Try Neutron 3 Advanced for FREE: bit.ly/neutron3advanced-onesto I have a question for all you beginners out there. What other plugins do you find difficult or confusing to use? I'd love to find any great tips on it and share them with you!
@@zvlemusic nectar 3 is so good!! Haha, love that plugin. I definitely plan on making a video on that especially since they updated it to Nectar 3 Plus. Still not sure what makes it "Plus" I have my December and January content calendar booked but maybe I'm Feb. I feel like their auto tune is so underrated, and I love how easy it is to tame nasty resonances with their Dynamic EQ that follows Freq rather than volume. Now I'm excited to talk about Nectar haha
Thanks for this, I’ve been trying to learn to mix my own songs/vocals. Lately it feels so defeating. I admire how honest the video is, your humbleness and even admitting that sometimes some modifications don’t really affect anything. While I’ve heard it before, I love the reminder that mixing is a bunch of little changes to create something wonderful. I believe that’s the most difficult part, hearing those small changes takes a special kind of ear. Thank you 🙏🏼
Thanks so much for sharing this. The learning curve is steep, it’s hard not to get discouraged from time to time. My only encouragement to you is to be patient with yourself. If you keep practicing, you’ll slowly start to see that you are developing that ear. Another thing is that, it’s ok to just focus on mastering one small skill at a time. I hope you can have a lot of fun making music next year!
This was really helpful! I recently bought Neutron 3 and Ozone 9 standard and I've been able to improve my mixes a lot, but I haven't had the time and patience to learn how to use all of its functions. This was just the right amount of info to fill things out for me a bit in my understanding, and now I can work towards leveling up. Thanks!
Hooray! I'm so happy to hear. It's such a great way to approach mixing. The tricky part is building the habit of adopting it into your workflow. Good luck!
I have Neutron and have never used it because I didn't know much about it. Thank you for taking the time to make this video. Very cool! Have a great day!
I was exactly in your shoes before I made this video. Mostly because Neutron is a pretty big and in depth plugin. Thanks so much for watching and for the support. It makes my day that this video could help you out!
@@ThisIsOnesto Indeed. I'm old school as I originally started with ADATs and outboard gear in the late 90's and switched to a DAW in the early 2000's. I have a quite a plugin collection, and purchased a pack of Izotope plugins from them around November of last year or so. Neutron and Nectar have been hanging out not doing anything, and when I saw your video, I thought, "Whoa, I really need to learn them so that I can put them to good use." Thanks again for your time!
@@lilhoss1 woah outboard gear! That's amazing. Well, hope you start to really love the iZotope stuff. Nectar is pretty great too. iZotope is one of my fav plugin makers, so I'll be sharing a lot more content about their plugins this year!
Didn't know about this from Izotope until this video.... and major credit to you for an excellent walk through! This is next on my list to get. Cheers mate! Subscribed!
Yes! Neutron 3 is one of those misunderstood plugins. But once you adopt it as part of your workflow, it's great. If you end up getting it, please wait for a sale. iZotope offers huge sales all the time on their products. And thanks for the sub!!
I think you're right. There's a lot of overlap with Ozone, and I was confused about it at first. After using both products, I found that Ozone has tools and features specialized for Mastering. And Neutron has tools and features specialized for mixing and processing audio. I guess they could combine the two, but I'm glad they have two separate plugins. It helps me focus and stay on track with my workflow.
Thanks for watching and sharing that feedback. I've been doing a lot of music production basics videos, but I think I'm gonna just focus on plugin videos. I seem to get the best feedback on those
@@ThisIsOnesto I would like to send you my mix and listen to it. I just had fab filter but didn't know how to exactly use the limiter. and your tutorial really helped me. How quick can I send it to you? may be you can guide more. Thanks bigggg
@@newmanh thanks for offering to send me your mix. I'm currently not accepting any mixes to listen to. Things have been really busy for me right now and I unfortunately have to say no to opportunities like this right now.
I have a question since I’m new to using Neuron! I’m trying on tracks that already have compressor/eq on their set up, but with the effects in Neuron I should just turn those off right so not to overdo it?? Thanks!
It's great that you're new to Neutron! If a track already has compressor/eq then I typically turn off Neutron's eq/comp. Sometimes I'll listen to see if what neutron puts on sounds better or worse. Especially with EQ, maybe what neutron adjusted sounds better, maybe not. but don't be afraid to bypass or even ignore some of what Neutron can do.
Hey! Thanks for sharing that with me, ugh, it's so good to hear that these tutorials are easy to follow. So happy you subbed, and I hope you can comment again on any other videos that stand out to you!
Mohow, thanks for saying that. You have no idea how much I treasure these kinds of comments. I even keep them in a folder on my desktop called "amazingcomments". I put tons of time and love into these videos. I just want everyone to leave each one feeling confident and inspired to get back to making music. I hope you stick around, and that you keep finding my content valuable. Thanks for subbing too, you're the best!
Thanks. So you just use Neutron 3 on selected tracks that may need improvement? I don't think I have enough processing power to have it on every track. I can see placing one or more of the Neutron elements on some of the tracks then use Ozone 9 for the Master. I have i7-6 cores-Neutron 3 and Ozone 9, both advanced. I normally have large orchestral arrangements, not a lot of popular music right now.
Hey, thanks for watching! That's pretty much how I like to use Neutron 3. Having it on every single track will be too much for pretty much any CPU, especially on MIDI tracks. I like to put to Neutron on instrument groups, or an instrument that I feel like I need the extra help on. In your case with the orchestral arrangements I would try placing Neutron on any of your solo instruments, and then placing Neutron on sections like the strings section, or woodwinds, things like that. I believe there's an orchestra specific setting on the Mix Assistant. Since you're using large orchestral arrangements, you may benefit a lot from the Visual Mixer. It'll help position your tracks around the stereo field to reflect more of an orchestra. Thanks again for the support!
You're welcome Rahesh. I think it's very easy to wonder what Neutron 3 is really for. Honestly, I wasn't too sure until after a lot of practice and research. It turns out that it's a pretty great plugin.
Incredible video Onesto. Your Reddit Post brought me here. One slight correction though, GAIN isn't the same as VOLUME. Gain stands for the INPUT volume at which your incoming signal was recorded, whereas volume stands for the OUTPUT levels. So you can have an instrument record at less gain but still play back at loud volumes. By extension, gain-staging is the process of bringing the 'gain' down on every instrument strip of your session to under -18dB or thereabouts so that your master bus has a head room of 8dB. Volume adjustments follow gain-staging and that process is usually called 'balancing'. However this was an incredibly concise tutorial. Thank You.
Hey Anand! Glad you appreciated the video, and thanks for that correction. I never really knew the proper definition of those terms. I feel like I hear them used interchangeably a whole lot, but your explanation is really simple to follow and now I know what the difference is. Thanks! Also I checked out your Incubus cover on your channel, and it was great! There was a time in my life when I was all about Incubus haha.
@@ThisIsOnesto Oh wow haha! Yeah that was a long time ago. Much before I took up music professionally. Now I compose and sing for commercial projects in my country. Do check out my band at www.bit.ly/ABCYT if you can spare some time. 😇
As someone who has been home recording for about 4 months, and having seen a couple of videos about Neutron 3, I get the feeling it would be a great way to learn about EQ, compression, frequencies, etc backwards., i.e. let the assistant do the initial work and then see and hear the differences and what does what. Cool video and easy to understand for noobs like myself. Cheers.
Yes! This is such a good perspective to have when using Neutron 3. If you see the assistants as a learning AND music production tool you'll be getting the best of both worlds. And I'm thrilled to hear that this video was easy to understand. That's a big goal of mine. Thanks for watching!
Mohit, honored to have you as my 601st. Glad you like the content. There's a lot of fun videos I have planned this year, so it should only be getting better haha
Oh great! Glad it was able to help you out. Neutron 3 is definitely easy to overprocess or just make your sound bad. I hope if you give it a second chance you start to love it. I'm crazy about it if you couldn't tell.
@@ThisIsOnesto quick question. If you use the mix assistant to balance the tracks in your mix using Relay do you meed to use the visual mixer after that or is it redundant?
@@jamaalnyc I would still take a look at the visual mixer. The mix assistant, as far as I know, adjusts the levels of your tracks, but doesn't deal with stereo imaging. So bring up the visual mixer and you can place your sounds across the stereo field however you want.
@@ThisIsOnesto gotcha. Do up and down movements in the visual mixer change your original mix assistant levels? Also when you use a preset after mix assistant in neutron or ozone for that is it additive to the computer learning mix that mix assistant provided or do presets overwrite what mix assistant did entirely?
@@jamaalnyc the cool thing with those iZotope plugins is that they are connected. So if you adjust the volume or panning in visual mixer, the adjustment will be made in Relay too.
Thank you so much for the great content! I’ve been trying to find a way to better the quality of my music and this is a huge help as I’ve had neutron, nectar, and izotope ozone 9 but never really knew their capabilities. Great content as well, I really loved the informative cards on the screen and the transitions!
You're very welcome, I was in the same boat as you. The biggest challenge for me was finding how to integrate iZotope's plugins into my workflow because they are sort of their own ecosystem. Glad you liked my info cards too! I really try to make these videos as helpful as possible
when you use something like say.. you made an adjustment with the masking... how can you simply just revert back to what it was if you dont like what you did? Another example would be, if I use a vocal pre-set, how to I undue what I did because seems like once you choose a vocal preset (AKA smashed vocal preset) I dont know how to get it back to when i didnt have one. THANKS!!! This is great tutorial!
