The big mistake most people make is to get the demo version of Ozone.

Because....


Once you hear what it can do there is no way you're not going to buy it.


I like the song and the tracks sound good. Nice job on the vocals too. Everything seems to fit together pretty nicely.... I have no issues with that.

My issues and nits go to the sound quality itself. ROG said it sounded like the VU's were banging on the stops.... I agree. It sounds distorted from being overloaded. I don't know that Ozone caused that, although it is possible to get Ozone compressing the tar out of something. I think it's likely the tracks are either kicking too loud or you have too much compression/limiting on them to get them loud.

I also hear a nasty high end brittleness on things.... vocals, cymbal crashes, the harmonica solo... look at pulling the high end in the 3k area down a bit ... it probably won't take much to get rid of it. I think it's also a factor of the distortion since distortion creates tons of harmonics above the fundamental frequency.

Start at the tracks and be sure they are NOT banging the stops or in the red if they are LED meters....

I like to start with a rock preset that I have edited and saved. Also keep in mind, at least it's my primary directive with music.... add nothing that adds nothing to the music. Quite often I will have Ozone running with several of it's modules turned off.

I almost never use the ozone reverb module. The EQ can be a bit tricky... you need enough high end to make it nice and crisp, especially the vocals, but not so much that it is brittle and harsh. It's a fine line to walk.

Don't be afraid to use several instances of Ozone..... I put one in the master bus... that one's a given since it shapes the entire song as a unit.... and I will often have one or more in some other busses as well..usually in the vocal bus to shape the lead and BGV...

I'd do a remix if this was mine.... because, even powerful, wide open rock and roll can sound clean and tight without loosing it's rawness. Unless you're doing a grunge thing, the sound could be much cleaner.

As usual, that's simply my 2 cents and opinion.

You can find my music at:
www.herbhartley.com
Add nothing that adds nothing to the music.
You can make excuses or you can make progress but not both.

The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.