Long story short, I determined that when the Eisenhower utopia of a chicken in every pot and a mortgage on every family dissolves into a Dickensian nightmare of workhouses and Edwardian hyperluxury, the best bet for the non-wealthy is to sell to the wealthy. Don't get me wrong: I have a triple-word-score of a job. I make a middle-class living working only four months a year. I've got retirement funds and a pension (!). But if it can be automated, it will be automated and just because they haven't succeeded yet doesn't mean they won't. Know what's selling right now? Luxury goods. Know what sells well when rich people get richer? Luxury goods. At the crush of the Quartz Crisis, when the world was going to end for the Swiss, the Swiss watch industry did $2.7b in sales (in 2017 dollars). Now, when nobody remembers what watches are for and everyone is sporting smart devices from Apple and Motorola, the Swiss watch industry is doing $27b in sales (in 2017 dollars). So I'm making watches. If you have a choice between making 20 cents on every burger poor people can buy or $20k on every watch a rich person can buy, go for the watch. You'll work less.
Ozone 5, yo. I have a cracked version, but I’m not so sure it could be done again, they’ve probably upped their game since four or five years ago. I could spend tens of thousands of dollars on plug-ins. They’re better than “gear”, in the hardware sense, imho.
I have spent prolly $10k on plugins. Including, I think, Ozone 7. Haven't gone 8 yet. Problem with Ozone is it's... aggressive. If you don't know what you're doing you crush the dynamic range into grape jelly. As far as I'm concerned, though, the cool stuff out of Izotope is the creative plugins. Iris is basically a Korg Wavestation from hell: Stutter Edit is... well, it's stutter edit: And Trash is the most fun distortion plugin I've ever played with and I have more than a few.
I can recommend the Sonnox Elite Oxford Limiter, it was always the last thing on my master track. Mannnnnn I can’t wait to get back into producing.
I got a shit-ton. It's super-handy. I've got movies on television that would not have been possible without RX. However it's worth pointing out that "final mix" was a product that they didn't even tell the beta tester pool about. They just launched it. And then they sold it to video editors. Who decided it sucked. And when video editors think your audio product sucks? it sucks. But it might not forever.
Huh. That's an excellent point. Now I just need to find a DIY guide to high end watchmaking (or jeweled scarab crafting, whichever). Is the iZotope/final mix link a nod to your current gig? I seem to recall you do film, which I have to guess, is the right side of soundcraft to get in on. I'm more on the music/podcast editing side, which ... may not be. It hasn't brought me a pension, that's for sure.
I got a Gannt chart with five years and 200 credits on it that indicates it's a bit more than DIY. Nobody is ever going to pay for podcast editing. Music? They used to pay producers. Not so much anymore. My boss mixed bloody Blood Sugar Sex Magik and he's making $50 more a day than me. The Hollywood sound industry is teeming with music guys who decided they wanted to be able to afford to live. Most of them had done just fine in the '80s and early '90s but it's fair to say that Napster and iTunes effectively killed the music industry.
That stands to reason. Tiny machinery doesn't just assemble itself. I am currently being paid for podcast editing. Of course, compensation is sub-sensational ... and that's a rather deep understatement. The work is good though, when it's there. Yeah, I've long wondered whether I shouldn't try and get in that game, sound editing for film. I assume you have to know the secret password and have good ins to get a seat at the table, on top of skills/experience.
You need to know someone and you need to be packin' heat. I switched to 5.1 back in 2002 and started getting work just because I had 5.1 (and knew how to use it). Because surround delivery is a requirement for any distribution you might find, the lions' share of at-home indie dudes are assing themselves out automatically because they think stereo is adequate. It's not. I'm 4 1029s away from going Atmos. I might have to. It's going to be the delivery format of the future and nobody knows how to author it.