to be accessed thru a daw. This would be great for a beginers guide or even ads or hell inside the install as it just says finish and nothing happens all the folders are empty and there is no way to start it up. Well now after a few days of trying to figure out what i did wrong,, I did nothing wrong but be daft of never hearing of Ozone til now or any understanding that their addons as feel IZO has a few negative marks against them now that my time was wasted, due to lack of instructions and over kill of previous install tutorial that led me to believe it was going to be way more complicated. Thats all.

[@Doctaj54]

How do you import Ozone 10 user presets into Ozone 11 without getting any error?

[@iZotopeOfficial]

Ozone presets are generally compatible one version across. The best way to transfer those is to save a preset in the Preset Manager of that plug-in, which will appear as an .xml file. For further information, please check out this article. If you need further help, please contact our customer support: support.izotope.com/hc/en-us/articles/6658247071761-Transferring-plug-in-settings-to-a-new-version-Preset-Transfer

[@Doctaj54]

@@iZotopeOfficial Thanks, I tried several things including the import feature but it repeatedly gave the wrong file type error. I just did it manually but opening both versions of Ozone and re-entering each setting one at a time.

[@PinkGene]

Please, subtitles! tks!

[@iZotopeOfficial]

Should be up now!

[@YungstarProd]

The final mix is not good at 27:03. It gets muddy very quickly and I hear a bit of distortion.

[@TCapo1185]

I agree

[@RicardoGarcia-vf5jl]

Legend in portuguese Please!

[@Skrecky]

Your plugins are great. Please add 3d interface to new products. It is much more interesting to work with him. (づ｡◕‿◕｡)づ

[@iralepppi]

I couldn't tell what the stabilizer was doing. eyes closed. headphones on 😭

[@ZgraceLee]

Ion like how they took away the album assembly n standalone in general. I still fvxz wit Ozone 9 bcuz of dat.

[@exhaust4246]

25:16 hmm, couldn't he have done the same thing by adding an EQ & selecting Mid channel? 🤨🤔

[@Guilla4Life]

Is this the advanced version??

[@YungstarProd]

This demo is using the advanced version, yes.

[@Guilla4Life]

@@YungstarProd Thanks

[@galactusfortifier]

All these Ozone 11 videos are made with midi instruments... wish i could see these with real instruments. So yeah this is great but so static.

[@themotownboy1]

The song sounds distorted before any processing. Maybe that wasn't the best choice for this demonstration.

[@EdgarRoock]

The waveform at 1:26 looks fine and I don't hear the distortion. Timestamp?

[@YungstarProd]

@@EdgarRoock27:03 for me. It sounds really muddy and unbalanced. I’ve gotten good results w Ozone before-the presenter is great, but this was truly a bad example.

[@EdgarRoock]

@@YungstarProdThat's after processing, but yeah, there may be some distortion there.

[@TCapo1185]

I completely agree ☝🏾 I thought I was the only one hearing it

[@bradashlock]

I have a lot of fantastic plugins in addition to ozone 11. Would you add things like smooth2, a shadow hills, etc - things pros use - to add richer harmonics or will that cause more problems? Can you achieve harmonic analog richness with just Ozone? I’m on the fence! Thanks.

[@foxate]

This doesn’t seem like a great example of mastering - the mastered track is very trebly and a bit tinny. After hearing the original I was expecting the master to have dealt with the excessive brightness and added some warmth, but instead it became more bright and harsh, whilst obviously also louder and punchier. I’m left quite confused by mastering videos - most of the time it’s difficult to hear any difference coz the changes are so subtle, but this is the complete opposite

[@DenisVolga]

It is all relative and personal: to me the master has too much volume and HF.

[@stephenhepworth8978]

If the mix "wasn't bang on" then it should be nowhere near then mastering stage. Mastering should be purely about optimising levels and any slight EQ issues for the cut or streaming and NOT remixing levels pan etc. Sorry but Mix and mastering engineers are two separate skill sets and jobs.

[@ffxsam]

Welcome to the real world, where sometimes mastering engineers have to work with what they're given, even if the mix sucks.

[@BEAUTIFULTESTOSTERONE]

Dark Web Radio?

[@Arron_Mottram]

The AI tool always sounds terrible, it's much better to try out different presets to build your own chain of plugins.

[@3082frank]

Horrible mixed track and the track sucked. Can you please do a track that is techno or melodic techno. Tired of selecting always bad music. May be do a Rap song...same old boring music.

[@BukanIbuMu]

As Eminem said, nobody listens to techno

[@CelestialForceDigital-ud6sq]

Would you recommend using this for dj mixes (especially vinyl where frequencies tend to be less tamed and different for each track in mix)? Thank you for tutorial!