Stereoize II
In Ozone Imager, The Width control is used to increase or decrease the volume in your side channels, which gives the effect of widening or narrowing the stereo image. But what if there is no sound in the side channels? This is often the case if you recorded a track in mono. Width will have no effect in this instance, which is when Stereoize becomes useful—it creates artificial stereo so you can embiggen the sides to your heart’s content!
Sep 21, 2017 Our friends at iZotope have just released a great new free plugin today. The Ozone Imager is a stereo imaging plugin born from Ozone’s legendary Imaging technology. The new plugin can narrow or widen your stereo image allowing you to add dramatic or subtle depth and width to your mono, narrow mixes, or audio files.
In the new version of Ozone Imager, there are two selectable modes for Stereoize, labeled “I” and “II” in the plug-in. Stereoize I is the original algorithm from the first version of Ozone Imager. It uses time-based processing to separate the left and right channels, which your ear naturally interprets as “stereo”. This effect is cool and often very handy, but it’s also colorful and doesn’t lend itself to all sounds.
Stereoize II uses a more transparent type of processing to create the stereo effect and is useful when you want to widen the image of a narrow percussive sound like a snare drum or surgically position a backing vocal in the mix without making it sound over-processed. You may also find it works better for low-end sources like bass, because Stereoize II gives a much more defined and articulate low-end response.
Both modes are useful, so experiment to see which one suits your sound best.
Improved UI and Metering
Here at iZotope, we put a lot of thought into metering. We’ve introduced new and better ways of visualizing different aspects of your sound and improved the responsiveness of the meters for a more beautiful, detailed experience. We’ve added this new fluid metering style to Ozone Imager, giving you a cleaner way to visualize the stereo image and know if you’re overprocessing. We’ve also made the plug-in fully resizable.
Ozone Imager’s three selectable meters—Polar Sample, Polar Level, and Lissajous—help you see when your image is too wide, too narrow, or too intense. There’s also a correlation meter that tells you when the audio is in or out of phase, which is very handy when checking to see if you’ve done too much to the signal. You’ll also notice Ozone Imager has an all-around facelift, with a modern new look and feel inspired by the design of Ozone 9.
The wide world of stereo
Working in stereo and mid/side is a deep and complex topic, but knowing how it works unlocks a ton of options in mixing. It’s what separates the beginners from the not-so-beginners, and we have a wealth of information on our blog around the subject. Here are a few articles for those hungry for more knowledge:
Explore Ozone 9
Ozone Imager is quick to set up and light on CPU, so it’s ideal for use on individual tracks in your mix. But it’s just a taste of what our mastering suite, Ozone 9, has to offer. In the Standard and Advanced versions of Ozone 9, you can adjust your stereo image in multiple frequency bands (multiband), letting you widen the lows, mids, and highs separately. This makes it a surgical tool ideal for working with complex sounds, like a full mix.
Ozone 9 doesn’t just include a beefed-up Imager, it also includes a suite of 15 powerful mastering tools. You can control dynamics, shape tone with dynamic EQ, add distortion and tape saturation, check your tracks against a reference, and more. It also features Master Assistant, which analyzes your track and creates a unique custom preset tailored to your audio.
If you’re liking Ozone Imager, why not snag a demo of Ozone 9 and try it out on your next project?
Our friends at iZotope have just released a great new free plugin today. The Ozone Imager is a stereo imaging plugin born from Ozone’s legendary Imaging technology. The new plugin can narrow or widen your stereo image allowing you to add dramatic or subtle depth and width to your mono, narrow mixes, or audio files.
Izotope Ozone 5 Imager
Here are 4 ways you can use the Ozone Imager:
- Stereorize mono synth tracks
Lead synth sounds, in particular, are known for mostly being in mono. Use the Ozone Imager to stereorize a mono source to add some depth to the sound. - Widen vocal parts
Use Ozone Imager to widen lead or backing vocal parts or vocal samples to achieve that pop “wall-of-sound” vocal effect. - Use it on a group or buss track
Try using the Ozone Imager on a drum group track to add some width and thicken the overall drum sound. - Fix instruments with phase issues
Make use of the Ozone Imager’s vectorscope and correlation meter to check phase compatibility and use the width function to adjust accordingly.
Download iZotope’s Ozone Imager for free.
Izotope 5 Free Download
September 21, 2017