Izotope Nectar ELements - waht say ya'll?

[Gravity Jim]

Just got an e-mail promoting Izotope's Nectar Elements, a vocal processing plugin that uses a suite of processors to produce "genre specific" vocal sounds. Lots of presets that present a starting point for producing specific kinds of vocal treatments commonly heard in radio genres and beyond.

One segment of my clientele is ad people, who frequently ask me to use a specific sound or pop genre as a starting point, and this - for a lousy $129 - looks like it might be a time-saver.

But I have no experience with Izotope. How's the general sound of their plug-ins? How's tech support? Whattya think about this one?

I will take your input seriously before deciding whether or not to pull the string on the credit card.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

I looked at it and the automated stuff concerns me. I don't always remove all breath, for example, and would have to demo the software to be sure about it. I get the feeling I'd end up editing just as much as usual anyway.

I'd put the $$$ into a good noise reduction package.

[Gravity Jim]

Well, good noise reduction I've got. And I do prefer to deal with breaths on a one-by-one basis, except in VO tracks, where we usually end up cutting them all.

But that's not my interest. I'm kind of attracted to the idea of something that lets me plug in one of a dozen "alt rock" vocal presets, with the amount of compression, delay, 'verb, doubling, etc, that one wold usually find in that genre, grab one that's close and then dial it in, for example.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

I don't record vocal music so that's not a feature but it could be a big time saver if you do a lot of projects that need it and $130 is not all that much.

Then again, it would seem you're only going to be using their processing and again, how good are those processors if the whole thing costs relatively little?

[Gravity Jim]

Exactly. That's my primary concern.

I dunno. I've got the usual complement of "way too many" plugs, and I'm in the market for some nice preamps....

[mhschmieder]

It's a Time $aver, and version 2 is a big step forward in that I might even get away with leaving it on a vocal track in final production. But during mock-ups and initial review, I am quickly able to get a good vocal production in place without much effort, and then use this as a template when I replace with individual plug-ins. The new presets aren't as over the top as the old ones either, on the whole, so it takes less time to adjust them from defaults.

I don't know the relationship of Elements to full edition or if it's one of those two add-on patch libraries I have for the main product. I'm just reviewing the base product, and I also make use of the extra patches. I work in a lot of genres, some of which I have less experience with than others, so Nectar is also a learning tool for me when it comes to approaching unfamiliar genres and getting an idea of how they get produced.

[mhschmieder]

Aha, no wonder I hadn't heard of it; it's a brand new product, just announced:

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/new-prod ... ments.html

iZotope is one of a gazillion vendors whose email lists I am on for nought. I don't have time to hunt through thousands of spam-identified emails on a regular basis to find the occasional accidental mislabeling of non-spam, as I can ONLY do that in browser email since Apple Mail won't download emails identified as spam. Maybe that's where all my iZotope email winds up.

At any rate, this indeed looks to be a lower price point version of Nectar, to entice more buyers. I haven't the time to investigate in what ways it is dumbed down from Nectar, but I think the macro sliders available in most if not all iZotope products are incredibly useful and that having fine-level control won't be a loss, given that this tool will mostly see use at non-final production stages.

[mikehalloran]

Nectar is a time saver but I only ever seem to use it on female vocalists. It's not an essential for me like Ozone 5 and Alloy 2.

If I was doing a lot of pop music or commercials, I might use it more.

Izotope makes some excellent tools. Besides the above, I use RX 2 and watch it work miracles when restoring old audio from dubious sources. I recently mastered a CD that I restored from a 20 year old cassette copiy of a lost cassette master. I did it for fun to get to know the software. My friends were amazed by the result as was I.

One thing nice is that there are tons of demo and instructional videos on YouTube from Izotope and users.

[wylie1]

It's a Time $aver, and version 2 is a big step forward in that I might even get away with leaving it on a vocal track in final production. But during mock-ups and initial review, I am quickly able to get a good vocal production in place without much effort, and then use this as a template when I replace with individual plug-ins.

Time saver is the key I like the way Izotope builds multiple effect into one plug.
This plug has payed for its self already in time alone I like it.

[Tobor]

Looks like it's basically Nectar without the advanced level tweaking features. I enjoy using Nektar and it comes in handy for quickly dialing in a certain vocal approach or even just using one of the modules for color or de-essing, for example. I don't think it sounds quite as nice as Waves CLA Vocals, another 'all in one', but those two plugs are a couple of my favorites out of all I own.

My suggestions to iZotope recently included being able to access presets on the individual modules ala Ozone and Alloy- it's a bit of a pain to have to adjust the input and output once you've set those levels every time you audition a new preset.

I'm sure you'll find it well worth 129 but you may want to wait until the full version goes on sale- I picked mine up for 199 a little more than a year ago during a sale.

[Gravity Jim]

Thanks, everyone, for the helpful responses. It does look like it would pay for itself in a couple of sessions, and it's cheap, so I may go for it. On the other hand, I am shopping for a mid-range two-channel tube mic pre right now (something in the 2K neighborhood), and I may just stop buying plug-ins for a while in favor of that.

In fact, that's a new thread....

[mikehalloran]

I haven't checked to see if Nectar runs 64bit in DP8. OK, just checked and it does.

If buying today, I'd go with the Elements since the presets are all I ever use from it..

[mhschmieder]

I'd agree on Mike's point. Nectar is mostly a pre-production tool to make vocals listenable during the mock-up stage. It's not usually worth putting a lot of time into tweaking the presets other than maybe wet/dry percentages.

In most if not all cases, you'll want more control at final production stages, using individual plug-ins. For instance, the de-esser isn't very good but can be used in moderation to at least be better than nothing (or than most non-high-end dedicated de-essers). The reverb is over-the-top even at low levels. But if you pull it way down, it can be a time-saver and more appropriate than Altiverb as usually algorithm reverbs are used on vocals vs. convolution type reverbs.

It's the other part of the signal path that are the strength of Nectar, and that contribute the most to saving time during pre-production.

[mhschmieder]

Nectar 2 has been announced for October 2013 release. Not many details yet:

http://www.izotope.com/products/audio/nectar2/

[Dwetmaster]

Just saw this as well. Wondering how it'll stand against Nectar1.

I think the upgrade price will determine if I upgrade or not.