Assistants - Neutron 3 Help Documentation

May 2024 · 12 minute read

Overview

Neutron includes two Assistant features aimed at intelligently and efficiently establishing a starting point for your mix or individual tracks, freeing you up to focus on creative mixing decisions. Choose either Mix Assistant or Track Assistant as starting points for your mixing session. We highly encourage using Track Assistant and Mix Assistant in your workflow to help you setup your mixing session.

Accessing An Assistant

Using the Assistants at the right time in your mix workflow is important so that you can get the most out of each assistant. In the Neutron 3 mothership, you can access either Assistant through the Mix Assistant button.

You will be given two choices:

  • Choosing Balance option will bring up Mix Assistant.
  • Choosing Track Enhance option will bring up Track Assistant.
  • TIP: Use Mix Assistant first for the best results

    We suggest for you to use Mix Assistant before using Track Assistant since Mix Assistant helps you set up your session levels. Mix Assistant will provide you the most accurate results when you begin with a new, untouched session.

    NOTE: Can't use Track Assistant and Mix Assistant at the same time

    You cannot use Track Assistant and Mix Assistant simultaneously. However, neither of the Assistants will overwrite the other.

    Mix Assistant

    Neutron’s Mix Assistant helps you set up your mix, balancing the level of each element around your desired focus of the mix.

    Automatically set static level in all the tracks with Neutron 3 Advanced mothership, Neutron 3 components, and Relay. For best possible results, use Mix Assistant after you’ve imported raw stems (tracks) into a new session. We have two recommended workflows:

    NOTE: Don't Touch Your Faders

    Before you run Mix Assistant, check that the DAW faders are set to unity gain, i.e. don’t touch your DAW faders. The less you have set up, the easier it is for Mix Assistant to help you.

    Mothership Workflow

    In this workflow, the goal is to start your mix.

  • Import all tracks needed for your session. The more tracks you include, the more useful Mix Assistant will be for you.
  • Insert Relay as the first plugin on each track.
  • Insert the Neutron mothership on any track you want.
  • Click the Mix Assistant button. Select Balance and begin using Mix Assistant!
  • Visual Mixer Workflow

    In this workflow, if you want Visual Mixer (exclusively) to set all your pans and faders, make sure to put Relay in the last insert on your tracks.

  • Import all tracks needed for your session. The more tracks you include, the more time Mix Assistant will save you!
  • Add Visual Mixer on your master bus. Know that Visual Mixer does not process audio, it just needs to know at least that there is activity occuring.
  • Click on the Mix Assistant button in Visual Mixer and begin using Mix Assistant.
  • Mix Assistant Stages

    Interacting with Mix Assistant involves the following stages:

  • Setup
  • Waiting
  • Listening
  • Audition and Adjust
  • Accept
  • In each stage, you need to perform an action that will help Mix Assistant provide you the most accurate results.

    NOTE: Choose One Plug-in Per Audio Source

    Use buses or individual tracks but don’t use both. While Mix Assistant can work on buses and individual tracks, you only need to exclusively use EITHER buses or individual tracks. If you have Neutron 3 Advanced and Relay all on the same track, you should only select ONE of these to represent the track.

    TIP: Not Getting The Results You Want?

    1. SETUP

    Select the tracks that are the focus of your mix and those that you want to include. Then, click Begin Listening.

    This view lists all of the compatible iZotope plug-ins in your session. Make sure every track you want to include is represented and only included once. Do NOT play music during this stage!

    NOTE: Select at Least One Track for Focus

    You need to pick at least one focus of your mix. You cannot proceed to the next stage until you have done this. The focus is one instrument that you feel is the most important aspect of your mix. Many tracks can be the focus of your mix, for example, if there are two lead vocal tracks. However, if everything is the focus, then your Mix Assistant will not yield great results.

    2. WAITING

    Place the playhead at the beginning of your arrangement. Then, start the transport for the Assistant to begin listening.

    Mix Assistant can’t do anything without listening to your music. So, make sure you play your audio from where your audio starts wherever you want Mix Assistant to begin listening.

