Syntrillium Backup Forums :: View topic - Ozone vs T-racks

Tomcat2 · Location: USA

I'm looking for some "finalizing" or "mastering suite" software to use with cep2. Since both of these are the same approximate price, what do you think of each, and if I can only afford one (true) which would be a better buy for "finishing" off before burning to CD?

Tom

VoodooRadio · Location: USA

They both are capable of accomplishing the same things. I have T-Racks and find that it is very user friendly, albiet somewhat more limited. Ozone, (which I will be buying this week-end) has more parameters than can be adjusted, which also increases the learning curve. Choose your poison!

turboman · Posted - Wed Oct 30, 2002 12:20 pm

I am a hobbyist, and I did considerable research before I made my selection of T-racks.

I record my songs in Cool Edit. I wanted to get "that" sound that was eluding me for so long.

For me (and nobody else, so don't flame me) the choice was T-racks. Ozone appears to have more bells and whistles (like reverb). But for my belief that you can't master unless you know what you're doing, T-Racks has 50 presets. I can quickly hear what I like, and tweak where necessary.

I don't have the knowledge, expertise, or hearing to start from scratch with Ozone. Maybe as I get better, I can get Ozone too.

Good Luck.

Graeme · Member Location: Spain

I suppose the simple answer is that Ozone is far more flexible than T-Racks and is the better buy, for that reason, if no other. On the downside, Ozone is a bit of a resource hog and takes up a lot of screen if you run in one of the lower resolutions.

The more interesting question is why you feel the need for either? These tools are intended to be used in a very subtle manner. I had a quick peek at your webpages and I see no evidence of the sort of monitoring system which would allow you to even hear such subtle changes to a mix.

I also downloaded and listened to one of the tracks on your site ('Solitude') and I would respectfully suggest that you experiment more with basic mixing techniques before spending (quite a lot of) money on tools which are not really going to make the difference I suspect you are looking for.

post78 · Location: USA

I swear I remember the other Tomcat (Tomcat1?) asking this exact same question...

andyeb · Posted - Thu Oct 31, 2002 2:26 am

T-Racks makes an OK-ish turn the handle solution, but I believe a product like Ozone would encourage you to understand the process a little more.

When I was evaluating mastering solutions to setup http://www.freemastering.co.uk I looked at T-Racks and Ozone, but eventually I went for a hand-picked combination of plugins for maximum flexibility for about the same cost as T-Racks. Personally I consider T-Racks to be somewhat over priced, but then I'm interested in mastering as an end in itself Smile

.

So I guess my answer is "neither", depending on how involved you want to get.

hope that helps,

Andy

Syntrillium M.D. · Location: USA

Hi Tom, and welcome to the forums! I'd just like to add that CEP2 does offer an entire suite of tools that can (in many ways) achieve the same 'finished' sound that you're looking for. These include the Parametric EQ, Pan/Expander and Hard Limiter (for loudness maximizing).

As Graeme mentioned, there's a bit of a learning curve to each of these...but be patient and read through the archives here. You'll find an enormous amount of information here, so just know that you've come to the right place!

You might also want to take a look at our TIPS & TRICKS section of the forum. There are quite a few threads in there that deal with various 'mixing/mastering' processes.

Tips & Tricks

Happy Recording!

---Syntrillium, M.D.

Tomcat2 · Location: USA

Yeah, I may be jumping in too soon. I'm new to CEP2 and don't yet know all or even most of what I can do with it alone. However, I just got Richard Riley's book on Using Cool Edit and am getting a lot of information from it. Last night I was fooling around and found I could get a lot of mileage out of using the EQ with "presence" setup and "simple bass lift" setup and then using the hard limiter to set final levels. Actually I think I will keep working with just CEP2 and learning to use it before I go off and spend money I may not need to. Thanks a lot guys.

Tom

PS I just checked and I'm not getting too senile (I'm only 67). I haven't registered twice, so if someone else using Tomcat asked this same question it wasn't me. (Phew, sometimes you don't know if you are being a senile, incompetent old fahrt.)

post78 · Location: USA

Mark T · Location: Norway

Hi Tom,

Having embarked on this learning curve fairly recently (and following lots of "discussions" with Steve and Graeme), I notice a lot of reference to presets in your posts. May I suggest that you instead learn how eq, compression etc work, rather than relying on loading a preset and then tweaking it? I used to do this, but following said discussions I went out and found some primers and started using the fx from scratch. The difference is amazing, where I used to use masses og eq and stuff I now use a tiny lift or reduction in a couple of places and get the space in my mixes (or lack of it) exactly as I want them (well, maybe not exactly, I'm still learning Blush

). However the feeling of accomplishment when a track sounds the way you intend it to is fantastic:D.

Keep rocking!

lpdeluxe · Posted - Sun Nov 03, 2002 2:20 pm

I endorse the deeper answers above. It's not a question of which so much as a question of when. You don't need a mastering program until you've got decent monitors and an understanding of what's going on with the presets. Check out computermusic.co.uk for some useful tutorials on using compression, gates, and so on. They have been a great help to me (and BTW, I'm 60 and fairly new to computers -- I got into this as a musician, not as a computer geek) and have allowed me to make some pretty nice sounding recordings with CEP. I own T-Racks, and like it...but it doesn't hear for you, and it doesn't think for you. It will make your songs sound good on a CD, but only if you've done the preliminary work of tweaking each track. I might also suggest reading Recording magazine, which has occasional articles on mastering. Good luck. It's tremendously satisfying to have people listen to your recordings and compare them favorably with professional product. Old guys rock!
John

Mark T · Location: Norway

Tomcat2 · Location: USA

Hi Mark,

What primers did you get and where did you find them? Thanks for your help. I'm actually having a lot of fun with all this new stuff to learn. Helps keep me young (or will drive me crazy, whichever occurs first! LOL)

Tom

PS My wife and I are retired and live in an apartment complex. She is busy writing storys and neither she nor our neighbors are interested in listening to me play things over and over, so, out of necessity I work with headphones. I presently use AKG K240M headphones but a pair of AKG K240DF phones are on my christmas list. Then after I get something worthwhile, I check it out on my Sony Walkman CD player, in my car, and in a Sony boom box (we don't have a regular Stereo anymore).

Cal · Location: USA

Tomcat2... about the headphones: since you *must* or choose to use them, have you looked seriously at Sennheisers or Beyerdynamics? The top of the line are very transparent, true, and mostly uncoloring. Since monitors are crucial in trying to achieve life-likeness, so should headphones be. If you haven't, check out the websites for Headroom and Headwize.

About the finalizing products: Having worked with Cool Edit now nearly 3 years and in getting somewhat accomplished at using its tools, i did an A/B comparison between what i could get with just those and, what improvements could be made using Ozone on MY final processing. I have to say that with Ozone open and switching back and forth between Ozone on or bypassed, I could find no improvement over what I could do with Cool Edit's own processes. The components of Ozone or T-Racks can be found in Cool Edit.

I agree with Synt above that Cool Edit already has mastering tools, and according to your ear and skill, you can achieve near-pro mastering results.

Cal

Graeme · Member Location: Spain