Recording - June 2017 - 26

iZotope
Neutron

Is the audio world ready
for a plug-in that actually
gives the engineer advice?
REVIEW BY DARWIN GROSSE

henever I get access to a new iZotope product,
I know that I'm in for an interesting ride. The
company generally pairs mind-altering
technology with super-informative user interfaces,
and oftentimes my recordings end up going new places
because of it. This is especially true in the case of Neutron,
iZotope's new channel strip plug-in. Neutron replaces the
now-legacy Alloy channel strip, but it also has something special
up its sleeve: it pairs a 'best-of' package of channel processors
with a bit of machine learning magic that can improve both
your mixes and your understanding of mixing techniques.
Neutron provides track analysis-and then takes it one
step further by offering advice about alterations to the track.
It is set up to work with frequency analysis, and looks for
points that need 'fixing' (through an analyzer called the
Track Assistant) and places where tracks collide (through a
system called the Masking Meter). In both cases, you can
take the plug-in's suggestion for a proposed fix, or you can
use it as a launch point for your own tweaks.

The channel strip...

None of this analysis will be very impressive if the channel
strip processors aren't up to snuff. Neutron starts with a killer
EQ sporting eight parametric bands, high- and low-shelf controls
and high- and lowpass filters. The channel's spectral display is
shown as the processor's background, so you can immediately
see the impact of your EQ settings-a function that is so natural
(and becoming more common) that it seems needlessly difficult to
work with an EQ that doesn't include it.
Following the EQ is a pair of multiband compressors,
complete with a 'Vintage Mode' that provides a nice bit of
edge-shaving, and a host of automated gain, release and cutoff settings that can handle many of the common compression
cases. Why two compressors? This has become a common
processing technique-and is especially useful when you are
compressing subgroups. In those cases, you can use the first
compressor for correction while the second acts as audio 'glue'.
It's nice having the pair available on a single channel strip.
Finally, the channel is rounded out with a multiband exciter
with up to three different bands that can be treated individually,
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RECORDING June 2017

and a multiband transient shaper that's especially useful for
smoothing harshness (or roughing up smoothness). They can
help with fine-tuning tracks and making sure you are getting the
best out of a recorded performance.
You can shuffle the processors into any order, allowing you
to tame your exciter with post-compression, brighten up a
Vintage-tinged compressor with EQ, or smooth a track's attack
or release prior to squashing it. There is ample room to
experiment, and loads of flexibility given the multiband
functionality of each processor. By the way, if you want to use
the channel strip elements as individual plug-ins, the Neutron
Advanced plug-in gives them to you, as well as support for up
to 7.1 surround processing.
There are also a few utility pieces to the channel strip,
including input and output volume levels, a multi-algorithm
limiter, and bypass controls. There is also a switch for "Zero
Latency" mode, which can reduce issues with plug-in delay.

...and beyond

The key additions to the Neutron system, however, are
managed by a few unassuming buttons. The first, simply labeled
'Learn', is a handy way to have the plug-in provide you with
some mixing help: it analyzes the playing track and figures out
which frequencies have the kind of activity that could be
managed by the currently focused processor. Once the signal
has been analyzed, it will take available nodes (active EQ
bands, compressor and exciter crossover points) and move them
into the most likely starting points. Since every processor in this
plug-in is multiband frequency-controlled, finding useful crossover
points is a great help in determining a starting point for our work.
The Track Assistant takes things a little further by analyzing
the audio, determining which processors are useful and turning
them on, setting up band/crossover frequencies for all the processors, then offering proposed settings to improve the track. The
aggressiveness of the settings, along with the desired results, are
selected from a pair of drop-down menus and a preset menu;
this gives you the ability to nudge the machine learning
algorithms in a direction you'd desire.
Finally, an exciting new option is provided by the 'Masking'
button, which allows you to pick any other channel using

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - June 2017