    NOTE: Mix Assistant Will Not Listen To Already Playing Transport

    If your transport is playing when you enter the Listening page, Mix Assistant will not begin listening automatically. You need to stop your audio and start the transport at the beginning of the song for best results. If using a large session, there may be a slight delay, try to start, rewind, and restart again.

    3. LISTENING

    When you reach the end of your session, click Go To Results to proceed to the results. If you don’t, Mix Assistant will never stop listening.

    Mix Assistant listens to the overall level of each audio source and categorizes each instrument into groups.

    4. AUDITION AND ADJUST

    Now that Mix Assistant has listened and has categorized your audio, you can now:

    Group Sliders

    Adjust the Group Sliders to your preference and audition the differences.

    What are the Group Sliders?

    The group sliders are created as a result of Mix Assistant listening to your audio. Mix Assistant gathers up all the information it has learned about your music and it sub-mixes these into the groups.

    Mix Assistant determines a target level for the following groups:

    Each group has an associated, adjustable level slider. The slider itself represents the overall gain differences of the groups relative to each other. When you adjust these sliders, you are making gain changes relative to Mix Assistant’s initial target level suggestion.

    Mix Assistant will try to apply gain adjustment to each track within that group so that their combined levels achieve the target mix level set by the Group Slider.

    The range of adjustment is +/- 12 dB for the Group Sliders.

    TIP: Adjust Group Sliders to Taste

    If you don’t like the way your mix sounds with the group sliders at their starting positions, they are not final–you can always experiment until you get the right level balance for your song.

    Group Slider Behavior

    Group Sliders will be disabled if there is no content recognized for that group. If all your audio sources are selected as the Focus, then only one slider (Focus slider) will be available. With that, any audio source that’s NOT used or classified is disabled.

    Bypass Assistant

    This button will disable the sliders and allow you to listen to your session pre-Mix Assistant suggestions.

    Gain matching: when you’re auditioning Mix Assistant’s results, the unprocessed mix will be gain matched to the processed mix. By gain matching, you can better discern the differences in balance.

    TIP: The Overall Level May Sound Quieter

    To avoid clipping, we try to turn things down when trying to go for an overall mix, so the levels that Mix Assistant suggests may be lower than the original levels.

    Edit

    Edit which tracks are categorized for each Group by clicking on the “Edit Classifications” button in the lower right-hand corner. You can adjust the tracks in focus or reclassify the tracks. Mix Assistant adjusts the Groups to reflect your categorization decisions.

    NOTE: MIX ASSISTANT'S EDIT PLUG-IN LIST

    Any plug-ins that you did not select in the Setup stage will not appear in Mix Assistant’s Edit plug-in list. Also, you cannot add any plug-ins to that list. Additionally, if you add another track with one of the associated iZotope IPC plug-ins while Mix Assistant was in the Learning stage, it will not show up in the Edit track list.

    5. ACCEPT

    When you’re happy with the level balance of your mix, click Accept and your level settings will be applied to each source plugin using iZotope’s Inter-plugin Communication Technology (IPC).

    TIP: View Output Gain Adjustments in Visual Mixer

    You can see the adjustments made to the output gain sliders in every affected plug-in as shown in the results list. These changes are easiest to view in Visual Mixer component plug-in.

    NOTE: Once You Close Out, You Can't Access Group Sliders

    Once you close out of Mix Assistant, you cannot go back to the same screen to make group level changes. To make any Group Level changes, you will have to restart Mix Assistant from the beginning. Mix Assistant will re-learn everything unless you have overwritten a class which we will not alter.

    Track Assistant

    A handy customizable assistive tool that offers an intelligent starting point for an individual track, not the whole mix. Trained through machine learning, Track Assistant listens carefully to individual tracks and provides unique suggestions by dialing in different parameters within Neutron. You can then adjust Neutron 3 modules to your artistic taste.

