Recording - September 2010 - 52

iZotope Alloy
when initiated) or in multiband (affect only the selected frequency band when initiated). Controls are provided for attack and release and for threshold. One cool feature is the ability to solo the affected band to hear the specific results of the De-Essing process.

an extremely intuitive software tool. If iZotope’s intention was to produce a great sounding, extremely efficient channel strip that melds much of the power of Ozone with tracking and mixing, then they have succeeded on all counts.

Conclusion First, these modules sound fantastic. Does Alloy attempt to nail specific circuit emulations with as fine a detail as some of the ultra-high-end channel strips that are available? Well, no—Alloy is supposed to sound like Alloy, with its own blend of character and sounds, Limitless Phase and iZotope doesn’t claim otherwise. This final Alloy module contains a But I would sum the quality issue up this Limiter and Phase Adjustment tools. The way: Alloy sounds just as good as any limiter is elegant. Threshold (in dB) and Figure 3: Reordering modules in Graph mode other channel strip I have used in most Release (in ms) can be adjusted along with module can be inserted. The flexibility instances, and with the proper adjustment, a control for limiting margin, which controls and power in this Macro screen imple- sometimes better. Where I noted a differeither the absolute amplitude at which the mentation is enormous. ence, Alloy is definitely close enough so as signal will be squashed (brickwall mode) or to not cause complaint. In the maybe 2% of In use gradually attenuated (soft mode). situations where I couldn’t get exactly what For most users Alloy will be as good as I wanted out of Alloy, I would probably The Phase Tools allow for phase rotation (which is often used in speech pro- what they put into it. iZotope has provid- resort to a standalone effect I liked rather cessing) and inversion (which will oper- ed the user with an exceptional library of than another channel strip plug-in. ate independently for each channel) for more than 200 presets that will be sure to The most mind-boggling thing I found stereo source material. A DC Offset filter get the novice started. about Alloy is just how CPU-friendly it is. I found that the presets make the perfect On my main DAW (a 3.9 GHz 4-core is also available. starting point for minor excursions into the hyperthreaded i7 machine with 12 GB of Graphically speaking fine-tuning of Alloy to suit a specific task. RAM), adding Alloy to each track of a 32Taken as a whole, the modules that Once you learn to get around Alloy and track mix, using many modules on each comprise Alloy are extremely flexible. especially its preset editor, creating new instantiation, barely made a 7% dent in Adding to that flexibility is the fact that the and even more useful presets becomes a my overall CPU usage. By any measuring processing order of the modules can be fun enterprise in and of itself. The PDF help system this is absolutely outstanding. changed so that any module can occur anywhere in the chain, using the Graph function shown in Figure 3. Note in the Figure that the Exciter module is in the process of being moved from its default position and is about to be dropped into the space between the Phase Tools and Limiter modules. Clearly, iZotope had its thinking cap on when they designed this interface. Mucho Macro On an analog mixing console, all ‘modules’ of the channel strip are physically present for each track. Clearly, it would be impossible to include all of the controls of all of the modules in Alloy on one screen. iZotope reached what might be the ideal compromise in allowing control of multiple modules from one screen, the Macro screen. Figure 4 depicts a Macro screen I created that employs Alloy’s Equalizer, Exciter, De-Esser and Limiter. The figure shows the controls available at the Macro level. Macro screens can be programmed for any preset. They can be created by using quadrants, which allows up to four modules to be represented in the Macro, or as a freeform screen where any control from any

Figure 4: A user-created Macro screen document supplied with Alloy is informaAlloy continues the iZotope tradition of tive as well as instructional. high-quality audio processing at a very I’ve been using Alloy for several months. competitive price; as cool as Ozone is for I also have quite a bit of experience with mastering, it can sit out for the mix, thanks several other channel strip packages that I to Alloy. Download it and try it free for ten own, a couple of which cost more than days, and hear for yourself what I’ve been twice Alloy’s list price. I found Alloy to be enjoying in my mixes.

Price: $249 ($225 street) • More from: iZotope, www.izotope.com. John Rossi III (john3@recordingmag.com) is a recording engineer and musician in Naples, FL.
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Recording - September 2010

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