Well, this thread here about using Nectar 3 in real time recording really sums it all! https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=542961
Thanks "Warped Effect" for bringing this to my attention! I couldn't agree more, wow! Especially what that guy said here...word to word! LOL...

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"Post Wed Dec 14, 2022 7:25 pm
Ohh had to remove track by track, plugin by plugin until I finally found it was Nectar 3 which caused this latency when recording vocals. Oh dear Izotope, please don't let any more users step in this trap!"
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Ok, and I thought i'm going crazy or doing something wrong, but no.
Nectar 3 is really not usable for real time recording, just post/mixing stage. That's good to know.

 

Last edited: Sep 6, 2023

Have you tested iZotope Nectar v4's latency / live recording ?, because iZotope Nectar v4 just got released on the sister site a few hours ago.

I would assume that iZotope Nectar v4 has the exact same bad or worse latency / live recording as iZotope Nectar v3 ?, lol.

I will gladly just stick with iZotope Nectar v2.04, if iZotope Nectar v4 still has bad latency / live recording.

 

Last edited: Sep 7, 2023

Nectar 4 looks pretty good and has individual plugins now, I think it can do Zero Latency now, most of the Ozone module works at zero latency, even when using transient/sustain splitting.

 

yea for sure not for live tracking unfortunately. i actually have to disengage it during tracking or it throws my pitch off lol. it doesn't work fast enough for some reason when tracking live so it's not able to really be used if your recording clients and just want them to have a bit of a confidence boost while they're at the mic tracking their vocals (i know some engineers like to do that). lucky for me though i'm only recording my own projects and am fine hearing them raw while i track my vocals. anteres autotune still reigns supreme for the live monitoring i believe.

 

i think the reasoning for this is that some genres that are very heavy on the vocal tuning and use it more as an effect than a corrective tool to be used sparingly, like/want to hear the effect when tracking their vox. mostly hip hop and other styles of music in that area. think t pain basically..

 

oh i get it. but from the mixers standpoint, i would still want the effects sent to the vocalist separately using a headphone mix, rather than directly injecting this into your nice clean dry vocal sound. there are so many parameters you can automate and tweak after the fact, but if you print the effect directly to the incoming audio; you will be sort of "double dipping" on the tuner or other "special" effects to add anything else later. there is really no removing those sorts of effects once they are on the recorded audio.

on top of that, adding latency from this type of plugin is not good for anyone. if your interface has external hardware based dsp options, you could do the reverb/delay, eq, compression, preamp, and program limiting like that with almost no latency at all. then maybe your tuner module is no longer so heavy on cpu. if it took 6 years to figure it out, i would try to find something else that i was good at. The Sistine chapel was painted in 4 years, by a guy hanging from the ceiling while upside down.

 

Michelangelo actually painted the Sistine Chapel whilst on his back, not hanging upside down...but I didn't give you a disagree because of it

 

Thanks for the update!
I'm actually on Mac, so I have to wait for an available version and test it. I do hope they fixed that problem in v4, but if not, yes, i'll be using v2 mostly.

 

Sure! I guess Waves Tune RT still works best for live recording, have very low latency.

 

By the way, if you guys choose to use Nectar for the "Harmony"(just that single feature/module, no other modules selected)

Where would you best place it on your vocal chain? Let's say you have just a pre-amp, EQ and comp on that vocal chain.

First on the list, last....what works best for you? any recommendation?

 

have you tried the Waves Harmony ? It's so easy to use, just browsing through preset and minor tweaks will give you something you never thought about. I havent fully tested the new Nectar on that, just played with it a bit, but it's not as easy as Waves Harmony IMO.

 

Thank you for bringing the Wave Harmony to my attention! You know I need to check, I may have an older version of Waves, and not sure if the Harmony plugin is already included there, not sure.

 

sure, totally agree with you. i was just saying that's the only reasoning i could imagine being for wanting to do so. it's definitely not a personal practice for me like i said in another reply as i'm fine hearing my raw vocal (and actually prefer it).

not sure if Michelangelo part was in reference to me but i also agree that if it takes 6 years to figure out the downsides and workarounds you should probably find another hobby/profession. but i can't really relate as it didn't take me anywhere near that long and not sure why you would think it did. you could've meant something totally different by that and i just missed it and if that's the case disregard lol

 

no, not at all. it was about the "magic versions" and "secret presets" which always seem to resurface in reference to old iZotope products. You'll see someone trying to install Ozone 2 in 2040 if a Jaycen Joshua video resurfaces on youtube. On a brand new 256 bit DAW.

