Izotope Plugin Bundle

[Arlyne Doepner]

Ihave re-installed my old Sound Forge 9.0c to an old laptop with the Izotope Mastering Effects Bundle everything works fine, but when I try to add the four Izotope plugins to a toolbar in the Customize Toolbars window they are not there. If anyone knows how to do this, or can tell me for certain it is not possible, I won't waste any more time searching through help files, Google etc which never seem to have the answers!!. I like to keep my essential tools, filters etc on the toolbar where I can get at them with one click, otherwise it means going to FX Favourites then Mastering Effects Bundle then Multiband Compressor, three clicks. I know Sound Forge 9 is a bit out of date, but if anyone remembers this problem it would be appreciated. I have Windows XP on an old Toshiba Laptop, Sound Forge 9.0c. Many thanks, David

Thanks very much for your help, it confirms what I suspected, it won't work because they are 'third party' plugins. But they were included with Sound Forge in the edition I bought, so perhaps they should have added them to the toolbar. Maybe the program was finished off before the decision was made to bundle in the plugins, but that could have been put right in the next version. Strangely the plugins do work with the Batch Converter, thankfully. Regards, David

Please keep in mind that Sound Forge Pro 9 is, as you state in your post, out of date. It's over 10 years old - and what's more it was released by Sound Forge Pro's former owner - Sony. 'Bonus' extras are just that - bonus extras provided by 3rd party plugin companies like iZotope. They are not integral to the Sound Forge Pro (SFP) program simply because those 'bonus extras' that come with programs like Sound Forge Pro change from time-to-time. iZotope plugins like Mastering Effects (which is a terrific bundle though only 32 bits) may have been an extra with Sound Forge Pro for a limited period of time (as is the case with 'extras' these days) but not for other periods of time during the product's release window. Differently named iZotope Mastering Effects plugins came with SFP 10 and 11.

From a recent post on this forum, it was noted that the current Ozone 9 Elements plugin does appear as an icon in the toolbar of Sound Forge Pro 15. But I can confirm that the now dated Mastering Effects does not appear as an icon in SFP15's toolbar but is still able to be selected as a VST plugin so long as the Program Files (x86) folder containing the Mastering Effects plugin has been selected in SFP via Options/Preferences/VST Effects (tab).

And with SFP15, the FX Favorites menu selection provides easier access to 3rd party plugins than was previously available in SFP14 and earlier via their clunky and user-unfriendly FX menu process. Perhaps give SFP15 a try via its trial version.

The iZotope (Direct X) Mastering Suite that was included with SFP-9 (and 10) was a separate installation, registration and activation through iZotope. I have the iZ Mastering Suite II installed on my Win 10 PC, and it works w/o issue in all 32 bit versions of SF and Vegas. It will not work in any 64 bit versions though. The SF-9 iZ Mastering Suite installer is not available from Magix or iZotope AFAIK. You may be able to find though in the SCS archives, You would still need the unique serial.

I am quite awful at the whole mixing and mastering thing, and that is why I am interested in these tools to get me started in a direction. I think I would not use half of these in the bundle, but the ones that appear to get you started in a direction for EQ, mixing, and mastering seem like they might be worth investing in.

FYI in case you missed it, the Ozone, Rx, Neutron, and Nectar here are Elements versions, i.e., basic versions. That said, Ozone assistant might help to suggest some setting if you are new. Could be useful to see what their "AI" thinks of your mix.

Logic comes with so much (too much even) stuff you won't run out of things to learn for years. The built in plug-ins in Logic are excellent and extremely efficient; You can literally run thousands on your M1.

My advice would be to use all the native stuff first and learn how Logic's EQs and compressors behave before thinking about upgrading/replacing them. You don't need much more than a bit of EQ and a tiny bit of compression to mix a track. Adding loads of fx is what always makes things go south for me. I always need to reign things in. But learning Logic inside out first helps me do that.

Iris and Trash in the isotope bundle won't be much of an upgrade over what's built it; For trash, you can load up the guitar pedal boards and amp sims and get much nicer distortion. For Iris, I would always turn to Alchemy first too.

