I have just the regular Neutron demo. I didn't think the Advanced features were worth the extra cost, in my case.
 
Cheers,
Eddie
 

Eddie, ol pal...after reading a bunch of your critiques on several many plugins...it is my totally un-objective observation that you need a newer and more powerful DAW with a much faster CPU and a ton more memory. Seems like every new plug you try is a CPU hog. And while that might be true, it might also be that your system is lacking in horsepower. Or is it?

Just curious...you are still one of the best folks on this here forum...so don't take that the wrong way, ol pal.

Interestingly, when comparing to Alloy2, Eddie writes:
"Disappointingly high CPU usage, at least on my system. Much higher than Alloy 2, with typical presets engaged."

The Grim
might be better to get the "music production bundle 2" upgrade if you qualify, you get Neutron Advanced, Ozone 7 Advanced, Nectar 2 Production Suite, VocalSynth, Trash 2 Expanded, RX Plug-in Pack, and Insight for $199 perhaps better at discounters. if you already have the original 'music production bundle and upgrade you nuetron advanced and the rx plugin pack and vocalsynth for $199 (or cheaper maybe) good deal, i already have 'music production bundle' and vocalsynth, going to do the upgrade and snag neutron adv and the rx plugin pack, then when a nother sale comes along with a good price to upgrade from the rx plugin pack to rx5 or rx5 adv . . . laughing

FYI for folks - I called JRRShop on this today, since one of the prereqs is "Ozone Advanced" but does not specify a version. iZotope's site made in sound like O7 Adv was the prereq, but makes little sense as O7 Adv is part of the deal. I left iZotope an email, but JRRShop told me "any Ozone Advanced qualifies as far as we know, since no number was given to us either."
 
Now that I have seen some of the videos, the "advanced" makes more sense due to the CPU usage (same concept for Ozone Advanced), but the masking feature looks so much like Fabfilter's Pro-Q 2 that it isn't funny. I am *assuming* it also has mid/side capability, but want to read the manual and trial it first. I only own N2 PS and Insight from the bundled items (2 of the 7) now, so this makes the "Neutron Advanced" version far more palatable.
 
The "FORUM" discount also seems to be valid for the above, so comes up at $177ish at checkout for the "Music Production Bundle 2."
 
Quick Edit: A search on the help file doesn't show mid/side capability in Neutron's EQ. Left me scratching my head a bit since it is part of the EQ for Ozone (so kinda moot in a way), but it does create additional steps to achieve the same functionality.

yorolpal
Eddie, ol pal...after reading a bunch of your critiques on several many plugins...it is my totally un-objective observation that you need a newer and more powerful DAW with a much faster CPU and a ton more memory. Seems like every new plug you try is a CPU hog. And while that might be true, it might also be that your system is lacking in horsepower. Or is it?

Heh heh! My system isn't the most powerful there is, but it is a fairly recent i7-based machine that can handle typical projects without a problem. However, putting CPU-eating plugs on many tracks will tend to choke it, so I have to watch out for that. 
 
There are actually a lot of plugins that are so efficient that I don't have to worry about the CPU hit at all. I mentioned Metric Halo and McDSP; others include many from FabFilter (esp. Pro-Q 2), Slate, and of course the "classic" Waves plugs. Nebula is also surprisingly efficient on my system - the original core plugin, not the newer VST-based "Aqua" products. Then there's UAD, which is a whole other thing. :-)
 
When a plugin performs as well as another while being more efficient, that's a major plus in my book. It's one less thing to worry about. My hat is off to those developers who can optimize their code to the point where resource usage isn't a concern for most users.
 
It is a little puzzling why Neutron is so much more hungry than Alloy on my system. CPU efficiency was one of the selling points, I thought. Well, iZotope plugs have never been known for light resource usage -- until recently, Ozone was my all-time champion CPU hog (that crown has now been taken by one of the newer Acustica Aqua plugs).
 
Cheers,
Eddie
 
 
 

read quite a bit from people on KVR:  http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=470703
 
sounds interesting to say the least.  They said they have had issues with Studio One, so my immediate concern is if someone has this running on SPLAT without issues.  Some also mentioned CPU usage, but some said they had no issue with it.  Special pricing is good till end of Oct so there's time to decide if I really need to add to my 400+ plugs?

