Just thought I’d post this in a separate thread seeing as it may be useful to many people.I could possibly post it in In-Depth, but it’s going to be short and sweet, and I don’t feel like it atm.
Below is the Multiband Dynamics tool in Ozone. It is quite possibly the most amazing thing you will ever see. This tool is responsible for exactly 50% of the coolness factor of Izotope Ozone, and quite possibly 100% of the coolness factor of the entire Internets. Yes, that’s right… Internets.
These tools allow you to use Ozone’s analog modeled Compressor+Expander(AKA:Compander) to change the volume dynamics of your song/sample/whatever at a multiband level… that is, it quite simply splits your sound into up to 4 frequency ranges, and deals with them separately. To solo one of these ranges, simply right click the small ‘M’ icon at the bottom right corner of its corresponding rectangle. Keep in mind you can drag around almost everything in Ozone, as well as the rectangle bounds shown here… yes, that was permission to change the frequency ranges if you like.
Like the internets, Sound often gets very cluttered, and needs to be dealt with accordingly. This is where Ozone’s expander comes in hella handy. YES THAT’S RIGHT, I’M COMPLETELY FSCKING IGNORING THE COMPRESSOR! DEAL WITH IT.
… cough…
… Sorry… I don’t know where that came from… back to what I was saying though. An Expander is “most often” used in a similar manner to a compressor. Fscking compressors, all shifty eyed and shit. Instead of suppressing the volume when it gets too high, however, expanders take a more sane approach and amplify the volume when it gets too low. That’s right folks, instead of killing dynamics from the top, you can kill 'em from the bottom. What we’ll be doing though, is using the Ozone Expander in a non-standard way. We’re going to use it as a non-brickwall gate that just happens to be multiband.
Below is a picture of ozone with Expansion set in such a way that it will gate:
Now, for the time being, please ignore everything but Thres Exp. and Ratio Exp. … the rest of the parameters should be left at whatever Ozone defaults to when you load the “Default” preset.
Now, please start by soloing the leftmost frequency range by right-clicking the “M” in it’s box. Mmmm box. Now, with a sample/song/whatever playing, drag the Thres Exp. over so you can see the dot moving in the graph to the right. It should be moving on a diagonal line. Nothing really sounds different. Now, drag the Ratio Exp. parameter to the right. THAT’S IT!! YOU’RE DONE!!! ALL THIS FOR THAT?!!??! Yes. You’ve just gated your bass. It should be effectively more punchy than before, and once you take it off solo, you may notice that your sound, although less bassy, seems to pump more. The low bass of course, can now be fixed with an EQ.
That’s all for now, I hope you enjoy. Fool around with the rest of the bands, and try gating everything. Also, check out the Multiband Harmonic Exciter to add a shitload of tube warmth, or even Tape saturation to your mix. Have a nice day!