So Neutron Standard is among the Izotope plugins I have now. Today I discovered something very interesting.

In February, as some of you know, I participated in February Album writing month and spent hardly any time on mixing, just did really quick writes, with a lot of one-take everything and fast mixes. On the master bus I had one tool (IK Multimedia's "One" plugin which is pretty cool) so there would be at least something. I.e., it did the trick for the time-being.

Today, I decided to take one of the "master stems" from one of the tunes that has a really tricky instrumentation (sonically) and some hard sounds to master, like piano.

I took that stem and ran it through NOTHING but Neutron 3 Standard and chose mastering assistant. In other words, no Ozone 9, no nothing, and I have Ozone 9.

The results to me in terms of overall balance, tone and warmth, of especially the bass and piano and the positioning of instruments (or frequencies rather) was astonishing.

I saw that what I had done with just the "One" plugin was not actually "bad" and not far off--that I did not need an overhaul or a heavy-handed preset loaded with effects.

I just needed some balance. I feel I could actually go with this new master just using Neutron and I would be quite happy.

That was a real eye-opener for me.

Also, never in a million years could I have made the mixing decisions and EQ decisions along the way that Neutron made after the fact.

However, I think because I spent at least some time "getting it close" that Neutron was able to "take it from there."

Anyway, this was interesting to me and I will study it more.

David Snyder
Songwriter/Renaissance Man
Studio + Fingers

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