Fabfilter or IZotope?

[MXJIA]

Honestly both a great, but i prefer Fabfilter because its very simple to use, with instructions and a great interface

This is true. After using iZotope a bit I find it to bog down my CPU a lot so I'd have to bounce stems to another project session just to have it remotely usable. Just so many plugins I'd love to use if they didn't hurt my CPU as much (and I'm rocking a 5800x even).

[abject39]

Fabfilter < iZotope

I find iZotope to be miles ahead of Fabfilter. The level of precision and accuracy of Ozone puts it above many plugins. FF excels in graphical interfaces and making the audio process easy on the eyes. Pro-Q has always been a great-looking EQ, but I've never seen it exceed the competition in quality or features.

[Ploki]

Fabfilter < iZotope

I find iZotope to be miles ahead of Fabfilter. The level of precision and accuracy of Ozone puts it above many plugins. FF excels in graphical interfaces and making the audio process easy on the eyes. Pro-Q has always been a great-looking EQ, but I've never seen it exceed the competition in quality or features.

[adl]

Fabfilter for me. Rarely use Ozone because of the CPU hit, which is sad cause I really like the Stereoimager and the Maximizer. CPU has always be high for Ozone and even they claim "lower CPU usage" in every version I still think it's way to high.

[abject39]

Fabfilter for me. Rarely use Ozone because of the CPU hit, which is sad cause I really like the Stereoimager and the Maximizer. CPU has always be high for Ozone and even they claim "lower CPU usage" in every version I still think it's way to high.

That's the price of accuracy and precision.

[astralprojection]

100% fabfilter.
Oversampling up to 16x 192khz, no aliasing, linear phase - just truly transparent. While izotope makes your mixes sound worse, impossible to use as a mastering tool while fabfilter is ultra clean. And I can prove it too. I've done the ab, I've done the deltas.

[astralprojection]

Honestly both a great, but i prefer Fabfilter because its very simple to use, with instructions and a great interface

This is true. After using iZotope a bit I find it to bog down my CPU a lot so I'd have to bounce stems to another project session just to have it remotely usable. Just so many plugins I'd love to use if they didn't hurt my CPU as much (and I'm rocking a 5800x even).

That's what you're supposed to do. Bounce to a new project for mixing and or stem mastering. Always separate production from post. And if you think izotope takes cpu, try Pro q with lin phase at 192khz together with 4x over sampled Pro c. That'll bog down even half of my 10600k
However using 1024 samples and ultra vst protection (cubase) it goes down to about 30 %. That's 1 Pro q, 1 Pro c and 1 Pro mb. All oversampled and in lin phase at 192khz

[Ploki]

Fabfilter for me. Rarely use Ozone because of the CPU hit, which is sad cause I really like the Stereoimager and the Maximizer. CPU has always be high for Ozone and even they claim "lower CPU usage" in every version I still think it's way to high.

That's the price of accuracy and precision.

no, it's not. That's the price of sloppiness.

[MXJIA]

Honestly both a great, but i prefer Fabfilter because its very simple to use, with instructions and a great interface

This is true. After using iZotope a bit I find it to bog down my CPU a lot so I'd have to bounce stems to another project session just to have it remotely usable. Just so many plugins I'd love to use if they didn't hurt my CPU as much (and I'm rocking a 5800x even).

That's what you're supposed to do. Bounce to a new project for mixing and or stem mastering. Always separate production from post. And if you think izotope takes cpu, try Pro q with lin phase at 192khz together with 4x over sampled Pro c. That'll bog down even half of my 10600k
However using 1024 samples and ultra vst protection (cubase) it goes down to about 30 %. That's 1 Pro q, 1 Pro c and 1 Pro mb. All oversampled and in lin phase at 192khz

Is there a benefit to mixing/mastering at 192khz? If the end listener can't tell the difference on 44.1/48 sample rates and your CPU gets bogged down, it might be better to compromise and stick to 96

[astralprojection]

Honestly both a great, but i prefer Fabfilter because its very simple to use, with instructions and a great interface

This is true. After using iZotope a bit I find it to bog down my CPU a lot so I'd have to bounce stems to another project session just to have it remotely usable. Just so many plugins I'd love to use if they didn't hurt my CPU as much (and I'm rocking a 5800x even).

That's what you're supposed to do. Bounce to a new project for mixing and or stem mastering. Always separate production from post. And if you think izotope takes cpu, try Pro q with lin phase at 192khz together with 4x over sampled Pro c. That'll bog down even half of my 10600k
However using 1024 samples and ultra vst protection (cubase) it goes down to about 30 %. That's 1 Pro q, 1 Pro c and 1 Pro mb. All oversampled and in lin phase at 192khz

Is there a benefit to mixing/mastering at 192khz? If the end listener can't tell the difference on 44.1/48 sample rates and your CPU gets bogged down, it might be better to compromise and stick to 96

Yes, it's a difference. It doesn't matter that the end product is a 16bit 44k wave.
If you master and run every processing in 192k, and only convert down to 44k at the very last stage using a top tier converter like rx8 or something, absolutely there's a difference. I've done this exact test and it's both audible in a blind a/b and actual proof phase cancelling them to hear the delta.

I recommend Dan Worralls video on "samplerate, higher is better, right?"
Where he basically explains exactly why it can be better and when it's no difference.

