Technique for mastering with fades? -Sound Forge - Mac

Subject:Technique for mastering with fades? Posted by: DSandberg Date:6/7/2014 7:28:14 AM I am attempting to master my own music using Sound Forge Pro 2 for Mac and Izotope's Ozone 5 Advanced plugin. Some of my songs require a long fade at the end, which I had planned to do during the mastering process because I've read in many places (and it makes sense) that fades should be done after mastering compression and other processing has been applied to the non-faded audio. However, dither is supposed to be applied last, and definitely after any such fades. What I cannot figure out is how to make this work in Sound Forge when using Ozone in the Plugin Chain and saving my song as a project file (which is how I thought to do it since I need to update my Ozone settings interactively during listens and then be able to do multiple renders of the song over time with different Ozone settings until I hopefully get it "just right"). The problem is that it appears to me that a fade (using SFP's built-in menu command for same) is applied immediately, while the contents of the Plugin Chain are only applied when I save the project as an AIFF file (which I believe is the way I am supposed to export a rendered version of the project). If I do this, I am going to end up applying Ozone's compression, gates, etc. to the fade and hence getting unpleasant results, am I not? It almost seems like each time I make a change in my Ozone settings, I might have to export my project to a 24 bit file without dithering, then reload that non-project exported version, re-apply the desired fade, and then reprocess with Ozone a 2nd time using no effects or compression other then dither in order to get the 16-bit CD-appropriate result that I want. But that workflow seems very much convoluted. Is there something I am missing here about how or when Sound Forge applies a fade to the audio? Or is this the kind of workflow everyone uses with SFP? Another option I'm considering is eschewing SFP's built-in fades entirely, and instead automating the output volume of Ozone to create my own fade. I'm not sure yet how those output sliders interact with Ozone's dither, but it would seem to me to address my other concerns (by fading after the compression, and by only applying the fade during export so that I wouldn't have to set it up afresh each time). But again, it feels wrong to have to set up fades manually rather than using the built-in fade. Or am I just expecting too much from SFP as a mastering host program here? Thanks for any advice or thoughts on this.

I am attempting to master my own music using Sound Forge Pro 2 for Mac and Izotope's Ozone 5 Advanced plugin. Some of my songs require a long fade at the end, which I had planned to do during the mastering process because I've read in many places (and it makes sense) that fades should be done after mastering compression and other processing has been applied to the non-faded audio. However, dither is supposed to be applied last, and definitely after any such fades.

What I cannot figure out is how to make this work in Sound Forge when using Ozone in the Plugin Chain and saving my song as a project file (which is how I thought to do it since I need to update my Ozone settings interactively during listens and then be able to do multiple renders of the song over time with different Ozone settings until I hopefully get it "just right"). The problem is that it appears to me that a fade (using SFP's built-in menu command for same) is applied immediately, while the contents of the Plugin Chain are only applied when I save the project as an AIFF file (which I believe is the way I am supposed to export a rendered version of the project). If I do this, I am going to end up applying Ozone's compression, gates, etc. to the fade and hence getting unpleasant results, am I not?

It almost seems like each time I make a change in my Ozone settings, I might have to export my project to a 24 bit file without dithering, then reload that non-project exported version, re-apply the desired fade, and then reprocess with Ozone a 2nd time using no effects or compression other then dither in order to get the 16-bit CD-appropriate result that I want. But that workflow seems very much convoluted. Is there something I am missing here about how or when Sound Forge applies a fade to the audio? Or is this the kind of workflow everyone uses with SFP?

Another option I'm considering is eschewing SFP's built-in fades entirely, and instead automating the output volume of Ozone to create my own fade. I'm not sure yet how those output sliders interact with Ozone's dither, but it would seem to me to address my other concerns (by fading after the compression, and by only applying the fade during export so that I wouldn't have to set it up afresh each time). But again, it feels wrong to have to set up fades manually rather than using the built-in fade. Or am I just expecting too much from SFP as a mastering host program here?

Thanks for any advice or thoughts on this.