Shane! It makes me so happy that you got a lot out of this tutorial. And you asked a great question, and fortunately Neutron has a great solution. Go in the plugin and in the top right corner there is lke a clock with an arrow circling around this. This is the history menu. Open that and you'll see the history of all the moves you made in Neutron. So you're able to click around and get around settings that way. However, what will work best for your scenario is using the Set buttons at the bottom of the history window. The way this works is simple. Once you reach a point or choose a pre-set just click the word set above one of the letters. Now scroll through whatever presets or make any other changes you want and then click another Set above a different letter. Now you can click either letter to jump back between both settings to compare whenever you want. And as you can see you can save up to 4 sets. This is great for comparing different presets or settings that you dialed in. It's super easy and one of those "hidden" features that can save you a lot of time and headaches. Great question once again. Hope you can hang out with me again!
@@ThisIsOnesto Hey one other thing. Do you have a sort of set way for what you do first -> last? AKA: these 3-4 things in this order in neutron then these 3-7 things in ozone? It seems like some things should come before others but I have no idea what that would be. We are so fortunate to have people like you to bounce off of and I really appreciate you THANKS!
@@papacatastrophe good question! This is generally what I do. If I'm feeling rushed and need something quick I'll use the mix Assistant. If I have more time then this is generally my Neutron module chain, Sculptor>subtractive EQ,>compression>transient shaper if needed>additive EQ
Thanks for watching and so happy you learned a lot! In this video I'm using Bitwig Studio 4. It's a lot like Ableton. I really like Bitwig it's tons of fun to work with
So you instantiate neutron on each track? And then relay at the end of the chain on each track? And visual mixer on the master? Lastly do you use ozone, neutron or both for the master track also?
Those are great questions! Here's what I typically do: Usually I place Neutron on tracks or groups that I want Neutron to analyze and do mix-assistant on. If it's a track that's not very essential or isn't going to be tough to get right I don't bother with Neutron. I do place relay on most tracks, however if I have a layered sound, I'll place relay on the group rather than each specific layer. Pretty much, if I think I'm going to want Visual Mixer to analyze it, relay goes on that instrument track. And visual mixer does go on the Master. I like to place it at the beginning of my master so none of my mastering plugins affects what Visual Mixer is analyzing. On the master track I typically use Ozone and a few other third party plugins. Hope this all helps!
Good video.....but on a 32 inch screen of mine, a lot of areas were somewhat blurred. I have a number of Izotope's, along with this one, but also have the $500 Ozone 9 Advanced, which I always use as my first insert on each song in mastering, on the Studio One Pro Project Page. I understand Izotope's marking philosophy, but what I now find having a bunch of their products, is that there is a lot of overlap and redundancy in Modules within each of the more similar plugins, like these two, for instance, Neutron and Ozone 9. Also WHERE do you put your Neutron? Thanks.
You're right that the video quality is a little low. This was filmed before I learned how to film my screen at a higher resolution. If it helps, you can check out my Neutron 4 video, it's shorter and the details are a bit sharper: th-cam.com/video/jtLWS8bNptE/w-d-xo.html The way you're using Ozone 9 is pretty much how I use it on my master bus. If I want to try something different, I'll use Ozone 9 modules mixes with other mastering plugins that I want to try out. I get what you're saying about Ozone products having some overlap between each other. They kind of do. Sure there might be some small difference between an EQ or Compressor between Ozone and Neutron, but sometimes I think they "overlap" enough. What is most valuable though about the separate plugins are the AI Analysis along with those unique modules. They really are solid. Oh and that last question. I typically start using Neutron when things are ready to mix. So usually tracks are bounced. Then I'll place Neutron on Instrument Groups or Tracks that are most important or the ones that I know are gonna be tricky to mix. Sometimes it's the only plugin I'll place on the track, as long as it's before any spatial effects. I don't place Neutron on everything because it's too much for my computer and for my own brain. Thanks for watching, hope this helps!
@@ThisIsOnesto Thanks for your explanations. I have Studio One Pro 5, and have had alot of problems with it, in regard to its "stability". Freezing up, crashing, etc, and their TS Dept has been pretty much worthless. They also play the BLAME GAME. They've blamed every other Vendor I use, told me to re-install Windows, my Malwarebytes virus s/w, try another audio device----like I keep "Extras" of those laying around at $400 a pop!----haha, and even said I should remove Sound IFD Ref, for which I didnt even have that on any of my 6 mastering tracks! I am also having problems with WAVES, and am weaning myself away from them....it's their WaveShell v13 stuff. I use alot of Plugin Alliance stuff, also Hornet and Izotope of course! LOVE the Brainworx stuff.
Thank you for that video.great work. Unfortunately I cant open two windows in ableton live as one of the windows disapears as i open another. do you know how to fix this?many thanks onesto
Thanks for watching, and I'm really happy that this video was useful. I'm unfortunately not an Ableton user, so I'm not sure how to help solve your problem. I would try uninstalling and reinstalling the plugin. And if that doesn't work contact support. Wish I could help some more!
Wow! a very under rated channel you have! I am pretty sure you will have more subscribers with time no doubt about that. I sincerely love your style and the content. If I had a request that would be (I am a newbie and not ashamed of it): how far you would go with Ableton before switching to Neutron. Would you keep your Ableton EQ, sidechain, effects, sounds level, automation?
Hey! Thanks so much for you support, it really means a lot. To answer your question, I would start using Neutron once you're ready to start mixing your track. So after you're done with the majority of writing, then start using Neutron. Neutron is gonna help shape the tone of your sounds, clean up frequencies, address masking, help things fit together. For me, that usually means placing Neutron before any time-based effects like reverb and delay. A lot also depends on how many modules you are gonna use. For example, Neutron can be act as your EQs, compressor, sidechain compression, and saturation. The tricky thing is that every element in your track will need different combination of things. So my advice to you, especially as a beginner is to try hard and fail hard. You'll discover that you either go too far with plugins, or not far enough. So try a bunch of things out, and learn about your own habits and the plugins. You'll discover what works for you, and that may or may not end up being with Neutron. For me, I use Neutron's Visual Mixer and tonal balance a lot. And I really like to use the mix assistant on instrument groups, and sculptor sometimes on individual tracks. That's where I ended up so far, but who knows I may start using it more or less again. You'll figure out your own workflow, it'll be completely unique to you. In the long run you'll get better and better. So what you do today, you may find totally wrong a year from now, and that's completely ok. Hope that offers you some help and encouragement!
I got standard at the deal price and its a great tool to have but was a little disappointed it didn't have Mix assist and although it gives Track assist - it doesn't do anything past saying to 'play' for it to listen (it never listens). Don't know if that is meant only for advanced version but why show it if it doesn't 'listen' to your track'?
Hey glad you got standard, it's a pretty sweet plugin. I just checked the Neutron 3 page and it looks like Standard should be able to offer Track Enhance/Track Assistant. Perhaps something is being missed when you run the track assist?
Maybe i dont just know how but when i make assistant with izotop product and after i wanna add a preset i always have to open another slot plug in for. I mean I cant just add a preset on the job they did right on the same place cuz they remove the job assistant
Hmmmm, I wonder if your issue is based on the version of Neutron that you have. I have neutron advanced. And after I do the mix assistant, and let's say I want to replace the compressor with a preset, I can open the preset list by clicking it in the compressor module to change it.
@@ThisIsOnesto i dont know actualy for neutron i dont have situation where i add a preset on it juste use that one for couple specefic things but exemple you use nectar 3. After making the vocal assistant they give me a nice job but they have some cool preset on it to but if i use one that remove the job they did with the vocal assistant i have to open another slot to add another nectar 3 for adding preset ! Sorry my english not perfect mate hehe
Hi great video, but how to work your mix after utilizing Neutron? Do i leave the plugin on the channel strip or should i bounce each strip that has neutron so they are rendered ? Then I’d mix with these “Neutron’d” bounces and mute the unbounced neutron tracks? Or do u just add the other plugins and never “move on” from Neutron?
That's a great question, and something that I couldn't find a clear answer on as well. Here's what I typically do. If I use Neutron to help process and clean up my sounds, I bounce those tracks before my deep dive into mixing. So sort of what you mentioned in the first half of your comment. The reason why I don't do what you mentioned in the last half of your comment is because it starts to become too many plugins on each channel for me to keep track of and for my machine to handle. After I bounce or freeze my tracks with Neutron on them, that's when I start using relay and Visual Mixer to help with my levels and stereo field. And when it comes to Neutron at this stage, I'll look into anything that's masking one another or do further processing if needed. Hope that helps!
@@ThisIsOnesto Thanks for the reply. Your channel is great! I have this exact same work flow issue with Melodyn'd vocals! And I have a ton of favorite plugins that I am used to mixing with. I'm afraid I'll have regrets once I BIP them after Neutron, but maybe I wouldn't. Best feature so far for me is the mix assistant, and it's too bad you can't really compartmentalize what gets bounced into each track...they're interrelated via Neutron's mix going forward. Sometimes compressors ruin a vocal by sounding fake, for instance, then it gets baked in. Do you ever find yourself going back to a prior mix to grab an element again pre Neutron 3, because it got "ruined' ?
@@Mister_Listener I have the same kind of commitment issues as you, haha! I know what you mean. It's scary to bounce in place sometimes. So I either make sure I make copies of a project or I duplicate a track and then disable the duplicate it so it has no impact on the CPU and then bounce the original track.