 

I have watched multiple Waves Harmony videos, and it's very obvious by the sound quality, Waves Harmony doesn't use any "Real-Time Polyphonic AutoTune", so Waves Harmony has the same bad quality / fake sounding problems as every single other "Real-Time Vocal Harmonizer" VST on the market.

You won't find another "Real-Time Vocal Harmonizer" VST that can do an equal or better "Real-Time Harmony Vocal Effect" than zplane reTune and iZotope Nectar v2.04 Harmonizer chained together, because all of the other "Real-Time Vocal Harmonizer" VST's are missing the magic ingredients aka "Real-Time Polyphonic AutoTune".

I think the reason why no company has ever released a "Real-Time Vocal Harmonizer" VST with "Real-Time Polyphonic AutoTune", because the "Real-Time Polyphonic AutoTune" would introduce too much latency, or because "Real-Time Polyphonic AutoTune" is really difficult to do.

zplane reTune is the only VST on the market that does good "Real-Time Polyphonic AutoTune", and zplane reTune also does "Real-Time Polyphonic AutoTune" better than it's competition aka Zynaptiq Pitchmap, and Melodyne only does "Offline Polyphonic AutoTune".

I use both VST's chained together, because i use zplane reTune's "Real-Time Polyphonic AutoTune" for pitch correcting the "Real-Time Harmony Vocal Effect" from iZotope Nectar v2.04 Harmonizer, and zplane reTune makes the "Real-Time Harmony Vocal Effect" sound a lot better.

If you just use zplane reTune's "Real-Time Polyphonic AutoTune" by itself on a single voice, you won't get a "Real-Time Harmony Vocal Effect", because zplane reTune isn't a Harmonizer, it's just Polyphonic AutoTune.

All Monophonic AutoTune VST's sound like a disaster when they are used on multiple voices / choirs lol.

In simple terms:

Monophonic AutoTune = For pitch correcting a single voice.

Polyphonic AutoTune = For pitch correcting multiple voices / choirs.

iZotope Nectar v2.04 Harmonizer = Creates the harmonies / 4 different voices in Real-Time from your single voice.

zplane reTune = Pitch Corrects the harmonies / 4 different voices in Real-Time with Polyphonic AutoTune.

Listen to the below audio clip.

zplane reTune + iZotope Nectar v2.04 Harmonizer (Both VST's Chained Together) (Set to use 2 Harmony Voices)
https://vocaroo.com/gGAoyH6EPLl

 

Last edited: Sep 8, 2023

Thank you, yes, Nectar 2 Harmonizer is very good, not too many customization per voice I'd say, but it's still pretty good. The Voices on V4 looking interesting....

Still referring to my question above: Where would you prefer to insert an Harmonizer on a single voice chain? Just curios.

For me, still playing around with it, sometimes at the end sometimes on top.depends.

 

If you're using zplane reTune and iZotope Nectar v2.04 Harmonizer chained together, then you don't need anymore "harmony voice customization", because you can make the iZotope Nectar v2.04 harmony voices sound totally different / unique by changing the key & scale on zplane reTune.

You can use zplane reTune to change a song or voice into any key & scale with Polyphonic AutoTune in Real-Time, that's actually it's main strength, i have like 100 custom scales saved as presets lol.

That seems to be the advantage of using Polyphonic AutoTune instead of Monophonic AutoTune, because key & scale changes are more noticeable with zplane reTune's Polyphonic AutoTune.

I'll show you 4 different examples, here's my same voice recording using zplane reTune to change it into 4 different scales with Polyphonic AutoTune.

Notice how they all sound totally different from each other, and they probably wouldn't sound much different from each other if i used a Monophonic AutoTune VST like Antares AutoTune, because it uses Monophonic AutoTune.

zplane reTune Major C Scale (Polyphonic AutoTune)
https://vocaroo.com/1hPsOhOVh2Py

zplane reTune Balinese C Scale (Polyphonic AutoTune)
https://vocaroo.com/1eWttTJs18yj

zplane reTune Negative Harmony / Reverse Chromatic Scale (Polyphonic AutoTune)
https://vocaroo.com/12HCFvvk8OjM

zplane reTune (Making my voice sound like the MIDI notes from a "Vanessa Carlton - A Thousand Miles" MIDI File) (MIDI to Voice)
https://vocaroo.com/1nbbal7O1NzI

 

Last edited: Sep 8, 2023

Cool, thank you, I appreciate it! zplane reTune looks like a very useful tool,

 

Nectar on all my vocals but rarely use the reverb or delay, Waiting on Black Friday deal for Nectar 4