The iZotope brand is synonymous with quality digital mastering, with the company’s Ozone 4 plug-in being one of the best finalisers we’ve ever come across. Many users also found Ozone to be a potent mixing tool, too, albeit a heavy-handed one. With this in mind, iZotope have come up with Alloy, a dedicated Ozone-esque ‘channel strip’ that’s geared towards everyday mixing. In detail The first module is an eight-band EQ with spectral analyser overlay. Filter types available per band are: bell, high/low shelf, and high- and low-pass, in normal and steep varieties. Aside from the steep filters, the EQ is much like using Ozone’s EQ in Analog mode – it’s nothing special, but it’ll cover the majority of EQ tasks. Next up is the Exciter, which is a dedicated saturation stage. You get Drive and Mix sliders, plus an X/Y pad with which to select a saturation style or blend thereof: smack in the centre is Tube, while going clockwise from top right we have Transistor, Tape, Warm and Bright. The overall effect can be subtle (we particularly liked it on basslines), though you can push it into overdrive by using the module’s input slider. There’s a simple stereo Width slider, too. Like the Transient and Dynamics sections, the Exciter can work in multiband mode, with up to three bands and adjustable crossover points. Thus, you can apply different saturation styles to each band, or drive the mid-range harder, etc. Moving along, we come to the Transient module, which can independently process the attack and sustain levels in a signal. Adjusting the attack works quite well, but the sustain portion can sound artificial and ‘forced’ – the transition from attack to sustain can be too obvious. It’s more useful in multiband mode – eg, to reduce low-end sustain on a kick drum to cure any rumble, enhancing the upper mid-range snap of the snare, or accenting elements of mixed loops. “Alloy is a dedicated Ozone-esque ‘channel strip’ that’s geared towards everyday mixing.” Far more impressive are the Dynamics modules – there are two of them, each containing a gate/expander and compressor. With minimal settings on the former, you get upward expansion, which makes sounds below the threshold louder – higher settings tend towards gating. Very fast attack and release times are possible (0.01ms and 1ms respectively), and you have a choice of Digital or Vintage styles, the former being just like Ozone’s compression, and the latter giving a more lively response. Another option not in Ozone is Alloy’s Soft Knee mode – one thing we’re glad to see carried over is the RMS detection option, which is great for levelling signals without causing pumping (you can always catch errant peaks with the second Dynamics stage or Limiter). You can also run the stages in parallel, for parallel compression. (3 pages; go to page: 2 3 )