Ok, thanks. I have the Elements, and I'm wondering if I upgrade to Standard, there is a nice offer right now (Advanced is way too expensive for me...) I'm just afraid that apparently, Neutron Standard and Advanced are really much more CPU heavy than Elements, and my old MacBook may not assume... :)
@@-zoave- you're right on. I think upgrading from elements to standard during a sale is one of the best ways to buy standard. It'll also give you a better idea if Advanced is right for you. When it comes to CPU usage, standard is heavier than elements. I do find that the Sculptor module is what creates that big CPU spike. So I find that as long as i don't have Sculptors throughout my project Neutron doesn't slow it down much. For that reason I like to keep sculptor on instrument groups or on really important elements in my track.
Dude!? Im not complaining too bad cos I got a great deal on a bundle but my Neutron 3 just had 4 modules! I didnt know Inwasnt getting the full blown version. Not that I can complain too much. Did come with EQ, Compressor, Transient Shaper and Exciter
Ohhhhh, I think you may have gotten Neutron 3 Elements?? Not gonna lie, iZotope used to make the Neutron versions really confusing. Now I believe there's just one version of Neutron 4. I guess the good news for you is that now that you have Neutron 3, you'll get access to a ton of iZotope deals. I feel like they have a sale every month
Hey Onesto. Love the video. Can’t seem to find an answer to this anywhere: When mixing with Neutron and using it on midi tracks, add neutron to midi tracks or bounce them to audio stems first? Any thoughts?
Great question, and thanks for asking. I used to wonder this a lot when starting off with Neutron. A lot depends on your workflow and how much you plan on using Neutron. I recommend bouncing when doing a deep dive with Neutron. If you plan on placing Neutron on a bunch of tracks, especially when using Sculptor, I like to bounce my tracks so I have plenty of CPU. I find Neutron to be light on CPU, but when you multiply it across your session it definitely adds up. But if I'm using individual Neutron modules (available in Neutron Advanced), or if I have a small project, or plan on placing Neutron only on busses, then go ahead and place Neutron directly on MIDI tracks. Regardless, find ways to use Neutron. I still think the tricky part about this plugin is discovering how you are going to adopt it into your workflow. You might find yourself using it a lot or sparingly. There's no pressure either way. It's a really good plugin, but developing your own special sauce-workflow is what really counts.
Hello! It's me again! Since you insist to answer questions (lololol), I NEED to know some things... In What kind of track do we apply neutron? Is it a bus track or rec track? Is it necessary neutron applied on all the other tracks we want to unmask, or neutron does all the job automatically? My English is rusty... If you didn't understand what I meant, please let me know
Of course I'll answer questions whenever I can! These questions are very common, in fact I asked myself these questions too which is why I made this video. Here's some answers. You can apply neutron to bus or individual tracks. It's completely up to you. The way I decide usually is when I ask myself, "does this sound need a lot of work?" If the answer is yes, then I reach for Neutron. When it comes to unmasking, you have to make sure that neutron is on the tracks you want to unmask. So if you have a guitar and synth that are clashing, place neutron on both tracks. iZotope makes another product called Nectar that is focused on vocals and there's also an unmasking feature that is more automatic. So that may be something you're more interested in.
Hello, Chris! Dude, I'm trying to use unmasking and mix assistant... Results are terrible. I'm putting relay on all tracks, and neutron on master (final output). To unmask I'm putting neutron eq on the track I want to enhance.... Shitty (pardon the curse) results. May you point out my faults? Oh, since I posted this comment, what do you think of making an in depth video of those issues?
@@joaopunk1289 before you read my explanation, I'd try watching this video first: th-cam.com/video/RF6m0d5DhKI/w-d-xo.html Skip to the part where I talk about using unmasking and mix assistant. Mix assistant does not address unmasking by the way. So looking at what you're describing, putting relay on all tracks is good. Placing Neutron on Master is ok too. Where it might be messing up is when you start using Neutron EQ. I would place the EQ on the two instruments that are clashing, let's say it's a Guitar and Keys. If you want the guitar to stand out, go to the guitar eq and then click masking and then select the Neutron EQ for the Keys. There you'll see where any masking might be taking place. Once you find a problem area, try clicking inverse link at the bottom of the track and and try boosting the guitar frequencies and the keys frequencies will drop in that same location. Mess around with that, and even try clicking the advanced panel at the EQ node to try to make the nodes dynamic (I think you can do that at least...) If you're still not into the results, I recommend checking out Trackspacer from Wavesfactory. That's a great tool for eliminating masking and it's super easy to use. Hope this helps!
Love the video . So informative. Learn heaps after just buying the bundle on Black Friday sales. What would be important however to emphasize that Mix assistant only comes with Advanced and up versions of N3. Izotopes own videos don't even mention this ... It's a little bit deceiving from their end IMO.
Yes, I completely forgot to mention that big detail. I really should have made that clear. Hopefully the information in this video was still helpful. Thanks again for watching!
What's the difference between the Neutron 3 and Neutron 3 elements? I have the Neutron 3 Elements but it looks different from yourse and possibly does not have some features that your Neutron has.
That's a great question. There's many difference between Neutron 3 Elements, Neutron 3, and Neutron 3 Advanced. If you want to learn more about the differences you can find them here (scroll down and you'll see a chart): www.izotope.com/en/products/neutron/features.html If you're interested in upgrading, my advice is to wait for a sale (iZotope has them all the time), and since you have Neutron 3 Elements you should get an even bigger sale.
Good question. Nectar 3 is designed to address vocals. Sure you can place it on leads , guitars, or other instruments, but it's meant for vocals. I'm gonna be dropping a video on Nectar in the next couple of weeks so keep an eye out for that. Neutron 3 is a channel strip that's focused on mixing purposes. You'll notice that a lot of the modules are things that your DAW already has like compressor, saturation, EQ, etc. I believe that the Sculptor is the only unique module there. However, the big deal with Neutron 3 is the way it assists the producer with mixing decisions. Best seen with the mixing assistant. The presets are cool too to check out. Another big deal is how Neutron 3 is able to work and communicate with other instances of Neutron 3, Nectar 3, or Ozone 8, Tonal Control, and Visual Mixer. I think this is where the magic really happens. When they work together they can start to target masking issues, and help with where your instruments sit in the stereo field.
Question, If i have Relay and Neutron in a track do i select both on mix assistant or only the neutron 3 and its not necesarry to put relay if I already have Neutron 3 on that track?
That's a great question. Are you referring to Visual Mixer? If you have Relay and Neutron on a track I would have Visual Mixer choose Relay. That's usually because Relay is the last plugin on my tracks, so any changes in stereo imaging is good to have at the end of your processing signal. And with your second question, you don't "need" to put Relay on a track with Neutron. But I tend to use Relay for volume automation in addition to stereo imaging, so I have Relay all around my track.
@@ThisIsOnesto Thank you so much! One final question, do you use neutron 3 plugin track enhancer on the master bus? is it irrelevant to use if you have ozone?
@@melomanicrecords no problem! And I don't use the track enhancer on the master bus. I think track enhancer can be great for track groups, but leave Ozone to take care of the master bus.
I am new to working with DAW, so everything is a bit confusing at times, so this could be a weird question.🤔 I've watched quite a few tutorials on Neutron 3. And (ozone 9). What i notice is, (here in this case 4 bar loop) that all 4 tracks start from bar 1. that's the case with every tutorial I've seen. is this the way to work with Neutron 3, that all track must be from bar 1, or is this coincidental that I just watched the tutorials that explain this in this way So if I want to use mix assistant not all my tracks start on bar 1, some instruments start on bar 5 for example .. etc ... thx 4 the vid. (google tranl. i am dutch)
Google Translate: Hey Patrick! Welkom in de wereld van DAW's en muziekproductie. Het is volkomen normaal dat alles soms verwarrend is. Wanneer u voor het eerst begint, kan het extra lang duren om eenvoudige processen te begrijpen en uit te voeren, maar blijf proberen, u zult het onder de knie krijgen. Als het gaat om uw vraag over beginnen bij maat 1, is dat toevallig. Als je de mix-assistent gebruikt, en ik denk dat de meeste plug-ins, kun je de track starten waar je maar wilt, zodat je plug-ins hun verwerking kunnen uitvoeren. English: Hey Patrick! Welcome to the world of DAWs and music production. It is totally normal that everything is confusing at times. When first starting off it might take extra long to understand and do simple processes, but keep trying you'll get the hang of it. When it comes to your question about start at bar 1, it is coincidental. When using mix assistant, and I think most plugins, you can start the track wherever you like for your plugins to do their processing.
