widener

Ozone Image Widener – iZotope Releases Free Stereo Widener Plugin

iZotope released a free plugin this week called 'Ozone Imager' normally only available in its mixing/mastering software Ozone. The plugin functions as a stereo monitoring tool and widener and is a powerful plugin in its own right. We threw it on a track to test it out and tell you a bit about its settings.

The first thing we noticed was the three options for visual feedback: Polar Sample, Polar Level, and Lissajous. Polar sample displays dots to represent each sample being heard, dots that fall outside of the 45-degree lines on either side are out of phase. Polar level displays samples as 'rays' and we think makes it is easier to see where your sounds are sitting in the stereo field. Lissajous switches the display into a diamond, your dots will be narrow if your sound is narrow and will expand the wider you make it; also, the dots will lean to either side of the diamond depending on the panning of your sound. On the far right of the plugin you will see a phase meter which represents the average phase, anything equal to or greater than zero is in phase and anything below zero...