So, recently I was able to buy a license for iZotope's Neutron for cheap and I was considering upgrading it to Advanced. I was basically wondering, if there's tangible difference - in terms of CPU load - between using say just the EQs of standard Neutron with all other components disabled, compared to using separate EQ plugins from the Advanced version? I imagine the standard version would still eat more RAM, but I'd expect that CPU-wise there shouldn't be much difference if all unused stuff - compressors, exciter, transient shaper, limiter and Neutrino - is disabled?
Anyone has experience with that or - if has the Advanced version - could test it?
Neutron vs. Neutron Advanced CPU load
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- Banned
- Topic Starter
- 11467 posts since 4 Jan, 2017 from Warsaw, Poland
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- KVRian
- 716 posts since 20 Apr, 2017
Yea man the suite uses more ram, bout 100k more than the diff plugs. Not much diff in cpu if you got the modules isolated. No real reason to grab advanced unless you gotta do huge f*ckin mixes on surround and all that.
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- Banned
- Topic Starter
- 11467 posts since 4 Jan, 2017 from Warsaw, Poland
Thank you! Will have a look at the demo anyway I think, but appreciate your feedback!Armagibbon wrote:Yea man the suite uses more ram, bout 100k more than the diff plugs. Not much diff in cpu if you got the modules isolated. No real reason to grab advanced unless you gotta do huge f*ckin mixes on surround and all that.
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- Banned
- Topic Starter
- 11467 posts since 4 Jan, 2017 from Warsaw, Poland
To respond to the overwhelming demand (lol), I made some testing.
The setup:
- Surface Pro 4 i7 8/256Gb, Windows 10, internal audio + Asio4All
- Bitwig 2.1,
- two simple tracks - kick (E-Kick device), bass (Polysynth),
- one instance of Neutron on each track 'talking' to each other for the masking feature,
- EQ on bass has a sidechained dynamic low-shelf to cut low frequencies when kick hits in specified frequency band.
The test was repeated twice from scratch, to ensure stability of result.
Results from Bitwig's performance monitor - average load:
- no Neutrons - 1.4ms
- separate standalone EQs from Neutron Advanced - 2.55ms
- separate full Neutron instances, with everything but EQ turned off - 2.7ms
So, at a glance it's not a huge difference, but if you look at it in relative terms - 'advanced" EQs added 1.15ms, "standard' EQs added 0.15ms on top of that - then using a full Neutron vs. standalone modules adds 12-13% of additional load. And this is only in a very simple setup, so imagine how that'd pile up if you used dozens of them - it would still be 12-13% more, but calculated on the higher overall load.
So, if you're planning on using Neutron for its individual components - EQ, compressor, transient shaper, exciter, limiter - and put a lot of them individually across your tracks, you might want to consider purchasing the Advanced version. If on the other hand you plan on using just few instances on your main busses and in chains (eq->compressor->exciter, etc.) to tighten up and clean your final mix, then you may save the $99.
The setup:
- Surface Pro 4 i7 8/256Gb, Windows 10, internal audio + Asio4All
- Bitwig 2.1,
- two simple tracks - kick (E-Kick device), bass (Polysynth),
- one instance of Neutron on each track 'talking' to each other for the masking feature,
- EQ on bass has a sidechained dynamic low-shelf to cut low frequencies when kick hits in specified frequency band.
The test was repeated twice from scratch, to ensure stability of result.
Results from Bitwig's performance monitor - average load:
- no Neutrons - 1.4ms
- separate standalone EQs from Neutron Advanced - 2.55ms
- separate full Neutron instances, with everything but EQ turned off - 2.7ms
So, at a glance it's not a huge difference, but if you look at it in relative terms - 'advanced" EQs added 1.15ms, "standard' EQs added 0.15ms on top of that - then using a full Neutron vs. standalone modules adds 12-13% of additional load. And this is only in a very simple setup, so imagine how that'd pile up if you used dozens of them - it would still be 12-13% more, but calculated on the higher overall load.
So, if you're planning on using Neutron for its individual components - EQ, compressor, transient shaper, exciter, limiter - and put a lot of them individually across your tracks, you might want to consider purchasing the Advanced version. If on the other hand you plan on using just few instances on your main busses and in chains (eq->compressor->exciter, etc.) to tighten up and clean your final mix, then you may save the $99.
