Is iZotope Plasma just hype?

[GTsongwriter]

I haven't seen anyone take a contrary stance against iZotope for this peculiar creation. It's almost as if they are subtly referencing the 'Flux Capacitor' from Back to the Future.

 

According to my email, I have one week to decide to take it for $39 instead of $49.

 

I put it on one of my mastered songs and just using the presets, I couldn't tell that it was doing much of an enhancement from what I've already finalized. 

I can only guess it would be more useful during the production of the song rather than the mastered, unless your mastered versions aren't already saturated.  I'm already using saturation on my master, so I'm guess using iZotope Plasma doesn't do much good for it.

Edited September 20 by GTsongwriter

[Royal Yaksman]

It really isn't a matter of the plugins sounding good or not anymore, as most plugins, even dirt-cheap ones these days are pretty decent sound quality wise. But yes, I think we have seen ample evidence that we are firmly in the era of amorphous marketing speak to describe what is otherwise a relatively bog-standard plugin, that has a teaming miasma of comparable products already available from an equally teaming miasma of competitors. To blame is the faulty idea of developers that they can just pump out a never-ending cavalcade of plugins, presets, sound packs, etc. Half of this idea was always firmly relying on non-musicians, and they nearly achieved it. The tools provided got simple enough to utilize that people with relatively none-to-little experience could produce/release music. The problem is the hoards of these non-musicians/non-producers attempting to moonlight as producers was always going to fail, because their sole motivation is clicks, likes, and $. Once they find themselves either relatively or completely devoid of all three of those categories? Like all of those cheap beginner guitars bought by those who plan to learn guitar, only to play it for 2 months, realize how far away from even being considered basically competent they are, and leaving it in the shed to gather dust. The other half this idea was catering to was of course actual musicians, who did indulge on many unnecessary purchases simply because they were cheap. This later category is still going, but the rate of consumption is dropping off. ie. how many "Cutting down my plugins" videos or posts have you seen everywhere.

The endless GAS tide has started to turn. I have never seen so many comments by musicians asking why they would need that plugin. Never seen so many large releases of plugs, sample packs, instruments, etc. that get only moderate interest and response. Never seen so many people turn heavily skeptical eyes upon once lauded companies. Compound this with the gazillion AI based start-ups that are inevitably going to flood an already flooded market. Combined with the hoards of moonlighters falling away and the billions of competitor developers all racing each other to the bottom of the price barrel, IMO we are likely to see a contraction of this industry. But the developers are not going to go down without a fight. And it would appear that the method of fighting many of them seem to have chosen is smoke 'n mirrors, mysticism, and in some instances straight-up lying about their products.

But yeah, for sure, magical saturation beyond our comprehension is totally a thing! 🤪

[bitflipper]

"Saturation" is one of those words that has been abused and misused for so long that it no longer has any real meaning beyond whatever magical properties the Marketing department has decided to imbue it with.

As self-defense against BS claims, it would behoove everyone to read up on the history of the term and understand its actual definition. It comes from magnetics and refers to a magnetized substance reaching a point where it cannot take on any more magnetization - iow, the medium has become magnetically "saturated". When you push magnetic tape hard, beyond the range in which its response is linear, you begin to approach saturation. This results in non-linear compression due to the tape gradually becoming less responsive to higher frequencies as you push it harder. And of course a side-effect of compression is harmonic distortion, which in this case is also nonlinear.

Hence the modern definition of "saturation" has come to mean nonlinear harmonic distortion. Except that nowadays even that definition has been watered down to just mean "harmonic distortion". And there are a gazillion ways to create harmonic distortion. What Plasma does is apply distortion to specific frequencies. FabFilter's Saturn does this. Meldaproduction's MDistortionMB does it, too. iZotope's own Exciter plugin does it. Any of these will give you more control than any automated distortion effect could possibly achieve.

Plasma's purported contribution is the application of "AI" (an even more abused term and universal red flag) to determine which frequency bands it thinks will benefit most from distortion. Distorting specific elements is a valid approach, potentially much better than just distorting everything. A little distortion on a lead vocal can make it pop out of the mix. Drum distortion can make it sound more percussive. Distorted basses throw more energy into the higher harmonics that can be more easily reproduced on small speakers. But such techniques are not new, and they are most effective when validated by ear.

So is Plasma snake oil? I don't think so, given that what it does is valid. Is it a waste of money? Absolutely.