Baron Greuner
Senior Member
Yes, you can use it on anything.
IZotope Neutron
- Thread starter lpuser
- Start date
Yes, you can use it on anything.
jcrosby
Senior Member
Even though masking is a big part of what makes an orchestra sounds so cohesive, I find that some sample libraries produce a fair amount of frequnecy buildup in the low mids... It becomes especially noticeable once you start adding big percussion ensembles.
To my ears the imprint of room is more pronounced when you sum the sections of sample libraries together. (Some less so than others...) Probably because the orchestra isn't actually playing in unison... Basically when the orchestra is playing in tandem everyone masking the ringing of the room, with sample libraries there seems to be cumulative buildup from baked in reverb... (If it's a library with a lot of natural ambience...)
Also if you mix and match libraries than I would say for sure, masking is something you should be thinking about... Unless they were recorded in the same space there's bound to be some traffic... Just be subtle and sensible...
You might want to watch this if you haven't yet:
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jcrosby
Senior Member
To add to that, they included some orchestral presets... It's very much intended to be used on anything...
Soundhound
Senior Member
Anyone tried using Neutron on the master buss? I was thinking of two applications. 1) As a sort of auto-Ozone, getting a starting point by having it listen to the whole track. And 2) using Track Assistant for a single track listening to the whole mix (minus that track) to suggest tweaks for that single track.
What thinkest thou?
What thinkest thou?
jcrosby
Senior Member
You can use it on the master buss, but none of the Track Assistant algorithms were designed to be applied to a mix. (Did some beta testing... this was one of those things people asked about a lot...) You'd want to set it by hand...
Also the compression in Track Assistant is pretty heavy handed for a master buss and the limiter really isn't up to the task... (I did a lot of AB-ing with Pro-L and Ozone 7), Neutron's limiter isn't very subtle. When you're pushing the levels you do in mastering it produces audible distortion, and it's not transparent enough for anything orchestral...) Ozone 7 would be a much better choice...
Naoki Ohmori
Member
Thanks for the info. I wanted to know if one of the limiter types of Neutron is the same algorithm as that of Ozone.
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Soundhound
Senior Member
Thanks. So far the track assistant and masking functions look really promising, and that's quite a lot for the $. I wonder if they could apply these kind of algorithms/whatever the hell it is to a product that would let you compare indiv tracks to the mix as a whole? Or would that not be something most people would be interested in?
jcrosby
Senior Member
Sort of... IRC LL is the Low latency version of IRC I. It's low latency, and although it should sound the same, I find it distorts a lot quicker. (To me it's like how an L1 sounds compared to an L2 if that makes sesne?)
And to be clear, as a tester you know basically nothing about technical details like this.. you just get the software, hunt for problems and offer ways to make it better...
IRC II should be the same but I don't know if they've changed anything... I do notice it runs more efficiently than in Ozone, so I'm guessing they did something like reduce oversampling, or something... So I don't know if it's identical, but to me the limiters in Neutron don't quite stand up to Ozone when you start pushing the levels you do when mastering.
As someone who does a fair amount of mastering outside of composing my philosophy is unless your machine is physically limited to where it can't run the software, don't make concessions, EVER. A limiter takes no time to set and its your final decision maker... Don't skimp on the easiest to set and most important part of your final chain...
jcrosby
Senior Member
As I mentioned above I have no idea where they plan on Taking Neutron... So far the masking meter is the closest thing I've seen to this. Lets hope they have a longer term vision where they're already thinking about stuff like this!
Naoki Ohmori
Member
Thanks for your explanations.
I see. You're not one of the developers but a tester. I expected it to some extent because no one would buy Ozone if Neutron's limiter was as good as Ozone's.
Neutron is made mainly for a mixing tool and I will use it for the purpose.
Btw, what do you think about the Neutron's parallel EQ(EQ Mix)?
I found it interesting and sounds less artificial especially when employing a high shelf; gives subtle tweaks but I'm not a seasoned engineer. I just wanted to ask about it.
Baron Greuner
Senior Member
I wouldn't worry about limiters with regard to Neutron personally. A limiter is more of a mastering tool and they can get a bit specialist for a lot of people.
Baron Greuner
Senior Member
Wrong thread. Carry on.
jcrosby
Senior Member
I expected it to some extent because no one would buy Ozone if Neutron's limiter was as good as Ozone's.
Neutron is made mainly for a mixing tool and I will use it for the purpose.