Others seems to be having issues, but I am not so far. Just tested it out on a project with 8 instances of Neutron. This project included an instance of Omnisphere and one of Keyscape, so it was already a CPU hog. Increased buffer to 2048 and all was fine.
 
 
 
 

I picked up Neutron Advanced as part of the Music Production Bundle 2 upgrade from Music Production Bundle 1, which also got me VocalSynth.  I already had the RX Plug-in Pack, so that didn't add any value, and I'm not sure how much I'm likely to use VocalSynth, but I'm thinking Neutron Advanced *could* (see below) be worth the $199 upgrade price on its own based on what I saw in the detailed demo video at Sweetwater.com, so, if I find use for VocalSynth, that would just be a bonus.
 
I have to use "could" at this point, because Neutron has not been stable for me on my system with SONAR Platinum (latest -- i.e. September -- version yet).  I'm seeing two problems, both now reported to iZotope. 
 
The first is that quite frequently, when playing through Neutron, especially when changing settings or when using two instances of Neutron (i.e. on different tracks, for example to use the masking features with the symmetric EQ changes), I will hear a brief, very loud, blip that pegs the meters in SONAR and kills any further sound until after closing and reopening SONAR.  I have occasionally seen this issue in the past with other plugins that seem to have issues related to mono versus stereo interleave on tracks, though I haven't seen it in a long time now (PSP MixTreble 2 was one I used to see this on fairly frequently -- it really only liked stereo at that point).  In the course of playing with Neutron for an hour or so last night I saw this issue multiple times, and it basically made working with Neutron for an extended period impractical (i.e. on my system and the project I'm using, which is 64-bit audio engine and 44.1 kHz -- all softsynths except one vocal track, which was mono but set to stereo interleave).  Tonight I tried it on the same project, but with Neutron only on a single softsynth track (NI Massive) and got the same issue fairly early, just playing the track after having run the Track Analyst to get it to set the processing.
 
The second is that, after tonight's issue with the blip and killing SONAR's audio, I saved the project with Neutron still in it, hoping to preserve the settings it calculated to listen after reloading.  However, when I reloaded the project, SONAR crashed.  I tried it multiple times with the same result.  I even tried loading the project with the selective plugin loading, but, even before I got to the point where I'd have loaded or not loaded Neutron, SONAR crashed again.  I had to work around it by going back to a version of the project I'd saved prior to adding Neutron.
 
In the little bits of time I was playing with Neutron last night, mostly trying it on the vocal track, bypassing all other plugins I had on that track to see what it would do as the sole processing on the track (there were still sends to other aux effects and one effect on the mix bus), I did feel the job it did on the vocal from Track Analyst was respectable.  I didn't do enough of a side-by-side comparison with the other processing I'd had on the track to see if I'd have been likely to have ended up using Neutron or the chain I'd had on there, and it would almost certainly have depended on how things worked out with the rest of the mix, but, for what I had, Neutron's calculated processing sat fairly nicely in the mix.
 
The thing that really gets me excited about Neutron is the combination of Track Analyst (to calculate EQ and multiband nodes based on the content of the track plus its built-in "knowledge") and the masking indicator.  I'm decidedly not an EQ pro in the sense of hearing something and knowing where to set EQ.  I tend to use visual tools to help me figure that stuff out, but it can be pretty tedious once you get beyond a few tracks.  I'm hoping Neutron will be a major timesaver on that front, whether I can use was it does directly or just use it as a starting point.
 
Hopefully iZotope will be able to get to the bottom of the issue quickly.

In my case, using the VST3 version of the plugin fixed your first issue, which I was also having.

Thanks, I found the other thread on this afterward.  I thought I'd been using the VST3 version before, but it turns out I was not.  I did try that now, and it did seem to address that (though I haven't used it long enough to be 100% sure as the loud blip issue didn't always happen right away).  However, it did not fix the crash on loading the project after saving it. :(  I updated my message to iZotope.  I suspect that issue may be a conflict between plugins or something, though I am using plugins I've used quite a bit on that project.