Giveaway - iZotope Insight 2 Freebie

[Arda Demir]

Giveaway - iZotope Insight 2

https://www.pluginboutique.com/product/2-Effects/25-Spectral-Analysis/16306-Insight-2-2025-Freebie

(valid until Dec 31) 

[Peter Berenford]

Thanks, I have got it. 

[Nitrate Audio]

thanks. picked up.

[MusicMan]

Great freebie! 

Its pretty comprehensive and can measure a bunch of stuff. One of the more useful giveaways from iZotope.

[mettelus]

+1, this is worth a bump, since as far as freebies go, this one has probably the most utility across the board for everyone. Bottom line for this one is even if you do not think you will use or have a need for it, get it anyway. Although it is included with some iZotope bundles, the regular, stand-alone price is $199, which is rather steep. Insight 1/2 have gotten a lot of use from me over the years, and seeing it land as a freebie is a pleasant surprise.

For those unfamiliar with Insight 2, it is a metering plugin with quite a few display options and other capabilities. With the introduction of iZotope Relay (included with Insight 2), you are also able to tweak tracks that Relay is enabled on (can add Relay to any tracks you wish) from within another iZotope app (i.e., Insight 2). The track awareness that Relay provides is something that is not common amongst VST vendors (what adds value to iZotope's products). Below is the feature update video from Insight 2's release in 2018, but there are numerous videos online now that delve into the guts of Insight 2 with more detail on specific usage.

 

[Starship Krupa]

17 hours ago, MusicMan said:

Its pretty comprehensive and can measure a bunch of stuff. One of the more useful giveaways from iZotope.

I have it because Music Production Studio and never fired it up until seeing all these endorsements by people whose opinions I trust.

It seems to provide much in the way of analysis, but it also induces much in the way of latency, 49mS to be exact. It also spikes up to about 9% "audio processing" in Sonar, not sure exactly what that means but it has something to do with the load it puts on Sonar's audio engine, and compared to other plug-ins it's high. For a metering plug-in it's nuts, even for iZotope.

I took a brief sweep through my plug-in collection to see if I could find something NOT made by iZotope (and not a linear phase EQ) that read more than 9% and the only ones so far that did were Unfiltered Audio BYOME with 7 of its modules active, sonible proximityEQ+, and Motion Fractal. Which doesn't seem unreasonable given how much number crunching those are doing. Freakshow Industries Dumpster Fire had about the same impact (if you've never tried Dumpster Fire on a full mix, where is your sense of adventure?).

After seeing this, I compared it to APU Spectrum Analyzer, MStereoScope, MLoudnessAnalyzer, MTM LEVELS, Voxengo SPAN, HoRNet StereoView and LUMeter, TBProAudio dpMeter5, and T-RackS 6 Metering. To get an idea of what to expect from an analysis plug-in.

Only APU Spectrum Analyzer induced any latency at all at 30mS. That sucker's going right into the dustbin. SPAN uses FFT too and doesn't have to induce a slap delay to do it.

LEVELS (max 3.5%), Metering (max 2%), LUMeter (max 2.5%), MLoudnessAnalyzer (max 4%), APU Spectrum Analyzer (max 2%), and dpMeter 5 (max 3%) were the biggest engine "hogs," with SPAN, StereoView, MAnalyzer, MMultiAnalyzer, and MStereoScope never making it to 1%. (WTF is MLoudnessAnalyzer's problem?)

LEVELS measures stereo field and loudness/peak/dynamic range and has a "bass space" feature that checks for overlaps down in the boomies. TR6 Metering has VU meters, loudness meter, phase scope, spectrogram, and spectrum analyzer all running at once. MMultiAnalyzer has spectrum analyzer, sonogram, collision checking, loudness, stereo, and an oscilloscope.

Both LUMeter and MMultiAnalyzer support grouping via inter-plug-in communication.

If Insight 2 needs 49mS of latency to do some metering, I better wake up to it cooking breakfast wearing nothing but one of my shirts.

[Pat Osterday]

@Starship Krupa Thanks for reminding me about LEVELS - I keep forgetting to check that out from snagging it when it was a freebie! 

Been using T-RackS Metering for the longest time but do fire up Insight 2 (from when I was in the MPS world) sometimes or use Logic's metering.

[MusicMan]

5 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

I have it because Music Production Studio and never fired it up until seeing all these endorsements by people whose opinions I trust.

It seems to provide much in the way of analysis, but it also induces much in the way of latency, 49mS to be exact. It also spikes up to about 9% "audio processing" in Sonar, not sure exactly what that means but it has something to do with the load it puts on Sonar's audio engine, and compared to other plug-ins it's high. For a metering plug-in it's nuts, even for iZotope.

I took a brief sweep through my plug-in collection to see if I could find something NOT made by iZotope (and not a linear phase EQ) that read more than 9% and the only ones so far that did were Unfiltered Audio BYOME with 7 of its modules active, sonible proximityEQ+, and Motion Fractal. Which doesn't seem unreasonable given how much number crunching those are doing. Freakshow Industries Dumpster Fire had about the same impact (if you've never tried Dumpster Fire on a full mix, where is your sense of adventure?).

After seeing this, I compared it to APU Spectrum Analyzer, MStereoScope, MLoudnessAnalyzer, MTM LEVELS, Voxengo SPAN, HoRNet StereoView and LUMeter, TBProAudio dpMeter5, and T-RackS 6 Metering. To get an idea of what to expect from an analysis plug-in.

Only APU Spectrum Analyzer induced any latency at all at 30mS. That sucker's going right into the dustbin. SPAN uses FFT too and doesn't have to induce a slap delay to do it.