Btw, what do you think about the Neutron's parallel EQ(EQ Mix)?
I found it interesting and sounds less artificial especially when employing a high shelf; gives subtle tweaks but I'm not a seasoned engineer. I just wanted to ask about it.
Yeah Neutron is intended to be a mix tool. They were pretty clear bout that in the webinar they last week... (if you haven't seen it yet it's here: )
You could certainly use it in mastering though, I don't think they designed it without considering that some people will inevitably try to fit it in... The dynamic EQ for example I like quite a lot. I've used it on the master buss and it does a nice job of smoothing out areas where there might be a little congestion... (Ozone'd dynamic EQ does have significantly more control though. I tend to use that unless my machine is running low on resources, as it's pretty CPU heavy as dynamic EQs go...)
if you do, approach it as tool to sweeten things a little before you go into your main effects chain and use something like Ozone, Fab Filter, UAD etc to do the heavy lifting... I'd suggest trying it first in the chain and leaving a few dB headroom going into and coming out of it... basically leave your best tools ample headroom... (As redundant as that sounds I know many develop who develop bad headroom practices early on, and like any habit it can be a hard one to break.)
Anyway, I've tried the mix slider on the EQ a bit. It's nice. I think they designed it that way so you can go back and fine tune how things fit together as the mix starts getting more dense. Definitely useful... And if you find the default analogue shelf kind of artificial try the Baxandall shelf. It's much smoother and a common EQ type used in mastering...
jcrosby
Senior Member
Huh, haven't noticed this but will definitely check it out. If there is an issue that's a huge bug they need to fix...
jcrosby
Senior Member
Hey Ceemusic,
I did some looking into this... I checked in Logic using the wave editor. I took a few drum stems and checked them for DC offset. (a few of them actually had tiny amounts acoording to Logic, like .001-.03%.) I removed DC in Logic before bouncing in place, then rendered Neutron on each stem.
(I also tried each of the three track assistant profiles and each of the three intensity amounts.)
I found this:
In some files there was no additional DC offset, some there were tiny extra amounts (.001-.03-ish), and some had less DC offset.
So I think Logic's wave editor isn't calculating DC Offset correctly and Neutron is actually causing any DC Offset. (Many wave editors miscalculate DC offset according to the thread below.)
Check this thread on Gearslutz. The guy who wrote most of the Izotope algorithms breaks down miscalculations. (Not sure if we're allowed to post other forum links?? https://www.gearslutz.com/board/mas...not-remove-dc-offset.html?highlight=dc+offset ) Look for any replies by Alexey Lukin in that thread. He's the guy you really want to listen to in terms of calculating it...
Anyway... I haven't noticed it, I would imagine Izotope would have caught it as well, they're not known for making shoddy software that would induce DC, if anything they have amazing tools to fix this kind of stuff... It's something that typically wouldn't slip by them...
Are you seeing the waveform sit above the 0 crossing line or is your wave editor saying there's offset? If it's your wave editor zoom in see if it's consistently above the zero line, or on average sits on the it. If it looks centered than it's most likely a miscalculation...
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ceemusic
Senior Member
I first noticed the DC values in Studio One on my source mixes. I use Cubase for mixing down tracks to stems. Since then I use Stats in Cubase to check DC & use the dedicated preset to remove it from the stem.
As I said it could be other plugins I but only started noticing DC after I started using Neutron in the projects I've been working on for a few months. It's not a major issue just curious if anyone else was having similar results.
As I said it could be other plugins I but only started noticing DC after I started using Neutron in the projects I've been working on for a few months. It's not a major issue just curious if anyone else was having similar results.
jcrosby
Senior Member
The timing does seem suspicious, but no one reported this during testing. Someone would have caught it, and I can't imagine that getting by them as they make some of the best tools available to fix things like DC Offset... Seems like something else is probably the the culprit..
I have found DC issues in sample libraries though, maybe check there fist. Synths are totally capable of generating it as well... Could try saving a preset with the same settings you used and rendering it to a sample or instrument that you know doesn't have any?
I'd be interested to see if you find it...
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jcrosby
Senior Member
Without getting too complicated it's basically ultra low noise near 0 hz. You can spot if if your waveform looks like it's sitting above or below the center line in an audio file... It's inaudible but causes all kinds of issues, the most annoying being that it steals headroom from your mix... It's basically an audio engineers nemesis
The top waveform in this image has DC Offset
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