iZotope Neutron 3

[Guy Rowland]

Set you cynicism level to stun, Neutron 3 is here:



https://www.izotope.com/en/products/mix/neutron.html

Clearly trying to really refine that "Mix it for me" button, and Sculptor feels like yet another variation on multiband compression / EQ. That said I do get quite a lot of use from Nuetron, mainly the EQ in truth that I just find very quick and reliable and do like the linked thing with other instances, and having a resizeable window and the promised CPU / start up time efficiency would be nice.

RRP is £199, but weirdly I can't log in there at the moment for some reason. Pretty sure my details are right - anyone else having issues? Product Portal seems fine.

[playz123]

No problems logging in at all...and I am currently exploring this. Upgrade price is $149 US. I get a lot of use out of Neutron 2, so am considering purchasing.

[Guy Rowland]

I'm in now too Frank. And lucky me, I have a $99 deal from the Post Production 3 bundle to Music Production Bundle 2.1. That looks pretty good to me as it adds Melodyne Essential, Vocal Synth 2 and Nectar 3 on top of Neutron 3, none of which I currently have. Something there just has to be useful.

[Thorsten Meyer]

Neutron 3 advanced here:
iZotope Neutron 3 Advanced Upgrade from Neutron 1-2 Advanced
Artikelnr. IZOT-NEUTRN-3-UPG-NEUTRN-ADV $134,00 USD

https://www.audiodeluxe.com/products/au ... 2-advanced

[playz123]

Neutron 3 advanced here:
iZotope Neutron 3 Advanced Upgrade from Neutron 1-2 Advanced
Artikelnr. IZOT-NEUTRN-3-UPG-NEUTRN-ADV $134,00 USD

https://www.audiodeluxe.com/products/au ... 2-advanced

Thanks for the coupon code!

[Arcana]

I initially got excited as I thought 'Mix assistant' would EQ/compress etc. but all it does it set the levels, which would be helpful if you are a mixing engineer who mostly mixes bands. But for a composer, who mixes on the fly, I just don't see how it would be useful.

Sculptor looks cool, but it seems to cover the same bases as Gullfoss, so I could live without it.

The rest just seems like refinements, which is hardly worth upgrading for, as the upgrade is a bit on the pricey side.

[lofi]

I'm in now too Frank. And lucky me, I have a $99 deal from the Post Production 3 bundle to Music Production Bundle 2.1. That looks pretty good to me as it adds Melodyne Essential, Vocal Synth 2 and Nectar 3 on top of Neutron 3, none of which I currently have. Something there just has to be useful.

Same with me.
Thing is I never used the Nectar nor the Vocal Synth.
Are they any good?
What's the difference between Nectar and Neutron aren't they both channel-strips?
Honest question, I know most of RX and Ozone but nothing about Neutron or Nectar.
I tried Neutron (1) but could not get my head around how it would make things better.
Is this better?

Best,
Anders

[Guy Rowland]

I didn’t like vocal synth 1 at all, but 2 is supposed to be a better - the theory is ok, it was just the execution. I do have colleagues who swear by Nectar but I also never used the original much, just gravitating to my tried and true components. So for those two it’s a bit of idle curiosity in truth.

Nectar 2 though does get a lot of use from me, although mostly the individual modules. The ability to link 2 instances and make adjustments to one while performing the inverse on another is a cool trick. Occasionally if I have a really horrible source to clean up, I throw it at the assistant and it does a pretty good job at getting a lot of the heavy lifting done. In general it’s a very solid workhorse for me, so the cpu, load time and graphics improvements are definitely the biggest draw - hoping I can make the gui smaller for routine eq work actually,

[Guy Rowland]

I've had only the briefest of plays with Nectar 3's EQ and Vocal Synth 2, the two things of most interest to me. Nectar 3 EQ is actually a huge disappointment. I'll persevere a bit longer, but my feeling is that its a significant step backwards from Neutron 2. The new GUI might be slick, but its form over functionality. Here's the old EQ module UI from 2:



And here's Neutron 3:



Exact same size and yet there is massively less information and quick access to controls. It's all now buried away. Hiding under that floating info box in 3 are the controls to switch from regular to dynamic, sidechain mode, all with fiddly dimly lit buttons to enable and set. With the original mode you see everything in the bottom at a quick glance, click to switch modes etc. You cant even drag those numbers and raise / lower with the mouse - stuff like the db/octave I could only adjust by typing in the number. Its essentially now a crippled UI, with no preferences or options to restore the clearer way of working. The final killer is that you can't even shrink its considerable size with the new variable control, only make it bigger. I think it does load faster and may consume less CPU (not sure) but I can't ascertain any other benefit, only downsides.