LEVELS (max 3.5%), Metering (max 2%), LUMeter (max 2.5%), MLoudnessAnalyzer (max 4%), APU Spectrum Analyzer (max 2%), and dpMeter 5 (max 3%) were the biggest engine "hogs," with SPAN, StereoView, MAnalyzer, MMultiAnalyzer, and MStereoScope never making it to 1%. (WTF is MLoudnessAnalyzer's problem?)

LEVELS measures stereo field and loudness/peak/dynamic range and has a "bass space" feature that checks for overlaps down in the boomies. TR6 Metering has VU meters, loudness meter, phase scope, spectrogram, and spectrum analyzer all running at once. MMultiAnalyzer has spectrum analyzer, sonogram, collision checking, loudness, stereo, and an oscilloscope.

Both LUMeter and MMultiAnalyzer support grouping via inter-plug-in communication.

If Insight 2 needs 49mS of latency to do some metering, I better wake up to it cooking breakfast wearing nothing but one of my shirts.

That's pretty strange.

0ms latency on Cubase Pro 14 for me and I opened up 16 instances of it on the stereo buss on a project and no noticeable impact to CPU.

In saying that, I almost never have these types of plugins open during the production stage, apart from maybe a few spot checks during that stage. In mixing, or mastering latency is somewhat a moot point.

I can't recall any of the other meters having an intelligibility meter for vocals and the relay function is a little more unique too. But I also love the convenience of clicking at the top and seeing all of the meters, or simply just having one visible at a time.

FYI tested 16 instances with zero latency at 64 sample buffer at 48KHz. I'm sure I could've added a bunch more, but I only had 16 slots on that buss and I couldn't be bothered changing the routing and adding another 16 in series! Haha..

Edited 8 hours ago by MusicMan

[Pat Osterday]

3 minutes ago, MusicMan said:

That's pretty strange.

0ms latency on Cubase Pro 14 for me and I opened up 16 instances of it on the stereo buss on a project and no noticeable impact to CPU.

In saying that, I almost never have these types of plugins open during the production stage, apart from maybe a few spot checks during that stage. In mixing, or mastering latency is somewhat a moot point.

I can't recall any of the other meters having an intelligibility meter for vocals and the relay function is a little more unique too. But I also love the convenience of clicking at the top and seeing all of the meters, or simply just having one visible at a time.

FYI tested 16 instances with zero latency at 64 sample buffer at 48KHz. I'm sure I could've added a bunch more, but I only had 16 slots on that buss and I couldn't be bothered changing the routing and adding another 16 in series! Haha..

I definitely need to check this out.  I never knew about the "intelligibility" meter. Dang, I really need to spend more time with the tools I have! 🤦‍♂️

[MusicMan]

3 minutes ago, Pat Osterday said:

I definitely need to check this out.  I never knew about the "intelligibility" meter. Dang, I really need to spend more time with the tools I have! 🤦‍♂️

That's half the reason I love this deals forum. Heaps of it is about prices and deals of course, but you also learn a bunch from the discussions about everything on here. If you buy, (or get something free) and even if you decide not to, there's a lot of knowledgeable people with all different perspectives. I've learnt a LOT from people on here!

And yes, most of us could spend more time with the tools we have, but time will pass anyway, so we're probably going to end up knowing all of the favorite ones very well anyway!

[Eusebio Rufian-Zilbermann]

Levels generally goes into every project I make, although sometimes I wonder if tweaking settings countless times until I get levels to not show any red is really worth it when my ears cannot tell the difference (I always hope that it is pointing me to qualities that others can hear even when I cannot).

If CPU/Latency is a concern, Expose 2 covers similar functionality but it is run offline (on the resulting wav or mp3 instead of in the DAW). It is probably a more reliable workflow because it doesn't suffer from the "previous playback" problem that Dynamic Range metering has (if you play the track multiple times, some of the measurement from the previous playthrough "leaks" into the current playthrough, unless you remember that you need to use the reset button).

[mettelus]

Also bear in mind that this is a mixing/mastering plugin, so latency isn't paramount (with iZotope's latest versions, a lot of things in the mixing bucket have more latency than prior versions). One thing Cakewalk has never been elegant with is shifting between tracking and mixing modes (especially by plugin), and some plugins are definitely not intended to be used in tracking mode. Seems there are always posts with people complaining about latency when their DAW is set for tracking and they are at the mixing stage.

[Starship Krupa]

2 hours ago, mettelus said:

this is a mixing/mastering plugin, so latency isn't paramount

I'm more concerned about the resource usage, which IS important at the mix/master stage when the mixing plug-ins start piling up. The comment about waking up to it cooking breakfast was for comedic effect.

It looks like MMultiAnalyzer is most similar as far as features, although the different meters aren't simultaneously front-facing.

I picked up MPS during the Schroedinger's Upgrade glitch a couple of years back and I'm kind of surprised how little I've used it. I don't regret spending the money, having such a powerful set of tools ready to go is comforting. But iZotope's plug-ins are such HOGS that I find myself not reaching for them. It's not so much an issue on my main DAW system, but when I copy a project to my laptop, I need all the resources I can get.

Gotta ask Noel what those numbers really signify. I can't find it in the documentation.

[Carl Ewing]

Have an iPad / tablet? Old phones? Use Decibel. Add it as an insert on the master bus - projects to mobile device (I use an old 10" iPad).  No more opening / closing metering. Non-stop dedicated metering display (RMS, LUFS, phase, spectragraph, etc.)

https://process.audio/en/products/decibel

Acts exactly like TC Electronic Clarity M hardware, with way more customizability. One of the best purchases I ever made.

Edited 8 minutes ago by Carl Ewing