Our friends at iZotope have just revived the Nectar Elements name in a release of a new vocal processing plug-in called Nectar 3 Elements. This plug-in includes machine learning algorithms not too dissimilar to those found in iZotope's other products Ozone and Neutron. In this article we tell you everything you need to know about Nectar 3 Elements along with a test video and supporting audio examples.

What Is Nectar Elements?

Here is what iZotope have to say about the new Nectar Elements:

Nectar Elements uses six under-the-hood audio process and intuitive controls that intelligently combine compression, de-essing, tonal and subtractive EQ, pitch correction, and reverb.

With the new Vocal Assistant, iZotope's latest innovation in Machine Learning technology, Nectar Elements analyzes and adapts to any user's vocal sound and automatically chooses the optimal setting to get you started

Nectar Elements is designed to help take the guesswork out of vocal mixing by offering essential vocal processing combined with Machine Learning technology that can form-fit to any vocal, from rock to rap to spoken dialog.

Nectar Elements is universally useful from advanced engineers looking to save time to new users wanting to understand what makes a perfect vocal.

Main Features

• New Vocal Assitant

• Pitch: The fader scales how quickly the pitch correction is applied to the input signal. When set to zero no pitch correction is applied

• Clarity: The fader scales the amount of gain applied to the subtractive EQ bands learned by the Vocal Assistant

• De-ess: The fader scales the amount of sibilance removed

• Dynamics: The fader scales the amount of compression applied

• Tone: The fader scales the amount of tone applied

• Space: The fader adds a subtle amount of reverb

• Internal bypass

iZotope Nectar 3 Elements Vocal Assistant Test

Our Test - Audio Examples Of Nectar Elements

The before and after audio examples below were produced using only Nectar 3 Elements Vocal Assistant, there was no further tweaking of controls and the Pitch fader was set to 0. The results you hear in these examples were processed 100% by machine learning algorithms (no human intervention):

Our Verdict

It can be quite difficult to review plug-ins that are based on machine learning algorithms. The qualities of conventional non AI plug-ins lay in both user experience/operation of the UI and the results of the processing. AI Plug-ins, such as this latest version of Nectar 3 Elements, all do a lot of the heavy lifting for us in the background which disconnects us somewhat from the overall plug-in experience. The results of this new offering from iZotope though are quite impressive. 

I like that the output level is always made constant when fine adjusting the post Vocal Assistant controls, I like the subtleties that can be dialled in with the Tone and Space controls, but I'm not a fan of the Pitch control. From what I can tell the mode is set to Chromatic and the tuning timing feels a bit too snappy for my liking which is a bit of shame. 

At some point in the future, we'll get one of our Post Production Expert on the team to test this in Dialog mode to discover if Nectar 3 Elements is any good for voice over and spoken word mixing.

Price & Availability

Nectar Elements and an updated Elements Suite is available today and currently on offer until 31st July 2018.

• Nectar Elements:

  • $99 USD ( reg.129)

  • £87.00 (reg. £119.00)

  • €99.00 (reg. €129.00)

• Elements Suite:

  • $149 USD (reg.199)

  • £139.00 (reg. £179.00)

  • €149.00 (reg. €199.00)

Visit the iZotope website for more information and to download the demo