(see rating details)

Verified Customer zZounds has verified that this reviewer made a purchase from us.

The price tag may look steep for this bundle, but after using this software for a while (I had access through a subscription for a time), I can confidently say that it's worth the price tag. Every plugin in this bundle has its place. And honestly, you can do a full mix and master using nothing but the iZotope Production Suite. Everything you need is already in here.The real value from these plugins, in my opinion, comes from their AI technology. It very intelligently suggests changes based on your existing audio, and I have never run into a situation where I have not needed to do anything beyond minor tweaking of iZotope's suggested parameters.Everything in here is gold, but I want to call attention to three products in this bundle that are especially useful.Ozone 9 Advanced - You can do all of your mastering in this plugin. EQ, Bus compression, Low end balancing, EQ Matching, Harmonic excitement, Maximizing, it's all there. In the new version, you can even audition codecs so you can hear exactly what your mix will sound like when you bounce it to a lossy format such as mp3. Then you have the mastering assistant, which will analyze your audio and make suggestions based on its findings. You can tweak these suggestions or even remove them entirely, so you are not locked into whatever it suggests for you. If anything, it's good to use as a kind of "sanity checker," to make sure your mix isn't way off the mark.Nectar 3 Plus - It's like Ozone, but for vocals. And like Ozone, everything you need for vocal processing is here in one plugin. Compression, EQ, tuning, de-essing, etc. You also have a vocal assistant, same as Ozone, where your vocals are analyzed and it makes suggestions for you. I have yet to be steered wrong by this, and have only had to make small adjustments to get the vocals mix-ready.RX 8 Standard - This piece of software is just a miracle. If you load a lossless audio file into it, you have several options to repair or manipulate the audio, and it actually works! If you have a metronome bleeding into a vocal track, you can easily remove it using RX. Pops and clicks? Same deal. If you want to extract vocals from a full instrumental mix, you can do that too. That's just the tip of the iceberg. The options and possibilities are several.It's worth mentioning that there is a bit of a learning curve. I would not describe this suite as a bundle that a beginner can just slap on their mix and call it finished. It does require some mixing knowledge to understand, and you do need to make sure you have good source audio, good gain staging, and basically all the best practices to get the best results. As much as I like to call these plugins "magic," it isn't literally that, and does require some work to get them to work well for you.As a minor critique, the authorization process is kind of a pain. You are given three different serial numbers in the "box" (which is just a small cardboard sleeve), and they are redeemed/activated in different places. Then you have to download and authorize through iLok, and I wouldn't call the authorization process seamless. However, once you get it working, you never have to worry about it again.