So happy you like the video! I typically don't put neutron 3 on each track. I like to put Neutron 3 on busses or on individual tracks that I want to give extra attention to. And for the tracks that I don't want Neutron 3 on at all, I will put on Relay if I plan on having it addressed by visual mixer in the end. This is all sounding a little complicated huh...at least I think so. Neutron 3 is simple in theory and the plugin itself is easy to use, the part for me that's been a learning curve is learning how and when to apply it to different parts of my track. It's sort of its own ecosystem within your DAW, so it has taken me some time to have a game plan that includes Neutron 3
A very, very well done and interesting video. In general, it is a good idea to fade in text blocks at the top right in front of the blue background. I haven't read through all the comments now to see if this thing has already been criticized: First of all, the display of the text blocks is a bit too short for my perception. But more decisive is the fact that the moment you read the text block, you are briefly distracted by the video and your spoken comment, and that is when you lose the thread a little. Because you are not showing a chilled landscape film, but a tutorial, a "teaching video" with information in words and pictures. "Multitasking" or not, but I find your chosen combination with the many text blocks displayed a bit too stressful in the long run. This is just my personal opinion now. We all know that you can't and don't have to please everyone. 😏 Greetings from 🇩🇪
Thank you so much for the feedback. I appreciate so much that you're offering me such good constructive criticism to help me teach others in a more effective way. I'll admit, I'm still trying to find the right balance and pacing of those texts blocks. I found them really helpful for adding in more details that I may have left out or not explained well during my recording. So it's something that I want to keep. However, I do feel the tension that it can become distracting as I'm explaining something complex like music production. For now, I'm trying to limit how often I include text, along with keeping them up longer so that the viewer doesn't feel like they need to speed read everything. Thanks again for the feedback, I always value it 🫂
I agree with Michael MOS. Video is wonderful, but when i watched it on youtube in preview mode, the blue text was covered by some icons and i did not read words in the blue corner at all.
That's a great question. It's something that i wondered myself since lots and lots of people are bragging about Soothe. Full disclosure, I don't own soothe, but this is what I gathered after lots of research. The short answer is no, it's not like soothe. The longer answer is that while soothe focuses on dynamically soothing harsh resonances, Sculptor is what iZotope calls an "army of EQs and compressors" focused on giving you an ideal tone based on what iZotope believes mixing engineers want certain instruments to sound like. So sculptor is all about dynamically shaping your tone, while Soothe is about dynamically soothing harsh frequencies.
That's a great question. Of course there's tons of factors involved but here's how I'll boil it down. If I was a producer that had very few plugins and was just starting to learn the fundamentals I would look into Neutron (especially when iZotope has it on sale). If I was a producer who already owned a good number of plugins for different purposes and had a decent grasp of the fundamentals I would look into Pro Q3. Neutron 3 is a suite of tools. So it comes with an EQ, compressor, exciter, and a few other great basic tools.You can definitely get by with your DAW's stock plugins, but Neutron 3 offers the mix assistant and the ability for instances of Neutron 3 to work with each other across your session. So when used properly it offers a ton of help to beginners. Pro Q3 is the ultimate EQ plugin. I don't collect EQ plugins because of this single plugin. It contains almost every feature you could want in an EQ. The tricky thing is that it's really expensive and I have a hard time believing a beginner would know how to get their money's worth out of it. Just my thoughts and how I would approach this dilemma if I had to do it all over again.
Oh nice! I love that. Neutron has some good presets along with the mix Assistant that really helps clean up orchestral sounds. I really want to make some ozone videos soon. Hopefully you'll find those informative too!
I speak Dutch, and it is always a bit complicated to translate everything correctly, or rather: how to interpret the sentences. For instance; what is the difference between neutron elements: neutron standard and neutron advanced. in tutorials most people talk about neutron; This is also unclear to me on the website. I have the same problem with Ozone plugins . are they all AI or is it just neutron advanced and ozone advanced that can do this. i mean there are 3 different neutron's and 3 different ozone's but i can't find 3 different videos. for example what can N-elements what can N-standart etc..
This is a great question Patrick, thanks for asking. iZotope's products can get a little confusing. Let me try to help. Neutron Elements is a beginner/starter version of Neutron Standard or Advanced. Elements has little flexibility but does allow you to start to experience the benefits. If you're interested in this, wait for a sale. Neutron Standard and Advanced are very similar. The biggest difference I found is that Advanced has each Neutron module as its own plugin. For example, if you want to use Neutron's EQ but don't want to load up the whole Neutron plugin, Advanced has Neutron EQ as a separate plugin. You can also visit this page and scroll to the bottom to see the differences: www.izotope.com/en/products/neutron/features.html And here's the web page to know the difference between each version of Ozone: www.izotope.com/en/products/ozone/features.html
And one more thing, many of iZotope's plugins uses AI, but in different ways. For example the AI in Neutron helps with mixing since Neutron is a mixing plugin, and the AI in Ozone helps with mastering since it's a mastering plugin. Overall, the AI features are great for beginners so be sure to learn about them!
I know exactly what you mean about trusting the mix assistant. I usually let it do it's thing to give me a little head start, but I always go through and make sure things are especially dialed in. Thanks for watching
I had a gate on my mic because I had no idea what I was doing at the time. However, I did learn my lesson, and now there is little to no gate on my VO. Progress!
That's a good question. Neutron is not a standalone app, it's a DAW plugin. When you first open Neutron inside your DAW you should see the EQ and EQ module up at the top row. From there you can either add on other modules or click the Mix Assistant (a button with three circles at the top). Hopefully the rest of my video offers enough help to know what to do from there.
Yeah it kinda is like that. The core is pretty much the same but there's a few tools that are more specialized for vocals in Nectar and more specialized for mixing in Neutron.
Haha, it might feel like cheating but I wouldn't say it's cheating. I like how Neutron calls their AI a Mixing Assistant rather than Mixing Engineer (that should always be you, the user). It's there to assist, not dictate. I will say though that there is the temptation to only use the Mixing Assistant, resulting in not really developing or refining your mixing skills. I'm sure iZotope would agree that Neutron is there to help your decision making, not to replace your decision making.
@@ThisIsOnesto thanks for the response. After thinking about it a few days I’ve realized mixing and mastering is not as important to me as just making a great beat. Therefore I don’t think it cheating to use neutron or ozone. I want to be clear, I’m not saying mixing and mastering isn’t vital, but it’s much much easier and more efficient to use these plug ins. I’m in it to make beats not be a sound engineer, If that makes sense lol.
@@cmad2345 That's pretty much my approach to mixing and mastering. I think trying to be great at everything is unrealistic. Similar to you, I want to be great at composing and writing songs. So I'm going to focus all my time and energy to developing that skill. For the other crucial aspects of music prod (mixing, mastering, sound design, etc.) I'm more than happy to use tools and resources that will help support an area that I devoted less time to developing. So I'm definitely grateful for plugins like ozone and neutron.
Try Neutron 3 Advanced for FREE: bit.ly/neutron3advanced-onesto
I have a question for all you beginners out there. What other plugins do you find difficult or confusing to use?
I'd love to find any great tips on it and share them with you!
Nice vid onesto! Would love a video with some practical applications for using Nectar 3 :)
@@zvlemusic nectar 3 is so good!! Haha, love that plugin. I definitely plan on making a video on that especially since they updated it to Nectar 3 Plus. Still not sure what makes it "Plus"
I have my December and January content calendar booked but maybe I'm Feb.
I feel like their auto tune is so underrated, and I love how easy it is to tame nasty resonances with their Dynamic EQ that follows Freq rather than volume. Now I'm excited to talk about Nectar haha
@@ThisIsOnesto hahah, sounds good my guy will be watching
Onesto, give us videos on Ozone 9 as well pls. As well as EZ Mix by Toontrack if possible!
soundtheory gullfoss or oeksound soothe2 and also waves j37
Thanks for this, I’ve been trying to learn to mix my own songs/vocals. Lately it feels so defeating. I admire how honest the video is, your humbleness and even admitting that sometimes some modifications don’t really affect anything. While I’ve heard it before, I love the reminder that mixing is a bunch of little changes to create something wonderful. I believe that’s the most difficult part, hearing those small changes takes a special kind of ear.
Thank you 🙏🏼
Thanks so much for sharing this. The learning curve is steep, it’s hard not to get discouraged from time to time. My only encouragement to you is to be patient with yourself. If you keep practicing, you’ll slowly start to see that you are developing that ear. Another thing is that, it’s ok to just focus on mastering one small skill at a time. I hope you can have a lot of fun making music next year!
This was really helpful! I recently bought Neutron 3 and Ozone 9 standard and I've been able to improve my mixes a lot, but I haven't had the time and patience to learn how to use all of its functions. This was just the right amount of info to fill things out for me a bit in my understanding, and now I can work towards leveling up. Thanks!
Hooray! I'm so happy to hear. It's such a great way to approach mixing. The tricky part is building the habit of adopting it into your workflow. Good luck!
ixi!
I'd love to hear some of your mixes! Are they NIN inspired? ^_^
I thought that this was the purpose of ozone, what is the actual difference between the two products?
I have Neutron and have never used it because I didn't know much about it. Thank you for taking the time to make this video. Very cool! Have a great day!
I was exactly in your shoes before I made this video. Mostly because Neutron is a pretty big and in depth plugin. Thanks so much for watching and for the support. It makes my day that this video could help you out!
@@ThisIsOnesto Indeed. I'm old school as I originally started with ADATs and outboard gear in the late 90's and switched to a DAW in the early 2000's. I have a quite a plugin collection, and purchased a pack of Izotope plugins from them around November of last year or so. Neutron and Nectar have been hanging out not doing anything, and when I saw your video, I thought, "Whoa, I really need to learn them so that I can put them to good use." Thanks again for your time!
@@lilhoss1 woah outboard gear! That's amazing. Well, hope you start to really love the iZotope stuff. Nectar is pretty great too.
iZotope is one of my fav plugin makers, so I'll be sharing a lot more content about their plugins this year!
@@ThisIsOnesto very cool.
Yo this was awesome thanks for putting the time in to make this! appreciated
Oh good! Glad you found it helpful. Neutron 3 has tons of great features, and I know when I first got it, I had no idea where to start.
Didn't know about this from Izotope until this video.... and major credit to you for an excellent walk through! This is next on my list to get. Cheers mate! Subscribed!
