Nectar. I've joined the dark side.

[BONES]

But thanks for assuming my incompetence.

That came from you showing no confidence in your own ability. You see, if it was me, I'd be talking about how it made all my tracks sound, not how it did it. i.e. I'd listen to the result and decide if there was any improvement, where you just looked at what it did, as though you didn't feel confident in making a judgement on whether it sounded better or not.

I'm going to derail the thread for a minute now. This is something I have increasingly been thinking goes on with production - the Emperor's New Clothes effect. Somebody posts a video on Youtube, saying how amazing this or that plugin is but when you listen to it you don't hear much, if any difference but, not wanting to seem incompetent, you just go along with the guy in the vid and tell everyone how amazing the plugin is.

I was looking at buying some dirt cheap Waves plugins yesterday and last night I watched a dozen or so videos on several different things, particularly their OneKnob series, which gets good one-liners from some pretty serious people. Trouble is, I could hardly hear anything going on in most of the demos, to the point that I wasn't even sure what half of them were supposed to be doing. Ditto for one of the videos I watched on Butch Big Vocals. The guy kept toggling between clean and effected and they both sounded exactly the same to me. OK, maybe that's my tiny Eris 3.5 monitors and my cheap AKG headphones but you know what? If I can't hear a difference on those, nobody else is going to hear it on their Air Pods or their Sonos Play.1s or their Beats headphones, either, so it's a difference that doesn't matter. I was sufficiently unimpressed that I didn't even bother downloading any demo versions to try.

I think it goes on a lot and people need to have the courage to call it out, otherwise it becomes self-perpetuating and it gets much harder to learn and grow as skilled artists/producers.

So, back on topic, you still haven't said whether or not things sounded better or worse after you added Neutron. Or maybe you couldn't hear any difference?

[Calenberger]

If I can't hear a difference (...), nobody else is going to hear it on their Air Pods or their Songs Play.1s or their Beats headphones, either, so it's a difference that doesn't matter.

Yes, there‘s a lot of snake oil in the market.
Many effects are so sublime that the „normal“ music consumer never notices them. Investing in them is a bit like masturbation, centered around one self and not the other one.

[pixel85]

My issue with Nectar was it seemed to be applying the same corrective EQ curves no matter what I put into it, as if it wasn't actually all that "intelligent" at all. I'd be curious to hear other people's thoughts on this.

This is my experience with the Ozone Mastering Assistant as well. After using it on a bunch of eclectic tracks I was surprised to notice how similar many of the settings were. It put me off using the Mastering Assistant very much.

I had the same experience while testing demo. So I began to screw mix with crazy levels like kick +10dB etc and... Results in Ozone were still almost identical. Beside that all changes from Ozone were "meh" at best to me. Ozone may listen to source track and check out math behind it but can't listen to conceptual/emotional part of music. I'm glad that I saved my money and I didn't bought fancy plugin (for once).

But of course I must be wrong I don't know what I'm doing because it's advertised as perfect AI used by every Pro in the universe so I should blindly believe that it's infallible.
Nah... I'm not buying it.

Now I'm waiting to be crucified by supporters of almighty AI

[BONES]

As I said, I found that it does a pretty good job most of the time and all I've needed to do is tweak it a bit here and there. The before and after difference isn't huge but (I hope) that's down to me being much better at mixing than I was a decade or two (or three) ago. It might come down to styles of music, my main goal in mastering is squeeze the life out of it, as a metaphor for the way society squeezes the life out of every one of us, and make it as huge as possible.

[dionenoid]

I'm going to derail the thread for a minute now. This is something I have increasingly been thinking goes on with production - the Emperor's New Clothes effect. Somebody posts a video on Youtube, saying how amazing this or that plugin is but when you listen to it you don't hear much, if any difference but, not wanting to seem incompetent, you just go along with the guy in the vid and tell everyone how amazing the plugin is.

I think it goes on a lot and people need to have the courage to call it out, otherwise it becomes self-perpetuating and it gets much harder to learn and grow as skilled artists/producers.

Interesting. Would make a nice topic.

[Razzia]

My issue with Nectar was it seemed to be applying the same corrective EQ curves no matter what I put into it, as if it wasn't actually all that "intelligent" at all. I'd be curious to hear other people's thoughts on this.

This was my experience with Neutron 2 - which I'd mostly used as a quick vocal tracking setup before Nectar 3 came out. I'd set the parameters by hand though, then switch the A/B in cubase and try mix assistant. Seemed like over 90 percent of the time it was the same thing: dynamic cut around 150-200Hz, dynamic cut around 1.3-1.5kHz, 1-2dB boost around 3khz, high shelf boost being dynamically attenuated.

It sounded fine but with or without mix/vocal assistant I find it easier to get results I like with other plugins. The neutron/nectar compressors just never totally agreed with me, but I do love Izotope's transient shaper, and the harmony module on nectar (used subtly) is fantastic to save a bit of time, if you mix it in low enough that it still sounds realistic.

Mostly I could (and do) live without izotope and their silly upgrade schemes these days, but Ozone is another story. I like to do a bit of master processing and then run ozone as a sort of sanity check. Plus the maximizer is good.

[jochicago]

The guy kept toggling between clean and effected and they both sounded exactly the same to me.

Keep in mind that there are a few factors acting against you in that situation. Beyond your hearing tools, the guy playing with this stuff in the video is using better hearing tools so they hear more nuance before you can, which makes them stop pushing the knob, and then the video is being audio compressed by Youtube so you lose even more nuance before the audio gets to you.

