Welcome to Loopstorrent. I’m here with a new article about the iZotope Ozone 12 plugin. This plugin was recently released and has generated a lot of buzz in the music production community. If we talk about the background of this VST plugin, it has long been recognized as a go-to mastering tool.
This plugin has been a favorite tool for producers as well as mixing and mastering engineers. Recently, iZotope released a new version of their plugin called Ozone 12. This updated version is packed with new tools and AI features that claim to make the workflow faster, easier, and more efficient.
So, in this article, we will look through the new features and tools of this plugin, and we will also discuss whether these features are really effective or not. We will also take a look at public reviews.
What’s New in iZotope Ozone 12:
There are a lot of new updates in this new version. Some of the important updates are discussed below.
Stem EQ:
Usually, mastering engineers receive a stereo file where all the elements are baked into one single track. If the engineer notices a deficiency in the music, such as low vocal volume or another element being too quiet, the engineer is unable to go back and raise the volume of the vocal track separately.
But now, with the Stem EQ, it is possible. The Stem EQ uses artificial intelligence to separate each element of the song from the master track or stereo file and allows the user to tweak every element individually. In short, it uses real-time separation of the elements with as much accurate precision as possible.
Bass Control:
Bass Control is basically just a combination of a few plugins. Bass Control lets the user add more punch and mono character to the low end. If the low end of the song is lacking power and punch, then the whole track can end up sounding tasteless.
That’s why the Bass Control in this plugin allows the user to select the frequency range for adding punch, along with plenty of other basic controls. It also provides helpful visual feedback.
Unlimiter:
Compression is a very crucial step in mixing and mastering. This is a plugin concept that should be clear to every mixing and mastering student. Over-compression can ruin a mix, while balanced compression can bring life into it.
Over-compression eats up the dynamics of the sound and makes it lifeless. According to Ozone, over-compression is a real nightmare, and I think that’s completely true.
In the past, it was hard to restore over-compressed audio, and producers mostly had to re-record the track. But now Ozone 12 includes a plugin called Unlimiter. This tool restores over-compressed audio by using neural nets to recreate the lost transients.
What are Neural Nets
In the above paragraph, I used the term neural nets, so I think it’s important to explain what neural nets actually are.
- Neural nets are a type of artificial intelligence.
- They work much like our brain.
- They have been trained on millions of audio examples showing how audio sounds when it is not compressed and how audio sounds when it is over-compressed.
- They use this before-and-after pre-analyzed data to understand the audio we provide and then predict how the transients should sound when they are not over-compressed.
- Based on this analysis, they recreate the transients of our audio.
- In the case of Ozone 12, the Unlimiter has been trained on trillions of audio examples.
- This clearly shows how AI is helping humanity in every field.