Yes! Neutron 3 is one of those misunderstood plugins. But once you adopt it as part of your workflow, it's great. If you end up getting it, please wait for a sale. iZotope offers huge sales all the time on their products.
And thanks for the sub!!
Hey man!!! you did it pretty easy to understand!!! thank you so much!!!!
Thanks for watching and for letting me know that this video helped! It's always always good to know that these videos are doing the job.
It feels very similar to Ozone, but why they have 2 products of similar funcitonality
I think you're right. There's a lot of overlap with Ozone, and I was confused about it at first.
After using both products, I found that Ozone has tools and features specialized for Mastering. And Neutron has tools and features specialized for mixing and processing audio.
I guess they could combine the two, but I'm glad they have two separate plugins. It helps me focus and stay on track with my workflow.
@@ThisIsOnesto Ah makes sense, thank you for the explanation and sharing your expeirence!
@@pentapandamusic of course! iZotope's stuff is great, but a little confusing at the beginning. Have fun!
@@ThisIsOnesto Thank you, I bought the diamond bundle since it is not expensive, and Merry Christmas!
Buying this simply because of how awesome and intuitive it looks, really it’s how you make it look!
Nice! I think you're going to be really happy with it. It's such a good tool. Love that this video can help!
great tutorial. thanks
Thanks for watching and sharing that feedback. I've been doing a lot of music production basics videos, but I think I'm gonna just focus on plugin videos.
I seem to get the best feedback on those
@@ThisIsOnesto I would like to send you my mix and listen to it. I just had fab filter but didn't know how to exactly use the limiter. and your tutorial really helped me. How quick can I send it to you? may be you can guide more. Thanks bigggg
@@newmanh thanks for offering to send me your mix. I'm currently not accepting any mixes to listen to. Things have been really busy for me right now and I unfortunately have to say no to opportunities like this right now.
@@ThisIsOnesto no worries. thanks still
Thanks was helpful i really enjoy big hugs👌👌👊💫
I have a question since I’m new to using Neuron! I’m trying on tracks that already have compressor/eq on their set up, but with the effects in Neuron I should just turn those off right so not to overdo it?? Thanks!
It's great that you're new to Neutron!
If a track already has compressor/eq then I typically turn off Neutron's eq/comp. Sometimes I'll listen to see if what neutron puts on sounds better or worse. Especially with EQ, maybe what neutron adjusted sounds better, maybe not. but don't be afraid to bypass or even ignore some of what Neutron can do.
bro congrats on breaking 1000 and keep up the great content
Sure things, happy to help. Thanks for watching!
Very useful and good presentation, thanks!
Hey, you're welcome! Happy to hear that this tutorial was helpful.
Omg this was the easiest-to-follow tutorial I've watched... I subscribed and will watch your vids for sure
Hey! Thanks for sharing that with me, ugh, it's so good to hear that these tutorials are easy to follow. So happy you subbed, and I hope you can comment again on any other videos that stand out to you!
You should have way more attention, I love how well made and professional your videos are! I'm learning a lot
Mohow, thanks for saying that. You have no idea how much I treasure these kinds of comments. I even keep them in a folder on my desktop called "amazingcomments".
I put tons of time and love into these videos. I just want everyone to leave each one feeling confident and inspired to get back to making music.
I hope you stick around, and that you keep finding my content valuable. Thanks for subbing too, you're the best!
Thanks. So you just use Neutron 3 on selected tracks that may need improvement? I don't think I have enough processing power to have it on every track. I can see placing one or more of the Neutron elements on some of the tracks then use Ozone 9 for the Master. I have i7-6 cores-Neutron 3 and Ozone 9, both advanced. I normally have large orchestral arrangements, not a lot of popular music right now.
Hey, thanks for watching! That's pretty much how I like to use Neutron 3. Having it on every single track will be too much for pretty much any CPU, especially on MIDI tracks.
I like to put to Neutron on instrument groups, or an instrument that I feel like I need the extra help on. In your case with the orchestral arrangements I would try placing Neutron on any of your solo instruments, and then placing Neutron on sections like the strings section, or woodwinds, things like that. I believe there's an orchestra specific setting on the Mix Assistant.
Since you're using large orchestral arrangements, you may benefit a lot from the Visual Mixer. It'll help position your tracks around the stereo field to reflect more of an orchestra.
Thanks again for the support!
@@ThisIsOnesto Thank you!
Thanks for this video man ! Very well explained !
Nice thank you so much! I really try my best to make these videos as well explained and helpful as possible. Happy this video could help you out.
a very helpful video, finally i understood the purpose of neutron 3's existence
You're welcome Rahesh. I think it's very easy to wonder what Neutron 3 is really for. Honestly, I wasn't too sure until after a lot of practice and research.
It turns out that it's a pretty great plugin.
Thank you.
You're welcome TECHUNG, thanks for watching!
Great demo tutorial! Thank You!
Thanks for watching! Hope it help!
Thanks so much this was super helpful!
Nice! Thanks for letting me know. Glad it was hepful!
Thank you, you are really a good and respectful person
Hey thanks! I try pretty hard, I'm glad it can come across that way!
Incredible video Onesto. Your Reddit Post brought me here. One slight correction though, GAIN isn't the same as VOLUME. Gain stands for the INPUT volume at which your incoming signal was recorded, whereas volume stands for the OUTPUT levels. So you can have an instrument record at less gain but still play back at loud volumes. By extension, gain-staging is the process of bringing the 'gain' down on every instrument strip of your session to under -18dB or thereabouts so that your master bus has a head room of 8dB. Volume adjustments follow gain-staging and that process is usually called 'balancing'.
However this was an incredibly concise tutorial. Thank You.
Hey Anand! Glad you appreciated the video, and thanks for that correction. I never really knew the proper definition of those terms. I feel like I hear them used interchangeably a whole lot, but your explanation is really simple to follow and now I know what the difference is. Thanks!
Also I checked out your Incubus cover on your channel, and it was great! There was a time in my life when I was all about Incubus haha.
@@ThisIsOnesto Oh wow haha! Yeah that was a long time ago. Much before I took up music professionally. Now I compose and sing for commercial projects in my country. Do check out my band at www.bit.ly/ABCYT if you can spare some time. 😇
Great channel. Very professional.
Thanks for watching and for that comment, it means a whole lot
As someone who has been home recording for about 4 months, and having seen a couple of videos about Neutron 3, I get the feeling it would be a great way to learn about EQ, compression, frequencies, etc backwards., i.e. let the assistant do the initial work and then see and hear the differences and what does what. Cool video and easy to understand for noobs like myself. Cheers.
Yes! This is such a good perspective to have when using Neutron 3. If you see the assistants as a learning AND music production tool you'll be getting the best of both worlds.
And I'm thrilled to hear that this video was easy to understand. That's a big goal of mine. Thanks for watching!
Thanks a lot brother ❤️
You're welcome, thanks for watching!
great video!
Thanks for that watching, so happy you enjoyed it!
Great video - and very well explained. :)
Thanks for watching Olav! And I'm really happy to know that you found the video helpful
Glad to be your 601st sub... great content 🔥
Mohit, honored to have you as my 601st. Glad you like the content. There's a lot of fun videos I have planned this year, so it should only be getting better haha
Thank you, very helpful. I have N3 but never use it because it always sounded terrible, I now see why, much appreciated!
Oh great! Glad it was able to help you out. Neutron 3 is definitely easy to overprocess or just make your sound bad.
I hope if you give it a second chance you start to love it. I'm crazy about it if you couldn't tell.
That was excellent! Thanks
Yo thanks! Thanks so much for watching. Hope to hear from you again!
@@ThisIsOnesto quick question. If you use the mix assistant to balance the tracks in your mix using Relay do you meed to use the visual mixer after that or is it redundant?
@@jamaalnyc I would still take a look at the visual mixer. The mix assistant, as far as I know, adjusts the levels of your tracks, but doesn't deal with stereo imaging.
So bring up the visual mixer and you can place your sounds across the stereo field however you want.
@@ThisIsOnesto gotcha. Do up and down movements in the visual mixer change your original mix assistant levels? Also when you use a preset after mix assistant in neutron or ozone for that is it additive to the computer learning mix that mix assistant provided or do presets overwrite what mix assistant did entirely?
@@jamaalnyc the cool thing with those iZotope plugins is that they are connected. So if you adjust the volume or panning in visual mixer, the adjustment will be made in Relay too.
great video. very helpful !
Thanks for watching! Glad the video was helpful
Thank you so much for the great content! I’ve been trying to find a way to better the quality of my music and this is a huge help as I’ve had neutron, nectar, and izotope ozone 9 but never really knew their capabilities. Great content as well, I really loved the informative cards on the screen and the transitions!
You're very welcome, I was in the same boat as you. The biggest challenge for me was finding how to integrate iZotope's plugins into my workflow because they are sort of their own ecosystem.
Glad you liked my info cards too! I really try to make these videos as helpful as possible
Great!
when you use something like say.. you made an adjustment with the masking... how can you simply just revert back to what it was if you dont like what you did? Another example would be, if I use a vocal pre-set, how to I undue what I did because seems like once you choose a vocal preset (AKA smashed vocal preset) I dont know how to get it back to when i didnt have one. THANKS!!! This is great tutorial!
Shane! It makes me so happy that you got a lot out of this tutorial. And you asked a great question, and fortunately Neutron has a great solution.
Go in the plugin and in the top right corner there is lke a clock with an arrow circling around this. This is the history menu.