    Track Assistant works on one track at a time and is not aware of the track’s context to your session. To use Track Assistant in your workflow:

  • Insert a Neutron 3 mothership instance on a channel (track) that you want to apply Track Assistant to.
  • Open the Neutron 3 mothership instance on one track and click on Track Assistant button.
  • Choose the instrument, style and intensity for Track Assistant. You can also allow Neutron to figure out what your instrument is by choosing Auto-detect from the instrument’s dropdown menu.
  • After you set Track Assistant, click Next.
  • Hit the play button in your DAW, and Track Assistant will begin processing your audio.
  • Check out the starting point Track Assistant suggested for you.
  • Hit Accept to apply the results to your session!
  • NOTE: TRACK ASSISTANT PROCESSING TIME

    When you use Track Assistant, it requires anywhere between 4 to 10 seconds of audio playback and analysis before it makes a decision on which settings to adjust. Neutron is inaccessible during Track Assistant processing.

    Track Assistant Settings

    Adjusting the Track Assistant settings gives a baseline for Track Assistant to help you find a starting point relative to your artistic vision. These settings affect parameters such as the amount of processing, the number of bands being processed, compression ratios, etc.

    SettingDescription
    INSTRUMENTIdentifies the instrument classification which affects Track Assistant’s resulting parameter values and the default Sculptor mode. If you do not see your instrument listed, use either:Other: None of the above (e.g. Synths, Didgeridoo, Vuvuzela).Auto-Detect: let the Track Assistant auto-detect your instrument class.
    STYLESuggests the aesthetic result that you might want to achieve. Balanced: Provides general-purpose processing for a well-rounded sound. Warm (open): Slightly emphasizes the bass in the instrument for a more pleasant sound.Upfront (midrange): Emphasizes the midrange frequencies of the instrument for more presence.
    INTENSITYSuggests the amount of processing you’re willing to allow Neutron to perform in order to get to the Style result you want.Low (subtle): Not a lot of processing added. Just a hint of adjustment to meet the Style. Medium: Moderate amount of processing added. Noticable change in bringing out that instrument. High (aggressive): Heavy amount of processing added to bring the instrument into focus.

    TIP: EXPLORE TRACK ASSISTANT SETTINGS

    Play around with the different Track Assistant Settings if Track Assistant isn’t quite understanding what you’re looking for. Between Style and Intensity settings, there are 9 different combinations that influence the Track Assistant suggestions. With each combination, there are 6 presets—one per audio ID type. Thus, there’s a total of 54 unique and varied suggestions.

    Track Assistant Processing

    Track Assistant will process the audio based on the information gained from the settings and the incoming audio. Track Assistant will process this information in the following order:

  • Track Assistant identifies your audio based on its instrument category.
  • Track Assistant uses the audio identification to determine a signal flow preset (order of modules).
  • Track Assistant determines a preset for how many bands each multiband capable module will have (minimum of one, maximum of three).
  • End Result: A unique preset including adjustments made to the signal flow, EQ curve, Compressor, Sculptor, and Exciter.

    Track Assistant Effects on Modules

    For each enabled multiband module, Track Assistant will place band crossover points depending on your audio. The most transparent crossover points are determined using a few criteria, including minima in the spectrum.

    ModuleTrack Assistant Adjustments
    EqualizerDetermines a basic starting curve by enabling and placing filter nodes at optimal shelf points and at energy peaks throughout the spectrum. The filter node placement results in small boosts, cuts, static or dynamic behavior, or bell or shelving filter choices depending on your audio. Track Assistant places nodes at areas of interest already present in the signal.
    ExciterUses Exciter presets to determine per-band Exciter parameters such as Tube/Tape/ Warm/Retro on the X/Y pad, and Dry/Wet Blend. Sets the Drive amount relative to the intensity of the input signal.
    Compressor (x2)For each enabled Compressor band, Track Assistant chooses thresholds dynamically based on an LKFS signal level analysis. This allows you to spend less time finding the sweet spot, and more time to make artistic decisions on the compressor effects.
    SculptorMoved to first position of signal chain and sets a target curve based on your instrument selection in the main Track Assistant options page.
    GateRemoved from the signal chain.
    Transient ShaperBypassed.

    INFO: HELP MAKE TRACK ASSISTANT BETTER!

    If Track Assistant misidentifies your audio file, please send it to iZotope via Customer Care.

    Neutron 3.9.0

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