iZotope / Trash feedback

Hello,

My first post here. - I was trying to send NI some feedback about Trash, but there is no way of doing this (the support contact page is not really fit for purpose to give feedback. No suitable option to select or place to write general feedback that is not reporting an issue)

I am hoping the NI / Izotope check these forums...

I have been a user of Trash 2 for some time and still use it. On the minus side, it is a complicated tool with many options spread over a number of screens. On the plus side, it is very versatile and has a huge range. The kind of tool to reach to when you want 'something more' than distortion, need a very fine control over what you are doing or just looking to experiment creatively. - So I was very excited to try out the new Trash.

On a few areas though, I was a bit disappointed. Not so much because the tool is not good, but because there were some missed opportunities of making it 1000x better with some relatively small enhancements.

• Firstly, the name.... - One does not go from "Trash 2" to "Trash". Version numbers are supposed to go upwards and the convention is that if there is no version number, then it is version 1. If "Trash 3" did not seem a good name, then "Trash 2024" or "Trash X" would have been a good choice.
• In terms of modulation. I like the envelope follower and I think that is a great addition to pretty much any plugin. However, I do not understand why you would chose to only have that and have no LFO. Addition of 1 LFO would make a huge difference. 2 would be ideal (as explained further below).
• No option to modulate the blend of IRs. There is an option to modulate the mix of waveshapers and I expected that to be duplicated on the IR section. Seemed logical. I had to read the manual 3 times to reassure myself I had not missed it somehow. Nope. It is not there.
• Modulating IRs with the existing envelope follower could give a range of effects, in particular, gated reverbs and swelling reverbs would be easy to create. But, combined with LFO modulation, it would be possible to use the IR section with long IRs to create long, evolving otherworldly soundscapes. - From the coding perspective, I do not think this would be a huge task, so I hope they bring it in the next version.
• The biggest issue I experienced, where it really interferes with effective use of the plugin, is that the distortion curves in the Trash module do not all have the same scale. When trying to blend between 2 curves (lets call them A and B), you want the middle point between the curves to represent 50% of the sound of each distortion curve. But if the amplitude of curve A is much greater than B, the middle point will still sound like A and nothing will happen to the sound until you are very close to 100% B. This is confusing and means that you can't just swap a curve for another when tweaking a preset, you may actually have to change the mix % to achieve the same actual blend between the two curves. That is bad enough if you are working with only 2 curves. Trash uses 4 distortion curves and controls the blend between them on a XY pad. Because of the difference in scale, this means replacing 1 of the curves most likely will change the balance between all curves, which makes changes to the sound that are difficult to predict and to control. - I would almost call this one an operational 'bug' as it makes the plugin behave in ways that are difficult for the users to understand and almost impossible to control.

Right. That is my 2 cents worth.

I still like the plugin although I am finding it difficult to control in some instances due to the last point I mentioned. Looks like Izotope/NI have aimed to simplify the plugin while still leaving it very powerful. This, to me, emphasizes the need to fix the curve scale issue, as that makes the current plugin difficult to control and that seems to be contrary to the direction NI/Izotope wanted to go with this new version.

While I m at it, I trow another request - can we have editable curves in the Trash module? Or curves that are in an easy format to create and edit (such as wav or Serum wavetables)?

I would not swap my old "Trach 2" for the new "Trash", but is a tool I expect to get some mileage from in the months to come. I hope this is seen as constructive feedback and I hope the ideas are implemented in a future version, to improve user's experience (myself included) and the usefulness and range of the plugin. - We have gone from "Trash 2" to "Trash", so I wander what they would call the next version 😊 I even dare suggesting "Trash Zero" 😎