Open that and you'll see the history of all the moves you made in Neutron. So you're able to click around and get around settings that way. However, what will work best for your scenario is using the Set buttons at the bottom of the history window.
The way this works is simple. Once you reach a point or choose a pre-set just click the word set above one of the letters. Now scroll through whatever presets or make any other changes you want and then click another Set above a different letter. Now you can click either letter to jump back between both settings to compare whenever you want. And as you can see you can save up to 4 sets.
This is great for comparing different presets or settings that you dialed in. It's super easy and one of those "hidden" features that can save you a lot of time and headaches.
Great question once again. Hope you can hang out with me again!
@@ThisIsOnesto TY for your time in your reply Onesto! Thats exactly what I was looking for.
@@ThisIsOnesto Hey one other thing. Do you have a sort of set way for what you do first -> last? AKA: these 3-4 things in this order in neutron then these 3-7 things in ozone? It seems like some things should come before others but I have no idea what that would be. We are so fortunate to have people like you to bounce off of and I really appreciate you THANKS!
@@papacatastrophe good question! This is generally what I do. If I'm feeling rushed and need something quick I'll use the mix Assistant.
If I have more time then this is generally my Neutron module chain, Sculptor>subtractive EQ,>compression>transient shaper if needed>additive EQ
A lot depends on if I'm trying to use Neutron for boring corrective stuff or more shaping the tone. But typically that's what I do
Thanks for the amazing tutorial Onesto! I learned a lot from it!
Yes!! So happy you got to learn something from this video. Hope one of my tutorials can help you again
Great tutorial This is Onesto! I learned so much! Can I ask which DAW you are using for this tutorial? I love the drums!
Thanks for watching and so happy you learned a lot!
In this video I'm using Bitwig Studio 4. It's a lot like Ableton. I really like Bitwig it's tons of fun to work with
@@ThisIsOnesto Thank you.
So you instantiate neutron on each track? And then relay at the end of the chain on each track? And visual mixer on the master? Lastly do you use ozone, neutron or both for the master track also?
Those are great questions! Here's what I typically do:
Usually I place Neutron on tracks or groups that I want Neutron to analyze and do mix-assistant on. If it's a track that's not very essential or isn't going to be tough to get right I don't bother with Neutron.
I do place relay on most tracks, however if I have a layered sound, I'll place relay on the group rather than each specific layer. Pretty much, if I think I'm going to want Visual Mixer to analyze it, relay goes on that instrument track.
And visual mixer does go on the Master. I like to place it at the beginning of my master so none of my mastering plugins affects what Visual Mixer is analyzing.
On the master track I typically use Ozone and a few other third party plugins.
Hope this all helps!
thank you for your work! I love your style of explaining!
Thank you watching! I hope I'm doing well on the explaining. I want to get really good at this stuff haha!
Good video.....but on a 32 inch screen of mine, a lot of areas were somewhat blurred. I have a number of Izotope's, along with this one, but also have the $500 Ozone 9 Advanced, which I always use as my first insert on each song in mastering, on the Studio One Pro Project Page. I understand Izotope's marking philosophy, but what I now find having a bunch of their products, is that there is a lot of overlap and redundancy in Modules within each of the more similar plugins, like these two, for instance, Neutron and Ozone 9. Also WHERE do you put your Neutron? Thanks.
You're right that the video quality is a little low. This was filmed before I learned how to film my screen at a higher resolution. If it helps, you can check out my Neutron 4 video, it's shorter and the details are a bit sharper: th-cam.com/video/jtLWS8bNptE/w-d-xo.html
The way you're using Ozone 9 is pretty much how I use it on my master bus. If I want to try something different, I'll use Ozone 9 modules mixes with other mastering plugins that I want to try out.
I get what you're saying about Ozone products having some overlap between each other. They kind of do. Sure there might be some small difference between an EQ or Compressor between Ozone and Neutron, but sometimes I think they "overlap" enough. What is most valuable though about the separate plugins are the AI Analysis along with those unique modules. They really are solid.
Oh and that last question. I typically start using Neutron when things are ready to mix. So usually tracks are bounced. Then I'll place Neutron on Instrument Groups or Tracks that are most important or the ones that I know are gonna be tricky to mix. Sometimes it's the only plugin I'll place on the track, as long as it's before any spatial effects. I don't place Neutron on everything because it's too much for my computer and for my own brain.
Thanks for watching, hope this helps!
@@ThisIsOnesto Thanks for your explanations. I have Studio One Pro 5, and have had alot of problems with it, in regard to its "stability". Freezing up, crashing, etc, and their TS Dept has been pretty much worthless. They also play the BLAME GAME. They've blamed every other Vendor I use, told me to re-install Windows, my Malwarebytes virus s/w, try another audio device----like I keep "Extras" of those laying around at $400 a pop!----haha, and even said I should remove Sound IFD Ref, for which I didnt even have that on any of my 6 mastering tracks! I am also having problems with WAVES, and am weaning myself away from them....it's their WaveShell v13 stuff. I use alot of Plugin Alliance stuff, also Hornet and Izotope of course! LOVE the Brainworx stuff.
Thank you for that video.great work. Unfortunately I cant open two windows in ableton live as one of the windows disapears as i open another. do you know how to fix this?many thanks onesto
Thanks for watching, and I'm really happy that this video was useful. I'm unfortunately not an Ableton user, so I'm not sure how to help solve your problem. I would try uninstalling and reinstalling the plugin. And if that doesn't work contact support.
Wish I could help some more!
@@ThisIsOnesto Thank you. I forgot to mention that I stuck in the visual mixer section where you work with two open neutron 3 windows
Super helpful tutorials man glad I found your channel :)
So happy to hear that you find them helpful. That's what I want this channel to all be about!
@@ThisIsOnesto hell yeah man, you rock!
Wow! a very under rated channel you have! I am pretty sure you will have more subscribers with time no doubt about that. I sincerely love your style and the content. If I had a request that would be (I am a newbie and not ashamed of it): how far you would go with Ableton before switching to Neutron. Would you keep your Ableton EQ, sidechain, effects, sounds level, automation?
Hey! Thanks so much for you support, it really means a lot.
To answer your question, I would start using Neutron once you're ready to start mixing your track. So after you're done with the majority of writing, then start using Neutron.
Neutron is gonna help shape the tone of your sounds, clean up frequencies, address masking, help things fit together. For me, that usually means placing Neutron before any time-based effects like reverb and delay.
A lot also depends on how many modules you are gonna use. For example, Neutron can be act as your EQs, compressor, sidechain compression, and saturation. The tricky thing is that every element in your track will need different combination of things.
So my advice to you, especially as a beginner is to try hard and fail hard. You'll discover that you either go too far with plugins, or not far enough. So try a bunch of things out, and learn about your own habits and the plugins. You'll discover what works for you, and that may or may not end up being with Neutron.
For me, I use Neutron's Visual Mixer and tonal balance a lot. And I really like to use the mix assistant on instrument groups, and sculptor sometimes on individual tracks. That's where I ended up so far, but who knows I may start using it more or less again.
You'll figure out your own workflow, it'll be completely unique to you. In the long run you'll get better and better. So what you do today, you may find totally wrong a year from now, and that's completely ok.
Hope that offers you some help and encouragement!
@@ThisIsOnesto yes many thanks for your elaborate answer, very much appreciated.
I got standard at the deal price and its a great tool to have but was a little disappointed it didn't have Mix assist and although it gives Track assist - it doesn't do anything past saying to 'play' for it to listen (it never listens). Don't know if that is meant only for advanced version but why show it if it doesn't 'listen' to your track'?
Hey glad you got standard, it's a pretty sweet plugin. I just checked the Neutron 3 page and it looks like Standard should be able to offer Track Enhance/Track Assistant.
Perhaps something is being missed when you run the track assist?
Maybe i dont just know how but when i make assistant with izotop product and after i wanna add a preset i always have to open another slot plug in for. I mean I cant just add a preset on the job they did right on the same place cuz they remove the job assistant
Hmmmm, I wonder if your issue is based on the version of Neutron that you have. I have neutron advanced.
And after I do the mix assistant, and let's say I want to replace the compressor with a preset, I can open the preset list by clicking it in the compressor module to change it.
@@ThisIsOnesto i dont know actualy for neutron i dont have situation where i add a preset on it juste use that one for couple specefic things but exemple you use nectar 3. After making the vocal assistant they give me a nice job but they have some cool preset on it to but if i use one that remove the job they did with the vocal assistant i have to open another slot to add another nectar 3 for adding preset ! Sorry my english not perfect mate hehe
@@ThisIsOnesto and i get proQ3 damn im satisfied thats very very very usefull save lot time they target the fréquence pretty well !
Hi great video, but how to work your mix after utilizing Neutron? Do i leave the plugin on the channel strip or should i bounce each strip that has neutron so they are rendered ? Then I’d mix with these “Neutron’d” bounces and mute the unbounced neutron tracks? Or do u just add the other plugins and never “move on” from Neutron?
That's a great question, and something that I couldn't find a clear answer on as well. Here's what I typically do.
If I use Neutron to help process and clean up my sounds, I bounce those tracks before my deep dive into mixing. So sort of what you mentioned in the first half of your comment.
The reason why I don't do what you mentioned in the last half of your comment is because it starts to become too many plugins on each channel for me to keep track of and for my machine to handle.
After I bounce or freeze my tracks with Neutron on them, that's when I start using relay and Visual Mixer to help with my levels and stereo field. And when it comes to Neutron at this stage, I'll look into anything that's masking one another or do further processing if needed.
