I suspect Izotope realized that 9 Elements, being fairly fully-featured and visually almost identical to the flagship versions of Ozone, was not enticing people into upgrading. Ozone 10 Elements has removed practically everything from the user's control. Ozone 9 Elements was simple but tweakable without being overwhelming. So yeah, it is worth the cash, 'decent' and 'free' don't really to together when it comes to mastering tunes at -5 LUFS Ĭompletely agree. Personally, I found this a really good guide for when I first started mastering 2 or 3 years ago. If you're unaware, Ozone 9 has 'master assistant', which can use AI or a reference track of your choice to master your track, and have you tweak the options yourself after. Pro L2 costs nearly as much, but as you're not getting master assistant or the imager, it makes sense its 30 bucks cheaper.

And, you get one of the best mastering limiters (at least for my genres/sphere of genres) out there. You get an amazing stereo imager that doesn't compromise mono compatibility, even though you can turn it into a HAAS effect if you really really really want to. For that, you get a mastering EQ, which is helpful when using master assistant. On Thomann, you can get it for £125, which is about $150.

Izotope ozone element