But I'll tell you from my own experience and experiments.
1) higher samplerate means Nyqvist is alot higher up, so if you low pass a signal at say 22 kHz, the aliasing occurs wayy up there in the inaudible range
2) if a plugin doesn't have oversampling natively, this will essentially mean a 4x oversampling but native
3) sometimes your dac just sounds better at 192k. Meaning you might make better decisions. You can try this out yourself right now, even YouTube or mp3s might sound better if you force your dac to 192k

But, it comes with much much higher cpu load, way bigger file size and way longer processing times. But since you're mastering and working with 1 wave only, it's not too bad. But if I had a shitty computer and a shitty dac, 48k would definitely be my go to. 96k doesn't make sense though. That's just a strange middleground. Either go 48k or 192k. 88k can also make sense if you want to just reduce aliasing.
But as Mr Worrall also says, you have to band limit with LP filter at around 22khz, to make sure there is absolutely no aliasing and if there is, then it's at Nyqvist which is 96khz at 192k, wayyy beyond human hearing.

That's the technical bit. The subjective bit is it just sounds better.

[abject39]

no, it's not. That's the price of sloppiness.

Ozone allows end-user input up to 5 places after the decimal point (giving full access to 32-bit precision input), which it uses throughout all processing. It possibly uses 64-bit processing in areas internally. Sloppy is the last thing I would call that calculation and access level. That is well within the limits of high precision.

[abject39]

Is there a benefit to mixing/mastering at 192khz? If the end listener can't tell the difference on 44.1/48 sample rates and your CPU gets bogged down, it might be better to compromise and stick to 96

I would not advise the combination of linear phase and 192kHz sample rate for mixing and mastering, just for the sake of doing it. High sample rates can be helpful. For example, it can be beneficial for stretching audio, avoiding aliasing, and mathematically-even sample rate conversion.

[MXJIA]

Is there a benefit to mixing/mastering at 192khz? If the end listener can't tell the difference on 44.1/48 sample rates and your CPU gets bogged down, it might be better to compromise and stick to 96

I would not advise the combination of linear phase and 192kHz sample rate for mixing and mastering, just for the sake of doing it. High sample rates can be helpful. For example, it can be beneficial for stretching audio, avoiding aliasing, and mathematically-even sample rate conversion.

I’m going to do more research but definitely I will refrain from using linear phase on my Fruity/Fabfilter EQs when it doesn’t seem necessary.

[astralprojection]

Is there a benefit to mixing/mastering at 192khz? If the end listener can't tell the difference on 44.1/48 sample rates and your CPU gets bogged down, it might be better to compromise and stick to 96

I would not advise the combination of linear phase and 192kHz sample rate for mixing and mastering, just for the sake of doing it. High sample rates can be helpful. For example, it can be beneficial for stretching audio, avoiding aliasing, and mathematically-even sample rate conversion.

I’m going to do more research but definitely I will refrain from using linear phase on my Fruity/Fabfilter EQs when it doesn’t seem necessary.

Only ever use linear phase if you absolutely don't want to disturb phase. So for mastering it can make sense to use linear phase for the LP, HP filtering and delicate bass work, in the sub 0-250hz range.

But, any other eq than this, linear phase is absolutely not necessary and can even sound worse than regular ol zero latency. Only will extreme filtering and cuts/boost change phase in audible ways - except one area which is the bass range. I do prefer proq3 in lin phase mode whenever I eq either sub 200 hz on a master, or when processing a kickdrum. For the bassline, zero latency hp filtering is actually beneficial, cause you can use it as you would an all pass filter, meaning you can shift or even rotate phase to fit better with the kickdrum.

And for mastering using non linear phase for boosts or cut from 250hz and up, can actually sound better.

So, to make it short, I only ever use lin phase for hp and LP filters in mastering, delicate eq work in bass area in mastering, and HP a kickdrum, which I rarely ever do.
So pretty much only two reasons to use linear phase IMHO. But never forget the golden rule, if it sounds good you're doing it right.
There are some technicals that don't change though, and are not subjective.
Oh and pro-mb simply sounds better all the time, in linear phase mode. At least to my ears.

[Ploki]

I would not advise the combination of linear phase and 192kHz sample rate for mixing and mastering, just for the sake of doing it. High sample rates can be helpful. For example, it can be beneficial for stretching audio, avoiding aliasing, and mathematically-even sample rate conversion.

Mathematically-even sample rate conversion has not been a thing since late 90s

Ozone allows end-user input up to 5 places after the decimal point (giving full access to 32-bit precision input), which it uses throughout all processing. It possibly uses 64-bit processing in areas internally. Sloppy is the last thing I would call that calculation and access level. That is well within the limits of high precision.

Fabfilter not possibly but confirmed uses 64-bit processing internally (and 32bit FP on outputs)
Fabfilter also allows full decimal places, it just doesn't display them because it's stupid and unecessary.
If you type in "-0.55dB" or "-0.554593845" the output of two Pro-Q3 instances will not null anymore.
So you have both calculation and access level AND low CPU usage.

I'm not saying that iZotope isn't accurate, but the CPU hit is because it's not coded as well as efficiently.
Fabfilter is a robust tool that's quick to work with. Not for the price of accuracy, but for the price of money, because it costs twice-three times as much as iZotope.
That's why you don't have bugs, ever, and why you get M1 support after a month after it's released, while iZotope is still chugging behind with some of their stuff.