Hope that helps!
@@ThisIsOnesto Thanks for the reply. Your channel is great! I have this exact same work flow issue with Melodyn'd vocals! And I have a ton of favorite plugins that I am used to mixing with. I'm afraid I'll have regrets once I BIP them after Neutron, but maybe I wouldn't. Best feature so far for me is the mix assistant, and it's too bad you can't really compartmentalize what gets bounced into each track...they're interrelated via Neutron's mix going forward. Sometimes compressors ruin a vocal by sounding fake, for instance, then it gets baked in. Do you ever find yourself going back to a prior mix to grab an element again pre Neutron 3, because it got "ruined' ?
@@Mister_Listener I have the same kind of commitment issues as you, haha! I know what you mean. It's scary to bounce in place sometimes. So I either make sure I make copies of a project or I duplicate a track and then disable the duplicate it so it has no impact on the CPU and then bounce the original track.
which version were you using though? standard? pro?
Sorry I forgot to mention that. I was using advanced, which is their pro version. Thanks for watching though!
Nice tuto, thanks.
Which version of Neutron is it please ?
Standard ? (or Advanced ?)
I'm pretty sure it's not the Elements one.
Thanks for watching, I'm using Neutron Advanced.
Ok, thanks. I have the Elements, and I'm wondering if I upgrade to Standard, there is a nice offer right now (Advanced is way too expensive for me...) I'm just afraid that apparently, Neutron Standard and Advanced are really much more CPU heavy than Elements, and my old MacBook may not assume... :)
@@-zoave- you're right on.
I think upgrading from elements to standard during a sale is one of the best ways to buy standard. It'll also give you a better idea if Advanced is right for you.
When it comes to CPU usage, standard is heavier than elements. I do find that the Sculptor module is what creates that big CPU spike. So I find that as long as i don't have Sculptors throughout my project Neutron doesn't slow it down much. For that reason I like to keep sculptor on instrument groups or on really important elements in my track.
Ok cool, thank you for your advices.
Dude!? Im not complaining too bad cos I got a great deal on a bundle but my Neutron 3 just had 4 modules! I didnt know Inwasnt getting the full blown version. Not that I can complain too much. Did come with EQ, Compressor, Transient Shaper and Exciter
Ohhhhh, I think you may have gotten Neutron 3 Elements?? Not gonna lie, iZotope used to make the Neutron versions really confusing. Now I believe there's just one version of Neutron 4.
I guess the good news for you is that now that you have Neutron 3, you'll get access to a ton of iZotope deals. I feel like they have a sale every month
You don’t always have to HEAR. A difference sometimes you just have to do it to make the end mix sound better.
Hey Onesto. Love the video. Can’t seem to find an answer to this anywhere: When mixing with Neutron and using it on midi tracks, add neutron to midi tracks or bounce them to audio stems first? Any thoughts?
Great question, and thanks for asking. I used to wonder this a lot when starting off with Neutron.
A lot depends on your workflow and how much you plan on using Neutron.
I recommend bouncing when doing a deep dive with Neutron. If you plan on placing Neutron on a bunch of tracks, especially when using Sculptor, I like to bounce my tracks so I have plenty of CPU. I find Neutron to be light on CPU, but when you multiply it across your session it definitely adds up.
But if I'm using individual Neutron modules (available in Neutron Advanced), or if I have a small project, or plan on placing Neutron only on busses, then go ahead and place Neutron directly on MIDI tracks.
Regardless, find ways to use Neutron. I still think the tricky part about this plugin is discovering how you are going to adopt it into your workflow. You might find yourself using it a lot or sparingly. There's no pressure either way. It's a really good plugin, but developing your own special sauce-workflow is what really counts.
Hello! It's me again! Since you insist to answer questions (lololol), I NEED to know some things...
In What kind of track do we apply neutron? Is it a bus track or rec track?
Is it necessary neutron applied on all the other tracks we want to unmask, or neutron does all the job automatically?
My English is rusty... If you didn't understand what I meant, please let me know
Of course I'll answer questions whenever I can! These questions are very common, in fact I asked myself these questions too which is why I made this video. Here's some answers.
You can apply neutron to bus or individual tracks. It's completely up to you. The way I decide usually is when I ask myself, "does this sound need a lot of work?" If the answer is yes, then I reach for Neutron.
When it comes to unmasking, you have to make sure that neutron is on the tracks you want to unmask. So if you have a guitar and synth that are clashing, place neutron on both tracks. iZotope makes another product called Nectar that is focused on vocals and there's also an unmasking feature that is more automatic. So that may be something you're more interested in.
@@ThisIsOnesto thanks a lot!!
Hello, Chris!
Dude, I'm trying to use unmasking and mix assistant... Results are terrible.
I'm putting relay on all tracks, and neutron on master (final output).
To unmask I'm putting neutron eq on the track I want to enhance....
Shitty (pardon the curse) results.
May you point out my faults?
Oh, since I posted this comment, what do you think of making an in depth video of those issues?
@@joaopunk1289 before you read my explanation, I'd try watching this video first: th-cam.com/video/RF6m0d5DhKI/w-d-xo.html
Skip to the part where I talk about using unmasking and mix assistant. Mix assistant does not address unmasking by the way.
So looking at what you're describing, putting relay on all tracks is good. Placing Neutron on Master is ok too. Where it might be messing up is when you start using Neutron EQ. I would place the EQ on the two instruments that are clashing, let's say it's a Guitar and Keys.
If you want the guitar to stand out, go to the guitar eq and then click masking and then select the Neutron EQ for the Keys. There you'll see where any masking might be taking place.
Once you find a problem area, try clicking inverse link at the bottom of the track and and try boosting the guitar frequencies and the keys frequencies will drop in that same location. Mess around with that, and even try clicking the advanced panel at the EQ node to try to make the nodes dynamic (I think you can do that at least...)
If you're still not into the results, I recommend checking out Trackspacer from Wavesfactory. That's a great tool for eliminating masking and it's super easy to use.
Hope this helps!
@@ThisIsOnesto Great! I'll try that! Thank you so much. AGAIN
Love the video . So informative. Learn heaps after just buying the bundle on Black Friday sales.
What would be important however to emphasize that Mix assistant only comes with Advanced and up versions of N3.
Izotopes own videos don't even mention this ... It's a little bit deceiving from their end IMO.
Yes, I completely forgot to mention that big detail. I really should have made that clear.
Hopefully the information in this video was still helpful. Thanks again for watching!
What's the difference between the Neutron 3 and Neutron 3 elements?
I have the Neutron 3 Elements but it looks different from yourse and possibly does not have some features that your Neutron has.
That's a great question. There's many difference between Neutron 3 Elements, Neutron 3, and Neutron 3 Advanced. If you want to learn more about the differences you can find them here (scroll down and you'll see a chart): www.izotope.com/en/products/neutron/features.html
If you're interested in upgrading, my advice is to wait for a sale (iZotope has them all the time), and since you have Neutron 3 Elements you should get an even bigger sale.
What’s difference between neutron 3 and nectar 3?!
Good question.
Nectar 3 is designed to address vocals. Sure you can place it on leads , guitars, or other instruments, but it's meant for vocals. I'm gonna be dropping a video on Nectar in the next couple of weeks so keep an eye out for that.
Neutron 3 is a channel strip that's focused on mixing purposes. You'll notice that a lot of the modules are things that your DAW already has like compressor, saturation, EQ, etc. I believe that the Sculptor is the only unique module there.
However, the big deal with Neutron 3 is the way it assists the producer with mixing decisions. Best seen with the mixing assistant. The presets are cool too to check out.
Another big deal is how Neutron 3 is able to work and communicate with other instances of Neutron 3, Nectar 3, or Ozone 8, Tonal Control, and Visual Mixer. I think this is where the magic really happens. When they work together they can start to target masking issues, and help with where your instruments sit in the stereo field.
@@ThisIsOnesto thanks bro really appreciate this explanation
Question, If i have Relay and Neutron in a track do i select both on mix assistant or only the neutron 3 and its not necesarry to put relay if I already have Neutron 3 on that track?
That's a great question. Are you referring to Visual Mixer? If you have Relay and Neutron on a track I would have Visual Mixer choose Relay. That's usually because Relay is the last plugin on my tracks, so any changes in stereo imaging is good to have at the end of your processing signal.
And with your second question, you don't "need" to put Relay on a track with Neutron. But I tend to use Relay for volume automation in addition to stereo imaging, so I have Relay all around my track.
@@ThisIsOnesto Thank you so much! One final question, do you use neutron 3 plugin track enhancer on the master bus? is it irrelevant to use if you have ozone?
@@melomanicrecords no problem! And I don't use the track enhancer on the master bus. I think track enhancer can be great for track groups, but leave Ozone to take care of the master bus.
I am new to working with DAW, so everything is a bit confusing at times, so this could be a weird question.🤔
I've watched quite a few tutorials on Neutron 3.
And (ozone 9). What i notice is, (here in this case 4 bar loop) that
all 4 tracks start from bar 1. that's the case with every tutorial I've seen.
is this the way to work with Neutron 3, that all track must be from bar 1, or is this coincidental that I just watched the tutorials that explain this in this way
So if I want to use mix assistant not all my tracks start on bar 1, some instruments start on bar 5 for example .. etc ... thx 4 the vid. (google tranl. i am dutch)
Google Translate: Hey Patrick! Welkom in de wereld van DAW's en muziekproductie. Het is volkomen normaal dat alles soms verwarrend is. Wanneer u voor het eerst begint, kan het extra lang duren om eenvoudige processen te begrijpen en uit te voeren, maar blijf proberen, u zult het onder de knie krijgen.