I think you will get more out of learning about using Logic's busses so you can for example put all the drums on one bus, percussion on another, bass on another so you can balance the mix bit by bit and then if you need to bring down the drums, it's one fader (and you can put just a tiny touch of bus compression to help glue things together).

Seriously though, there's not much you can't do with Logic alone; Some EQs such as the fabfilter stuff might be nicer to use sometimes, but you seriously would be very hard pushed to tell the difference in a mix. If you try and use too many plug-ins you'll end up chasing your tail. Learning the basics first is a much better use of time I think.

Plugin boutique frequently features several of these plugins as their free with any purchase plugins. I have received Ozone, Neutron, Nectar, Imager 2, Vinyl and Iris 2 all for free from these monthly giveaways, all since April. I would wait.

@Lil_Stu07 said:

Plugin boutique frequently features several of these plugins as their free with any purchase plugins. I have received Ozone, Neutron, Nectar, Imager 2, Vinyl and Iris 2 all for free from these monthly giveaways, all since April. I would wait.

So I have owned most Izotope plugs for years-presently 10 advanced, Neutron 4 adv, Nectar 4 adv and RX advanced- plus others. I cruise youtube often to watch and listen to videos about recording. also have quite a few waves plugs and many others.

FabFilter strives to produce user-friendly workhorse plugins you can use all over your mix. The Pro range, for instance, covers a majority of mixing/mastering needs, including EQ, compression, limiting, multiband compression, and reverb. The Total Bundle is a fantastic all-around kit you can use on every one of your mixes.

it does seem odd to compare niche tools like RX and Ozone with FabFilter - and i guess even the Nectar tools are generally a different mindset as opposed simply using discrete FabFilter EQ, Compression, and Reverb tools. i don't use Nectar often as it's simply too much stuff to deal with (same for some of the Slate presets - too much sometimes) if i need simple (like one or two things). but for complex sets of effects, it is handy in those rare cases where a number of layers of tweaking are needed. the RX and Ozone tools are (imho) very much focused on what they should be doing - fixes and mastering.

If you're comparing oranges to oranges, that is, an EQ or compressor made by FabFilter vs. ones made by iZotope, then it won't be a question of which one sounds "better," it'll be more a question of which one allows the user to do the job quickly and with a good understanding of what it's doing.

iZotope's (excellent sounding) processors mostly come bundled with other processors to make up suites like Ozone, oriented toward mastering, Neutron, oriented toward mixing, Nectar, oriented toward vocal processing, RX, oriented toward dialog cleanup and similar tasks. To my knowledge, you can't buy a license for just a compressor from iZotope. You'll get your compressor, but it will come as part of Ozone or Neutron or Nectar.

That, to me, is the big difference. I understand the appeal of both approaches. I have a license for iZotope's Music Production Suite that includes the latest versions of their stuff including Neutron, Ozone, Nectar and RX. I have no FabFilter, but I do have a license for MeldaProduction's MComplete bundle. Melda's approach is more like FabFilter's, where each plug-in stands alone, except for the one plug-in they have that allows you to use any of their other ones as a module.

The difference I see is that iZotope wants to help you get industry-standard results quick with the help of automatic analysis. FabFilter wants to sell you top notch tools that you can use in any way you wish. No guidance, results dependent on your skill level, ears, and taste.

At my house, MeldaProduction gets used way more often, hands down. I usually have an ideal sound in mind to start with, and I know how to set up processors to (I hope) get that sound. Most of the time. Sometimes I struggle to get the sound that I'm hearing in my mind.

That is an unfair assessment. My knowledge of the "standard processing tools", may not be as great as yours but I am not an idiot. I don't see Izotope RUINING my mixes. Your mileage obviously is different.

I really only asked about Fabfilter since so many videos use them as the tools when explaining recording etc. I also did the trial of the Fabfilter reverb and I did like that.

I understand the MAIN difference between the 2, AI versus do it yourself type process.

the FF products are very nice and when using discrete effects vs channel effects or other combined effects - are one of my first choices. just got the R-2 a few days ago but have not used it yet but i like some of the new controls (or the idea of them ? ) so i bought it. have a few mixes coming up which will use a fair amount of reverb effects so i'll be trying it out.

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