I think people doing plugin reviews should show normal use but then also push them hard so it's more obvious what the plugin is doing.

But I had this problem when I watched Pensado, many times I couldn't hear what he was talking about on my $300 monitors. I now watch these videos with DT 990 Pro headphones and it no longer happens that I can't hear what's happening (my ears are also a bit better since I got the headphones).

I do recommend that anyone mixing music should be on good headphones, if not you are doing yourself a great disservice when you really need to be able to hear the details. IMO don't invest in plugins until you've invested in at least DT 990 Pro (or equivalent) or HD 650. And the DT 990 Pro are only $140 right now https://amzn.to/2N9ZXTu

[Symphony Sid]

As I said, I found that it does a pretty good job most of the time and all I've needed to do is tweak it a bit here and there. The before and after difference is huge but (I hope) that's down to me being much better at mixing than I was a decade or two (or three) ago. It might come down to styles of music, my main goal in mastering is squeeze the life out of it, as a metaphor for the way society squeezes the life out of every one of us, and make it as huge as possible.

If you're referring to Ozone Mastering Assistant (which I was and another poster as as well, I know OT)
The Ozone Limiter or Maximizer as they call it is almost always excessive and squeezing the life of out of tracks.

[BONES]

That's exactly what I was referring to and I have the opposite problem - I pretty much always have to turn up the maximiser and get it to squash things even more to get it loud enough. SO maybe it's just not made or optimised for your material?

Beyond your hearing tools, the guy playing with this stuff in the video is using better hearing tools so they hear more nuance before you can, which makes them stop pushing the knob, and then the video is being audio compressed by Youtube so you lose even more nuance before the audio gets to you.

That is entirely my point - if the punter at the other end can't hear a difference, if you can only hear it if you spend tens of thousands of dollars on your equipment, then the difference doesn't matter.

I do recommend that anyone mixing music should be on good headphones, if not you are doing yourself a great disservice when you really need to be able to hear the details. IMO don't invest in plugins until you've invested in at least DT 990 Pro (or equivalent) or HD 650. And the DT 990 Pro are only $140 right now https://amzn.to/2N9ZXTu

I disagree. I mix/master with my speakers and confirm on headphones. Strangely, my headphones actually have more bottom end than my Eris 3.5s, so they give me a much better idea of what's going on down there, but everywhere else the headphones and speakers sound eerily alike, which I put down to both offering a very neutral sound. And those headphones are AKG K-92s, which are $59 from AKG's website. I see no reason to spend any more.

[jochicago]

It's not the neutral eq that I'm after with better headphones. DT990 Pro are notoriously bright, although you get used to whatever you work with, I've learned them and I have no problem at all.

It's the detail they put out. It's like saying your 3.5" drivers are the same as a mastering desk set of $5k monitors because it has the same eq curve. I'd rather have a horrible eq curve and be able to hear the guitarists arm hairs catching static only when he hits a g chord.

Mixing with those 3.5" drivers is akin to driving in the rain, when you can kinda see the cars in front but you wouldn't be able to read a bumper sticker. Mixing with DT990 Pro is like mixing in the middle of a nice sunny day with a clean windshield that happens to have just a slight blue tint.

[Russell Grand]

And I want the Izotope suite to respond, voiced by Emily Blunt. She doesn't have to call me "master". I'd prefer "commander".

[BONES]

Mixing with those 3.5" drivers is akin to driving in the rain, when you can kinda see the cars in front but you wouldn't be able to read a bumper sticker. Mixing with DT990 Pro is like mixing in the middle of a nice sunny day with a clean windshield that happens to have just a slight blue tint.

OK, let's run with this analogy (I love car analogies). The thing is, I don't need to read anybody's bumper sticker in order to drive in the rain, it is completely irrelevant to the task at hand. In fact, I'd go a step further and suggest that reading bumper stickers can be a real distraction. It's the same here - I am not recording a 106 piece symphony orchestra, I am recording a handful of tracks of electronic instruments, sampled drums and vocals. There is not really all that much detail to be revealed and spending five times as much on better headphones won't allow me to do a better job at all. It might make me feel better about what I'm doing but it's not going to improve the result.

[jochicago]

Only you can decide if you are happy with your mixing setup. What I'm saying is that IMO, it's very important to be able to hear minute details. Small things add up quickly when you are mixing several tracks plus buses plus effects. What seems like a barely perceptible touch up at the beginning of the chain compounds to a lot by the end. I personally believe mixing with less than great headphones is an exercise in futility, swimming upstream, trying to see through foggy glass. Just not worth the pain when the solution is fairly inexpensive.

Of all the money I've spent on music: dozens of guitars, pro keyboard, powerful PC, hundreds of plugins, the main thing I wish I could go back and do sooner is invest in decent cans (and also buy a solid top guitar way earlier).

[BONES]

Yes, small things add up but when they do, they become apparent and you fix them. That's how the process works. I stopped wasting big bucks on headphones 25 years ago when the guy at my local music store put me onto AKG's budget studio cans. The K-92s are the 3rd pair I've had, 4th if you count the very average ones that came with my Scarlett 2i2, and they are still the schizz for me. The 'phones I use for listening to music when I am out and about cost more than twice as much as the K-92s, and I have an even more expensive pair that I haven't bothered with in several years, but the good old AKGs are the only ones I'd ever use for mixing.

[Elektronisch]

Using Nectar is cheating

Why it is cheating? would love to hear some arguments. Because to me its same cheating as using a toilet paper to wipe your bottom instead of hands.