KVR Audio

djmino02 · Post by **djmino02** » Sat Oct 15, 2016 2:43 pm

Are there any alternatives to Izotopes Neutron that are comparable to their Track Assistant?

djmino02 · Post by **djmino02** » Sat Oct 15, 2016 4:18 pm

Also, what is the difference between EQ Learn and Track Assistant?

soulone82 · Post by **soulone82** » Sat Oct 15, 2016 5:15 pm

EQ learn places the nodes without affecting their gains. Learn on the multiband modules (compressors, exciter) places the crossovers without doing anything else. A very powerful feature which I´ve used a lot in Ozone.

Track assistant on the other hand gives you a full, custom preset.

djmino02 · Post by **djmino02** » Sat Oct 15, 2016 11:03 pm

Oh I see.

ericzang · Post by **ericzang** » Sun Oct 16, 2016 11:14 am

TDR Slick EQ has a deresonate function, match pink noise, and auto hp/lp which places nodes and gain adjustment.

Melda has a crossover autoset limits button in multiband plugs.

soulone82 · Post by **soulone82** » Sun Oct 16, 2016 11:34 am

ericzang wrote:TDR Slick EQ has a deresonate function, match pink noise, and auto hp/lp which places nodes and gain adjustment.

Not the same as the Neutron EQ, sorry.

plexuss · Post by **plexuss** » Mon Oct 17, 2016 3:05 am

ACON Defilter is a pretty good auto-eq-balancing and is great for removing resonances.

djmino02 · Post by **djmino02** » Tue Oct 18, 2016 1:59 am

i got neutron but i'm not too impressed really. i'm just not an eq kinda guy i guess. i like to think that my mixes don't really need eq to begin with.

gaf_thit · Post by **gaf_thit** » Tue Oct 18, 2016 8:15 am

First let me just say that I don't have Neutron.
From what I've seen and read about it, isn't Melda MAutoDynamicEQ somewhat comparable?

From Melda's homepage:
"Analyze your track, select what you want it to sound like and let the plugin do the magic. It will set up the equalizer bands for you! Unlike traditional spectral matching, here you have no latency...
... No more resonances, so you can finally be really surgical. Dynamic filters can do common tasks such as de-essing, ducking, compression, expansion plus much more and the world of possibilities is far from being exhausted! With built-in flexible high-pass and low-pass filtering to speed up your mixing workflow."

garryknight · Post by **garryknight** » Tue Oct 18, 2016 11:58 am

Sounds like it's comparable to the EQ module in Neutron. But the latter also has two dynamic compressors, an exciter with a mix of four different types, a transient shaper, a limiter with two IRC types and a brickwall, plus the Neutrino spectral shaper built in. And then there's the Masking function and the Learn function on most modules.

You can read (and see) about all this here:
https://www.izotope.com/en/products/mix ... #&panel2-1

gaf_thit · Post by **gaf_thit** » Tue Oct 18, 2016 12:00 pm

garryknight wrote:Sounds like it's comparable to the EQ module in Neutron. But the latter also has two dynamic compressors, an exciter with a mix of four different types, a transient shaper, a limiter with two IRC types and a brickwall, plus the Neutrino spectral shaper built in. And then there's the Masking function and the Learn function on most modules.

You can read (and see) about all this here:
https://www.izotope.com/en/products/mix ... #&panel2-1

Thanks. Just let me put my GAS-mask on first...

FabienTDR · Post by **FabienTDR** » Tue Oct 18, 2016 7:04 pm

soulone82 wrote:
ericzang wrote:TDR Slick EQ has a deresonate function, match pink noise, and auto hp/lp which places nodes and gain adjustment.
Not the same as the Neutron EQ, sorry.

SlickEQ has been doing this stuff since a year:

- Match pink ("auto EQ")
- Set HP/LP according to signal bandwidth
- Find and reduce resonances
- Match with another reference curve or audio-file

All these independent of level and loudness, well tested and polished.

I'm interested to understand what exactly you are missing. I don't see much of a difference to be honest, but we can update fast in case we oversaw something. We'll extend the smart actions to Nova GE, too. Very very soon.

soulone82 · Post by **soulone82** » Tue Oct 18, 2016 7:38 pm

FabienTDR wrote: I'm interested to understand what exactly you are missing.

First of all I am a happy TDR customer who uses Nova and Slick EQ (GE and M) regularly.

All I wanted to point out is that Neutron does things that your EQs doesn´t.

1. Automatic placement of nodes where reasonable
2. Masking metering
3. Ability to display two EQs in one GUI
4. Ability to inverse link those two EQs

Dewdman42 · Post by **Dewdman42** » Tue Oct 18, 2016 8:52 pm

The thing that interests me most about Neutron is a simple little thing..but its the way you can load it on muliple tracks and have it figure out where frequency collisions are occurring, and then link the EQ from the two tracks so that as you boot frequencies on one, it cuts on another, etc.. I could care less about everything else in there. I'd like to try to figure out a way to do something like that with Logic Environment.

FabienTDR · Post by **FabienTDR** » Tue Oct 18, 2016 9:07 pm

Interesting, thank you soulone82.

We'll can certainly add a "de-resonate without gain" to cover 1). Deresonate already sets bands to zero dB if the resonances are considered irrelevant, but their freq values are now set to sensible values.

We planned adding crosslinking capabilities (plugin A vs B), but haven't found a reasonable mechanism yet. Inverse spectra don't sound like a sensible idea to me. These decisions greatly depend on the dynamic nature of the given channels. i.e., inverse linking only works for signals having very similar dynamics, similar harmonic balance and a similar stereo image.

Simple example, take a drum bus and the lead bus. Their spectral overlap is literally worthless if you ask me. They mix without a problem, and there is no better or worse balance between them. I'm doubtful about the real world effectiveness of the whole cross-linking aspect.

We'll extend towards dynamics aware smart actions with the next nova GE update, and maybe add a "Fit against reference" action doing some subtle inverse matching ("fitting" in my words).

But generally, I think that we're still far away from automated mixing, this is a too creative field for robots. Restoration, basic "pinking" and matching is reasonable, but mixing is best handled by plugin hosts and not plugins if you ask me. Cross-linking plugins is a very spaghetti, misplaced concept in my opinion

Neutron Comparables