Isn’t Ozone 11 a mastering suite?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
There’s more to iZotope’s Ozone than meets the eye. I\u2019ve always considered the suite to be a one-stop shop for mastering\u2014but when I was challenged to mix a song using its plugins, I thought, \u201cWhy not?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mixing with Ozone doesn\u2019t sound that<\/em> controversial, even though iZotope’s Neutron suite<\/a> is the more obvious choice. As a fan of everything that can serve more than one purpose, I applaud the idea; Ozone 11 is not only a beast when it comes to mastering, but it\u2019s also more than decent for mixing duties\u2014both for the bread-and-butter tasks as well as for more specialized needs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here are the stems and complete Logic Pro session<\/a> so you can try out the techniques for yourself and maybe make an even better mix than I was able to. Check them out along with the tutorial video above, where I demonstrate the most important mix moves I made.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With all of that out of the way, there are three main goals I pursue in every mix to transform a song into something truly polished: separation,<\/strong> glue,<\/strong> and movement.<\/strong> We’ll dive into each of these in more detail below\u2014but first, let’s get a bird’s-eye view of the mix.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For this session, I have all of my individual audio tracks and auxes routed to buses<\/a> such as the drum bus, bass bus (where the kick and bass live), instrument bus, and vocal bus, as well as one for all send effects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n From here, everything instrumental is routed to a beat bus, and everything vocals-related to a vox bus. This way, I can export the instrumental or acapella version by just muting one of them. These then go to the mix bus, which in turn goes to the master bus, and this is where I begin processing in this mix\u2014I take a top-down approach.<\/strong> This is a mixing technique where you start at the very end of the mix (the stereo bus) and work your way back to the details (individual tracks).<\/p>\n\n\n\n I have an initial fader and panning balance that I\u2019m pleased with before moving on to processing\u2014this is called the static mix.<\/strong> It\u2019s like how when painting a wall, you scrape off old paint, putty the holes, and clean up before you even think about dipping the brush. After making a habit out of cleaning up the mixing session before starting with the processors, my mixes have improved a ton.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I almost always use mixing templates with all buses and auxes ready to go. These speed up my work by at least 30 minutes in every mix. You can have mine<\/a> if you want to give them a go, tweak them to your liking, or just get some ideas on how to make your own. In addition to the templates, you\u2019ll also get the Logic session I used for this song, along with the stems as audio files, so you can mix the song yourself if you want to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I used the track \u201cStop Playing With My Mind\u201d by Barbara Tucker and Darryl D\u2019Bonneau for a reference mix. I inserted it at the bottom of the session, muted, right next to the master fader, and routed to the stereo out. Whenever I wanted to check the relationships between tracks and groups, I would refer to this song, just hitting the solo button on and off to compare.<\/p>\n\n\n\nGet the free stems for the house track<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nBusing and top-down mixing<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/splice.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Image-2.png\")
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\n\n\n\nThe static mix<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/splice.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Image-3.png\")
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\n\n\n\nReference track<\/h2>\n\n\n\n