Alternatives to Neodymium?
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- KVRAF
- 2830 posts since 2 Mar, 2003 from The only civilized county in Texas
Every time Apple upgrades its OS I'm delighted that my Elemental Audio plugs still work, and I fear the day that Neodymium will stop working because it's the only compressor I understand. Not to mention that at the time it came out lots of people were claiming it did things no other compressor could:
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/archive/e ... /56174.php
For instance in my competition entry for this month http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... 53#5259253 I had to deal with a flute part that had 1. spikes that I wanted to compress out, 2. a large dynamic range that I wanted to leave intact, 3. breath noises that I wanted to expand down; a noise gate would be way too crude.
What other compressors do this trick of different compression by loudness range, not frequency range?
Victor.
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/archive/e ... /56174.php
For instance in my competition entry for this month http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... 53#5259253 I had to deal with a flute part that had 1. spikes that I wanted to compress out, 2. a large dynamic range that I wanted to leave intact, 3. breath noises that I wanted to expand down; a noise gate would be way too crude.
What other compressors do this trick of different compression by loudness range, not frequency range?
Victor.
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- KVRAF
- 2049 posts since 18 Sep, 2003 from Seattle USA
I believe the interface on neodynium is fairly unique but I think that you can get a grip on the same kind of thing by using a multi-control point dynamics plugin like something Melda, Ozone5, Blue Cat Dynamics, ToneBoosters new FlX, there are probably more. Adobe Auditon and an older Cakewalk dynamics processor have more than 2 or 3 control points you can add but I haven't used those in a great while...
Those might be a place to start, it might be a little tough getting over that NeoDynium interface and used to a new one. Good luck!
Those might be a place to start, it might be a little tough getting over that NeoDynium interface and used to a new one. Good luck!
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- KVRAF
- 4329 posts since 26 Jun, 2004
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- KVRAF
- Topic Starter
- 2830 posts since 2 Mar, 2003 from The only civilized county in Texas
I'm not sure that the plugs you guys are mentioning do the same. I mean, they'd have to have at least two threshold and two or three ratio knobs.
Here's what I used on that flute track:

1. Compress peaks
2. Leave middle loudness alone
3. Expand soft sounds down
Neodynium can have 4 loudness bands, and set attack release separately on each, but I didn't use that here.
Victor.
Here's what I used on that flute track:

1. Compress peaks
2. Leave middle loudness alone
3. Expand soft sounds down
Neodynium can have 4 loudness bands, and set attack release separately on each, but I didn't use that here.
Victor.
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- KVRAF
- 2049 posts since 18 Sep, 2003 from Seattle USA
Yes - I used to use neodynium but like to set points on a transfer curve better. Check out the Ozone5 manual, it's the easiest one to compare to the different zones in Neodynium I think. Ozone5 Standard is multi-band, each band has the zones you mention, you can only use in single-band mode if you like to set up the zones:
http://www.izotope.com/products/audio/o ... namics.asp
http://www.izotope.com/products/audio/o ... namics.asp
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- KVRAF
- 4329 posts since 26 Jun, 2004
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Funkybot's Evil Twin Funkybot's Evil Twin https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=116627
- KVRAF
- 12495 posts since 16 Aug, 2006
I had Neodynium back when it was an Elemental Audio plugin. Really strange dynamics processor. Did some cool, bizarre stuff. I honestly don't know of anything that does the same.VicDiesel wrote:I'm not sure that the plugs you guys are mentioning do the same. I mean, they'd have to have at least two threshold and two or three ratio knobs.
Here's what I used on that flute track:
1. Compress peaks
2. Leave middle loudness alone
3. Expand soft sounds down
Neodynium can have 4 loudness bands, and set attack release separately on each, but I didn't use that here.
Victor.
To those who don't know, this is a multiband compressor that doesn't split up the bands by frequency like most multiband comps, instead it splits the bands up into volume range. So you could use it to gate out low-level noise, while limiting peaks, and compressing the body of a sound all at once. Or use it to bring up the room volume on a track, while leaving the main bits of the audio uncompressed.
I'd love to see someone else take this on, but so far, I don't know of anything else that attempts this.
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- Banned
- 22457 posts since 5 Sep, 2001
[DELETED]
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- KVRAF
- 4329 posts since 26 Jun, 2004
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- KVRAF
- 2049 posts since 18 Sep, 2003 from Seattle USA
Neodynium was something kind of special IMO also, I miss the EA folks I thought that was something special also with firium, eqium, etc. I think Ozone5 (not ozone4) can get close, Tomeboosters Flx has more of the sound IMO but doesn't have 4 zones, Ozone5 only has 3, Adobe Audition I believe you can make 6 or 7 zones. Blue Cat has 2 zones I think. Melda has a transfer curve that you should be able to insert many points on but I can't really make it go (my fault).TheoM wrote:right and if ozone does it i'll be chuffed but i honestly thought to this day it was unique and wonderful, neodynium that is. I was on the beta team for that, such a good stable plugin.
Oh well,
something for a current dev to copy i think, since it really does seem EA are never coming back
I remember it so fondly, bands of loudness zones rather than frequencies. It was actually a single band frequency comp, or broadband as they call them, but you could do different things to different areas of the loudness spectrum,
AFAIR it could do upwards on the bottom parts for example and leave everything else untouched.
I'm with you guys more dynamics plugs with zones in a similar way would be nice.
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- Banned
- 22457 posts since 5 Sep, 2001
[DELETED]
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Funkybot's Evil Twin Funkybot's Evil Twin https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=116627
- KVRAF
- 12495 posts since 16 Aug, 2006
I was on the beta team for that one too. The good ole days! The RND buy out really sucked. Never even got support or acknowledgement of my testing or prior licenses. Then of course they went under...TheoM wrote:right and if ozone does it i'll be chuffed but i honestly thought to this day it was unique and wonderful, neodynium that is. I was on the beta team for that, such a good stable plugin..
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- KVRAF
- 8099 posts since 12 Dec, 2003 from Canada
Literally... Roger bought the farm.Funkybot's Evil Twin wrote:Then of course they went under...
But there was that other guy... forget his name... some kind of a power struggle going on.
Yup, they were great plugs, and I used the RND ones with the retro skin for quite a while.
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- KVRAF
- Topic Starter
- 2830 posts since 2 Mar, 2003 from The only civilized county in Texas
I used that the other day with some hand percussion. There were no peaks to compress, but lots of really soft touches to bring up.TheoM wrote: AFAIR it could do upwards on the bottom parts for example and leave everything else untouched.
I have all the EA stuff. I guess the sound is good, but I really don't hear the difference between one EQ and another; to me it was the UI (and for NeoD the plain functionality) that made the difference.
Victor.
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- Banned
- 22457 posts since 5 Sep, 2001
[DELETED]




