After saving up I finally got the iZotope Studio Bundle which includes the recently released Nectar 2.

And coincidently Groove 3 presently has a sale, and tutorials for this stuff is extra affordable right now.

I'm amazed at how good things sound with just simple experimentation.

Alloy 2, which is included, is fantastic. Everything I've tried with it sounds better.

I'm just starting on the Groove 3 Alloy 2 tutorial and the guy that made it has done a great job.

This bundle is great!

The bundle is going to be my Xmas present to myself.  as well as the Groove3 yearly subscription.
 
I just have to wait a bit longer for funding it all.
 
glad to hear someone likes.

I think I'm going to view the tools in this bundle as the secret sauce to a mix.  I have plenty of great tools, including the ones included with Sonar X3 Producer.  This bundle enables extra magic.
 
 

mettelus was just asking about Nectar 2.

My comment on Nectar 2 is although I'm new to it I'm super excited about it and simple experiments are proving really satisfying.

There's a detailed tutorial on Nectar 2 available for sale through iZotope and the guy who did it really goes through the settings quite in detail - and there are more settings than I expected that allow some really nice refinement for the results such as on the harmonies. The tutorial is really worth it. One thing I was glad to discover is that the harmonies can be soloed by themselves, so you can have the main vocal on its own track and the harmonies for it on another track (if the track was copied for example).

The package itself, especially the bundle, is one of the most important things I've added on top of Sonar X3.

I'm still tingling with appreciation for what Alloy 2 does.

Thanks for the re-direct, I have only had Nectar Elements for 2 days and it is packing a significant "wow" factor with it. This is the first Izotope plug-in I have ever owned, and I will check out their site for sure now.

This is not an advertisement, but between iZotope Nectar 2.0 and Melodyne Essentials which came bundled with X3c, I really like that overall vocals processing suite package better than AutoTune 7 and Evo which I had purchased earlier, unfortunately.  I just de-installed AutoTune, as they wanted $250 bucks from me to continue in the 7.5 upgrade pathway.... nuh uhhhh.....the product is simply not good enough to continue to shell out money for it, simply because they changed the version number. The chorus, pitch and throat mods in AutoTune sound too mechanical and digital, and really the honey sweet tone of the vocals in iZotope's Nectar 2.0 presets just cannot be matched by anything in the AutoTune package.  This is much like the Waves Diamond/Nuclear/Ultra Bundle baloney - average performance, superior price.  Not worth it.
 
The Nectar 2.0/Melodyne set of software is cost effective, more intuitive, flexible and with a higher quality of vocal sound/effects and overall ease of integration.
 
:)

From the videos I have seen so far, the pitch editor from Nectar 2 (Production Suite) looks easier to use than the one in Melodyne, but the display "appears" pretty much identical. I will have to grab the trial version next week after the holiday is over and check it out. I have not used rewire before, so need to understand the functionality and work flow with that feature.

mettelus - I see both Melodyne and Nectar 2 as having some overlap (obviously) but each have separate strengths and I think both are definitely worth having if a budget can swing it. Fortunately Sonar X3 comes with Melodyne Essential already, and Melodyne had an incredible upgrade price to Editor.

I just grabbed this bundle after spending the trial period stress-testing all that I could with it. I had actually taken a project where I was rebuilding a song from scratch and pulled all effects off them and saved with a new name. To test it on a piece I knew well, I threw Nectar 2 on the vocals, Alloy 2 on the other tracks, and Ozone 5 on the master. No other effects, and was very impressive with what is "just there."

Yep - I'm more than satisfied, I'm really glad I have these tools and what they do to help make things sound great. The presets are really in depth for each as well.