Dobyjoo writes: Quote: Should not the sidechain assignment for a dynamic eq band be through neutron masking assignment? The only way I can get this to work is by creating a external bus in protools as a send from the track I’m using to trigger the gain reduction, and in that case it doesn’t seem that the external band I selected within neutron is being used? I’m using neutron 2 with protools 10 :Unquote Dobyjoo writes: Quote: Should not the sidechain assignment for a dynamic eq band be through neutron masking assignment? The only way I can get this to work is by creating a external bus in protools as a send from the track I’m using to trigger the gain reduction, and in that case it doesn’t seem that the external band I selected within neutron is being used? I’m using neutron 2 with protools 10 :Unquote Hi Dobyjoo - This function has changed slightly in Neutron 3 (which is what I have on my system currently), but AFAIR the routing should be the same in N2.. You have to have an instance of Neutron, Neutron EQ, or Relay on the source track to have it appear in the masking-track selector in Neutron. You'd select the track that's causing the masking and decide which track you want to apply EQ to, the track you're on or the masking track (in the video I applied it to the other track, the one causing the masking, which is what you'd normally do), and if you were using a static EQ that's all you'd need to do -- just dial up the desired EQ settings. You shouldn't have to do any sidechain routing in Pro Tools for that to work. If you're using dynamic EQ and you're EQing the masking track, then that's when you'd need to set Sidechain routing in Pro Tools. But you'd enable the Sidechain input on the masking track, not the track that's being masked, and the track that's being masked is the one that would have to send to a bus to be used as the sidechain input on the masking track, not the other way around. Go through the video very slowly from around 4:50 on, and take note of the TIP, which should help explain the sidechain routing for the example being shown (remember in that example the masking track is the guitar and the track being masked -- the one you're setting up the masking meter in -- is the vocal track.. I've created a thread from this post over in the MPV iZotope Forum -- please direct any followup questions there..

Hi Joe, Is it possible to see this video? :) Thanks!

It's video #10 in the course attached at the top of this thread -- just click on More Info, it'll take you right to the course page..

Joe, scrap my last question please. I am watching a preview and this is top shelf presentation and you're super clear, so you have my money. I have a different question. Super general again: Is it, in general, a bad idea to send dry backing vocals to a Low Pass or High Pass buss, just to get some more subtle separation between the doubled parts that will be panned left vs right, BEFORE EQing the vocals fully on a subsequent buss? I guess I could even boil it down to - is it a bad idea, in general, to apply all of Neutron's magic to a track AFTER it's been touched by a standalone instance of Neutron's EQ to either high pass or low pass? Is there any rule of "full treatment should come before HPF or LPF" or could it be done in either order? Thanks!

*I deleted the post I asked you to ignore. I don't want to take up more of your reading time than necessary. Basically I was asking questions about your course that your preview fully answered for me and I really dig your presentation style. I will be a customer when I'm done this preview vid!

Hi - Hmm, seems to be a terminology thing.. I'm not sure what you mean by "a Low Pass or High Pass buss"..? Or, for that matter "more subtle separation between the doubled parts that will be panned left vs right, BEFORE EQing the vocals fully on a subsequent buss" or "full treatment should come before HPF or LPF"..? Maybe you can clarify..

Thanks Joe, my vagueness is only matched by your clarity, lol. So I am planning to send half of my dry backing vocals to a buss that has a high pass filter on it and nothing else, and the other half to a buss that has only a low pass filter on it and nothing else. I'm doing this to add more separation between the vocals which I'll eventually pan right and vocals which I'll pan left. I'm thinking, knowing as little as I do, that this will help the panned vocals take up their own space and sound distinct. I record every harmony vocal twice, as doubled parts. So let's say I just recorded a tenor harmony, I'll re-record a double of that exact part to pan one left and pan one right. Now I'm thinking if I put one through a high pass filter and the other through a low pass filter, that will help the separation I'm trying to achieve by panning them opposite. After that I'm planning to send them both to a buss that has full Neutron on it and use one of the presets for vocal harmonies and tinker with it a bit. So in this case the signal from the backing vocal goes to a high pass filter and it's opposite goes to a low pass filter and only after that do they both get processed by Neutron more fully. Is it a bad idea to put Neutron after a high pass filter or should I only ever put a high pass filter after Neutron? Newbie question, sorry. Btw, I watched the first ("intro") module of your course and I'm stoked to take in the whole course tonight with copious amounts of note taking (that's just how I learn best). I'm really excited about it, believe it or not, lol. I've been watching random YouTube vids to try to get a portion of what I'm sure you're going to logically explore in a much more balanced manner in your course.

Ok, so it sounds like you're using filtering to kind of stereoize the vocal parts.. I guess the order you run the effects in would ultimately depend on how strong the filtering is, and what other processing you're doing. I've never done that with filters, so I can't be more specific, though there are stereoizing processors (like the Stereo Spread plug-in in Logic) that break up the signal into opposite frequency bands in the left & right to add width to signals -- I guess what you're doing is kind of similar to that..?. In general, the question "which comes first, EQ or compression" has been around forever, and the answer has always been "it depends" -- which basically means there is no hard & fast rule on the order of processing, it's always dependent on the specific audio & the specific processing being applied. I would think, though, that if you're using the automatic Assistants in Neutron, then maybe it might make some sense to run that before any other processing to see what it comes up with on the original signal..?

Great info Joe, thanks. I will look into these stereoizing plugins as that might be a better way to accomplish what I’m trying to do. And yes, that’s what I’m trying to do – help break up the two stereo signals into opposite frequencies somewhat and I guess adding width would be a bonus I had not considered (I figured I could just adjust the width in visual mixer but hadn’t given it more thought than that) My problem arises in that I want some of the instruments I pan left to be compressed along with some of the instruments I pan right. For example I have a part that is played in one register by a keyboard, and played in a higher register by a synth. - I want the two to be compressed together to give them a little cohesion to separate them from the other two parts playing at the same time in similar enough registers. - I then want them, after sharing compression, to go to either a high pass and low pass filter respectively OR maybe a stereoizing plug in to separate them into opposite frequencies - I can’t see a way to have an output from one buss (the buss that runs the compression on both parts) to split up and be sent separately to two different pass filters or two different stereoizer channels (I’m not sure how these stereoizing plugins work yet) I’m wondering, if I have 2 parts that I want to compress together for cohesion but which I ALSO want to filter or stereoize into opposite frequencies for stereo effect – what would be the best way you can think of to accomplish both of these tasks? One task seems to be summing in a sense and one seems to be separating in a different sense. Any thoughts? I’ve thought of: - Solution 1: sending to a buss with compression and ALSO sending to two opposite pass filters or stereoizer channels in PARALLEL - Solution 2: sending them to opposite pass filters or stereoizer channels first and THEN sending the low passed and high passed signals (or opposite stereoized signals) to one buss with compression Are either of these obviously more problematic than the other? I know we’re deep in “which comes first” territory again, lol. If I should just try both and see what works best I’ll happily do that. If one is obviously better or less problematic than the other please tell me. And if you have a third suggestion please let me know! Thanks so much for your time. I took in your Neutron course last night and it's definitely broadened my horizons and planted some new ideas in my head. Very clear and concise and I didn’t have to take notes because it was pretty intuitive stuff once it’s clearly explained. Good course – thanks!

And I'm seeing the stereoizer plugins are for widening stereo tracks and wouldn't work with my two mono instruments per se. I may still get the waves one to put on the master buss as a final plugin just to widen it, but I guess I will have to rely on my plots and schemes for getting more separation between two separate mono instruments that have been (or will be) compressed together.