Als het gaat om uw vraag over beginnen bij maat 1, is dat toevallig. Als je de mix-assistent gebruikt, en ik denk dat de meeste plug-ins, kun je de track starten waar je maar wilt, zodat je plug-ins hun verwerking kunnen uitvoeren.
English: Hey Patrick! Welcome to the world of DAWs and music production. It is totally normal that everything is confusing at times. When first starting off it might take extra long to understand and do simple processes, but keep trying you'll get the hang of it.
When it comes to your question about start at bar 1, it is coincidental. When using mix assistant, and I think most plugins, you can start the track wherever you like for your plugins to do their processing.
great video!, so are you putting neutron 3 on each track or just the master?
So happy you like the video!
I typically don't put neutron 3 on each track. I like to put Neutron 3 on busses or on individual tracks that I want to give extra attention to. And for the tracks that I don't want Neutron 3 on at all, I will put on Relay if I plan on having it addressed by visual mixer in the end.
This is all sounding a little complicated huh...at least I think so. Neutron 3 is simple in theory and the plugin itself is easy to use, the part for me that's been a learning curve is learning how and when to apply it to different parts of my track. It's sort of its own ecosystem within your DAW, so it has taken me some time to have a game plan that includes Neutron 3
A very, very well done and interesting video. In general, it is a good idea to fade in text blocks at the top right in front of the blue background.
I haven't read through all the comments now to see if this thing has already been criticized:
First of all, the display of the text blocks is a bit too short for my perception. But more decisive is the fact that the moment you read the text block, you are briefly distracted by the video and your spoken comment, and that is when you lose the thread a little. Because you are not showing a chilled landscape film, but a tutorial, a "teaching video" with information in words and pictures. "Multitasking" or not, but I find your chosen combination with the many text blocks displayed a bit too stressful in the long run. This is just my personal opinion now. We all know that you can't and don't have to please everyone. 😏 Greetings from 🇩🇪
Thank you so much for the feedback. I appreciate so much that you're offering me such good constructive criticism to help me teach others in a more effective way.
I'll admit, I'm still trying to find the right balance and pacing of those texts blocks. I found them really helpful for adding in more details that I may have left out or not explained well during my recording. So it's something that I want to keep. However, I do feel the tension that it can become distracting as I'm explaining something complex like music production.
For now, I'm trying to limit how often I include text, along with keeping them up longer so that the viewer doesn't feel like they need to speed read everything.
Thanks again for the feedback, I always value it 🫂
@@ThisIsOnesto Thank you very much for your kind Feedback. Stay healthy! 🍀 Many greetings.
I agree with Michael MOS. Video is wonderful, but when i watched it on youtube in preview mode, the blue text was covered by some icons and i did not read words in the blue corner at all.
That sculptor thing is like soothe?
That's a great question. It's something that i wondered myself since lots and lots of people are bragging about Soothe. Full disclosure, I don't own soothe, but this is what I gathered after lots of research.
The short answer is no, it's not like soothe.
The longer answer is that while soothe focuses on dynamically soothing harsh resonances, Sculptor is what iZotope calls an "army of EQs and compressors" focused on giving you an ideal tone based on what iZotope believes mixing engineers want certain instruments to sound like.
So sculptor is all about dynamically shaping your tone, while Soothe is about dynamically soothing harsh frequencies.
Pro q3 vs neutron
Which one should I go for
That's a great question. Of course there's tons of factors involved but here's how I'll boil it down.
If I was a producer that had very few plugins and was just starting to learn the fundamentals I would look into Neutron (especially when iZotope has it on sale).
If I was a producer who already owned a good number of plugins for different purposes and had a decent grasp of the fundamentals I would look into Pro Q3.
Neutron 3 is a suite of tools. So it comes with an EQ, compressor, exciter, and a few other great basic tools.You can definitely get by with your DAW's stock plugins, but Neutron 3 offers the mix assistant and the ability for instances of Neutron 3 to work with each other across your session. So when used properly it offers a ton of help to beginners.
Pro Q3 is the ultimate EQ plugin. I don't collect EQ plugins because of this single plugin. It contains almost every feature you could want in an EQ. The tricky thing is that it's really expensive and I have a hard time believing a beginner would know how to get their money's worth out of it.
Just my thoughts and how I would approach this dilemma if I had to do it all over again.
Nice thanksnn
you got it, happy that it could help
Program size?
Thanks for this informative video. I'm an orchestral composer and want to improve my mixes :) Would be great to have the same format for Ozone 9
Oh nice! I love that. Neutron has some good presets along with the mix Assistant that really helps clean up orchestral sounds.
I really want to make some ozone videos soon. Hopefully you'll find those informative too!
Thank you
You're very welcome, thanks for watching!
TH-cam, PLEASE do not give me auto-tune ads ever again!
do you have standard or advanced?
I'm using advanced in all my demos.
Sorry about not making that super clear.
In the beginning, how do you put Nuetron on everything? Why do you skip steps? This does not help at all
I speak Dutch, and it is always a bit complicated to translate everything correctly, or rather: how to interpret the sentences.
For instance; what is the difference between neutron elements: neutron standard and neutron advanced. in tutorials most people talk about neutron; This is also unclear to me on the website. I have the same problem with Ozone plugins . are they all AI or is it just neutron advanced and ozone advanced that can do this.
i mean there are 3 different neutron's and 3 different ozone's but i can't find 3 different videos. for example what can N-elements what can N-standart etc..
This is a great question Patrick, thanks for asking. iZotope's products can get a little confusing. Let me try to help.
Neutron Elements is a beginner/starter version of Neutron Standard or Advanced. Elements has little flexibility but does allow you to start to experience the benefits. If you're interested in this, wait for a sale.
Neutron Standard and Advanced are very similar. The biggest difference I found is that Advanced has each Neutron module as its own plugin. For example, if you want to use Neutron's EQ but don't want to load up the whole Neutron plugin, Advanced has Neutron EQ as a separate plugin.
You can also visit this page and scroll to the bottom to see the differences: www.izotope.com/en/products/neutron/features.html
And here's the web page to know the difference between each version of Ozone: www.izotope.com/en/products/ozone/features.html
And one more thing, many of iZotope's plugins uses AI, but in different ways. For example the AI in Neutron helps with mixing since Neutron is a mixing plugin, and the AI in Ozone helps with mastering since it's a mastering plugin.
Overall, the AI features are great for beginners so be sure to learn about them!
@@ThisIsOnesto THX that is very clear
damn i could never trust the mix assistent .. but the tools are great and its good to have such a smooth channel strip
I know exactly what you mean about trusting the mix assistant. I usually let it do it's thing to give me a little head start, but I always go through and make sure things are especially dialed in.
Thanks for watching
I dont understand english very will. But your Videos, i understand the izotope very good 😁
Oh good! It's great that the video could help. Thank you for watching!
your nectar 3 has alot more features than what I have. Guitar just has guitar, no drop down menu
In this video I'm using Neutron 3 Advanced. It's possible that you're using Neutron 3 Standard or even Neutron Elements. That would be my best guess.
@@ThisIsOnesto ah yes I'm using the neutron standard
good to know. Thanks 👍
why does it sound like his voice is cutting in and out? Weird gating sound. Why would he have a gate on his mic?
I had a gate on my mic because I had no idea what I was doing at the time. However, I did learn my lesson, and now there is little to no gate on my VO. Progress!
Is Neutron a standalone app ? You open it and start bla bla whats inside. No idea from where you open it !
That's a good question. Neutron is not a standalone app, it's a DAW plugin.
When you first open Neutron inside your DAW you should see the EQ and EQ module up at the top row. From there you can either add on other modules or click the Mix Assistant (a button with three circles at the top).
Hopefully the rest of my video offers enough help to know what to do from there.
I just like your smile 🙊❤👍
oh so nectar 3 but neutron
Yeah it kinda is like that. The core is pretty much the same but there's a few tools that are more specialized for vocals in Nectar and more specialized for mixing in Neutron.
It would be better if his guitar wasn't sitting in the same frequency range as the cords.
is using this cheating though?
Haha, it might feel like cheating but I wouldn't say it's cheating. I like how Neutron calls their AI a Mixing Assistant rather than Mixing Engineer (that should always be you, the user). It's there to assist, not dictate.
I will say though that there is the temptation to only use the Mixing Assistant, resulting in not really developing or refining your mixing skills. I'm sure iZotope would agree that Neutron is there to help your decision making, not to replace your decision making.
@@ThisIsOnesto thanks for the response. After thinking about it a few days I’ve realized mixing and mastering is not as important to me as just making a great beat. Therefore I don’t think it cheating to use neutron or ozone. I want to be clear, I’m not saying mixing and mastering isn’t vital, but it’s much much easier and more efficient to use these plug ins. I’m in it to make beats not be a sound engineer, If that makes sense lol.
@@cmad2345 That's pretty much my approach to mixing and mastering.
I think trying to be great at everything is unrealistic. Similar to you, I want to be great at composing and writing songs. So I'm going to focus all my time and energy to developing that skill.
For the other crucial aspects of music prod (mixing, mastering, sound design, etc.) I'm more than happy to use tools and resources that will help support an area that I devoted less time to developing. So I'm definitely grateful for plugins like ozone and neutron.