iZotope has released the latest version of its flagship mixing suite, Neutron 5, bringing three new plugins and a host of upgrades and enhancements to this already-powerful collection of intelligent audio tools.
The headline improvement in Neutron 5 is the addition of three new modules that give you a total of ten plugins overall: Clipper, Density and Phase. Neutron 5's new Clipper plugin helps you tame peaks and maximize headroom with the help of an intuitive interface and visualizer that displays the clipping happening in real-time.
Equipped with three separate clippers that can be applied independently across individual, adjustable frequency bands, the flexible Clipper module also lets you target mid and side portions of the signal and focus its processing on transients or sustained elements independently. Every module in Neutron now has a mid/side mode, and many have been kitted out with transient/sustain modes, too.
Clipper is joined by Density, an upward compressor that's designed to bring presence and detail to your audio by levelling out dynamics, and Phase, an intelligent assistant for identifying and addressing phase issues in your mix. Equipped with two specialized tools, Phase can tackle asymmetrical waveforms using phase rotation and align two out-of-phase signals with its phase delay adjustment.
One of the main selling points of Neutron is its AI-powered assistive features, which include an intelligent Mix Assistant that analyses your mix and applies corrective processing automatically. In developing Neutron 5, iZotope has made this assistant "faster and smarter", re-jigging its Assistant View to give you a more convenient overview of the five plugins it works with, equipped with easy-to-use macro controls.
Neutron 5 also brings delta monitoring to the mixing suite, enabling you to solo the processed elements of any signal to hear exactly what's being changed in your mix.
Available now in VST3/AU/AAX formats for macOS and Windows, Neutron 5 is priced at an introductory price of $174.30, but the MSRP is $249.
