New Audio Stuff: iZotope Ozone 5 and RX2

   I took the plunge a few days ago and decided to actually spend some money on the activity I like to call my profession. Based on a wide selection of reviews and from speaking to fellow "sound guys" I bought iZotopes Ozone 5 mastering suite and RX 2 noise reduction software. I decided that I couldn't afford the Advanced versions but the lower priced standard editions are still incredibly powerful tools.

Go to the iZotope website for more information on them and their advanced bretheren:

Ozone 5
RX2

   My initial impressions are extremely positive. Even though I'm no expert at operating them, the various presets are actually very good and work as excellent starting positions for most work you'd care to do in them.


RX2
   I've just pushed a variety of vinyl recordings through RX2's declick, decrackle, denoise, hum removal and spectral repair. The fidelity that can be achieved from very noisy records in a very short time is quite astounding. There is so much automatic work going on that you barely have to think. Some of the algorithms are pretty intensive on your system though, and multiple processors are not always going to help as much as sheer clock speed. But on my new incredibly high spec machine, most of the algorithms will run in real time.
   This is also my first encounter with the concept spectral editing, and it's quite honestly a revelation. Got a noise on a recording that is out of place? You can just rub it out. It takes a little practice to be able to see where the noise is, but once you get used to it, you can just circle the offending harmonics and just remove them from the signal. Of course capturing your audio source clean and without inturruption is always going to be preferable, but RX2 does such a great job of retaining transients and clarity within the original signal that you wouldn't really be able to tell that your original source was noisy.

Ozone 5
   Ozone 5 got 10/10 reviews from most of the major magazines when it was doing the rounds and you can see why. The user interface within the plugin window is superbly organized. Every control is just where you'd expect it to be and the whole thing just wreaks of class. The musicality that is retained in even the most heavily processed racks is really great to hear.
   My old mastering chain was a mash-up of a collection of free plugins from a variety of vendors. Sometimes it worked well, but most of the time is was falling short of the mark in terms of retaining clarity under compression for loudness. The added features in Ozone like the full control of the stereo image of your mix really gives you a new level of control, that I'm just not used to.

   I'm looking forward to testing the two to their absolute limits in the coming weeks.