Vocal Synth 2 is a better product, control and intelligibility seems much improved.

I did have a quick play with the new Sculptor module, but it sounded pretty grim on the source I was using (a drum loop). It may make more sense on acoustic instruments and voice, not sure yet.

[bryla]

Yes I'm also extremely disappointed with the new EQ GUI. First thing I noticed is that the dedicated band for cuts and shelves were gone. Seemingly a minor detail but now that it is harder to get the info of each band it takes a considerable amount of time to activate a low cut compared to Neutron 2. It is slightly faster to double click on the edge of spectrum but to the great disappointment of my OCD it creates band number 5.

[Guy Rowland]

Absolutely right about the cuts and shelves, Thomas. I've actually just written to iZotope, not dizzy with anticipation at the response. It just beggars belief that they collectively thought removing all the controls was the way forward, and it does actively encourage cynicism that they are moving towards some kind of one click nirvana where it makes all the decisions for you. I don't mind them doing that at all, so long as they don't strip away the core functionality for those who want to use the tools manually.

[Guy Rowland]

I did forget to mention that I got a reply, which did confirm there's no way to change the shelf slope on an HPF or LPF without entering the value into the keyboard (having first made multiple mouse clicks to reveal the hidden controls). Sheesh. Apparently the thinking was to make it feel like Nectar which "everyone loves". Hmmm. As it is, I've removed the whole damn thing from the plugin list, Neutron 2 still works just fine.

Speaking of which I've had a bit of time today to go through some of the rest of the Music Production Bundle including Nectar 3. I tried its whizzy auto everything on unmasking vocals - I put one instance on the vocal bus and another on the music to see what it did. The answer - absolutely nothing. It proudly told me it was unmasking with a glowing orange font to prove it, but the EQ had nothing but the default extremely low HPF and compressor wasn't working at all. So don't know what that's about and can't be bothered to spend any more time finding out. The other modules are mostly more variations of familiar tools, but the happy exception is the Harmony module. That's the best and most flexible doubling (and more) I've heard, very realistic with humanisation controls (when not in intervals) and dead easy to use. That module might well be a go to.

I spent more time with Vocal Synth 2, and that's really very good now I think. Each of the 5 modules has a lot of control, each with a useful set of presets that of course you can combine for uber presets. Wide variety of effects you can get out of it without needing to plumb in a midi track (though you can do that), as it has an auto-pitch tracking mode. Half the time it sounds like Kanye which is a sound I personally detest, but occasionally it just has to be done for something in that style. And it can do a lot more besides thank goodness. Intelligibility is improved as I mentioned before, though it could still be better in places. Overall this is definitely a nice to have.

Melodyne never made much sense to me in the demo I did of it, and it still doesn't in this simple Essentials form. VariAudio 2 in Cubase I much prefer and its massively quicker in use and fully integrated. Still, with ARA2 on the horizon, I guess its another option and hopefully Pro Tools will support ARA too one day (ha ha), in which case I'll start paying it a lot more attention.

[lofi]

...”everyone loves”...
Part of the dumbing down that all professions are faced with.
Hey let’s spend some time actually learning what these hieroglyphs means and how they affect your sound, your product, your artistic output.
Geez,
/A

[Lawrence]

No product is quite dumb enough for me. Unlike many musicians I know, I am clearly not a scientist. I want to make good sounding music easily. My perennial search for the Magic Button has been fruitful at times, less so at other times.

An example of a product I LOVE is Clariphonic, which even on sale was a bit pricey for me (for a plugin.) It has a few controls and you can overdo it if you're not careful, but MAN. I don't need to understand the process, it just tends to make everything clearer. It's like lifting a cloud off your mix or your single track.

In the end, I'd like every product to do one thing really well, and have one control-"amount."