Mixing with AI: Sonible Vs IZotope

Will the AI tools from Sonible and iZotope help you get a better mix and master for your music?
That's the question I'm hoping to answer with our deep dive into Sonible's Smart Essentials Bundle and iZotope's Music Production Suite. This video isn't just a review; it's a comprehensive comparison of AI-driven mixing and mastering tools against traditional methods. We focus on Sonible's Smart:EQ 4, Smart:Comp 2, and Smart:Limit, and iZotope's Neutron 4 and Ozone 10.
Discover how Smart:EQ 4's grouping function and AI algorithm dynamically adjust EQ settings for each channel to help you solve frequency masking. Watch Smart:Comp 2 and Smart:Limit in action, making intelligent compression and limiting decisions based on AI analysis of my track. We then A/B compare these results with my own mix and master to see how AI stacks up against human expertise.
In the second part, Neutron 4 is applied to all bus channels, utilizing its machine learning capabilities for signal processing. Ozone 10 takes the stage on the master channel, analyzing the whole track and applying its AI-driven mastering magic.
We'll use the AI/ML tools on my song titled "Cinematic" which is available on all streaming platforms:
Spotify: open.spotify.com/track/1EBRwg...
Apple Music: / cinematic
Although we're using these tools in FL Studio, this video is an essential watch for anyone interested in the intersection of AI and music production, regardless which DAW you use. Whether you're curious about AI mixing, AI mastering, or want to know more about these specific products from Sonible and iZotope, you'll find detailed insights and real-world applications.
00:00 Intro
01:26 AI Comparison Overview
02:41 Adding Sonible's Smart:Essentials To Our Project
03:13 Using Smart:EQ 4 On The Bus Channels
05:27 Explaining Smart:EQ 4's Mode For Unmasking
07:36 Using Smart:Comp 2 On The Bus Channels
08:31 Using Sonible's Smart:Essentials To Master The Song
09:18 Comparing Sonible's Mix against My Mix
10:05 My Thoughts on Sonible's Smart:Essentials
10:41 Adding iZotope's Music Production Suite To Our Project
11:23 Using Neutron 4 On The Bus Channels
14:22 Using Ozone 10 To Master The Song
16:56 Comparing iZotope's Mix against My Mix
17:53 My Thoughts on iZotope's Music Production Bundle
18:42 My Thoughts on AI Mix and Mastering
19:02 Final Thoughts
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#ai #aimix #aimaster #aimusic #aimusicproduction #audiomixing #flstudio #musicproduction #audiotutorial #instrumental #audioengineer #epicbeat #trapbeat #rapbeats #sonible #neutron #izotope #unmask #unmaskingfrequencies #cleanmixes #smarteq #imageline #dynamiceq #soniblesmartessentials #izotopemusicproduction #smartcomp #smartlimit #ozone

[@willnada]

Artist/producer. Like your vibe. I watch a lot of production vids daily for inspiration and refresh. Your vids took half my time available today. First time here but I Didn’t even realize it was a new channel. 💯

[@InspiredWithAC]

Much appreciated Will! I’m glad you found the video and channel useful and entertaining.

[@stephenr2434]

I use Sonible Smart EQ 4 group feature on the individual tracks or busses and Izotope Ozone 11 on the master bus for mastering, that seems to give me the best results. BTW, I like your tune, sounds like you're composing for GTA 6 or something, lol.

[@InspiredWithAC]

Sonible on individual tracks with Izotope on master makes absolute sense. As far as my music, just TV and Film sync placements. Maybe I need to pursue some video game placements 👀. Thanks for watching.

[@AugFutMedia]

Awesome video and sound advice. I appreciated your honesty and insightful analysis. Sonible appeared to perform better out of the two, but your mix felt more rounded. It doesn't sound like you'll be handing over control to AI soon.

[@InspiredWithAC]

Much appreciated! You're spot on. I thought that Sonible produced a better mix solely based on the Ai Assistant alone. I think AI tools will get much more comprehensive over time. I just wouldn't handoff the control over my mix just yet. They are great helpers otherwise.

[@dussonthephanter6698]

If you never mind bro, rename the channel to some easy target names for the algorithm to expose you a lot. After we hit 30k subsribers or more you can come back to your actual name. Seen this worked for some guy. You have a lot of knowledge to share i see 🙌.

[@InspiredWithAC]

Appreciate the advice and kind words. Let’s see how the channel picks up over the next few weeks. If adjustments need to be made, no doubt I’ll pivot. In the meantime, I hope the content is valuable and useful! ✌🏽

[@AdisCengic]

I agree with you Adrian, AI tools are great help but at the end you need alone to make final decision :D

[@VentureNW]

Sonible sounded better, imo. I felt it unmuddied your mix a bit and wasn't extreme, at the same time - albeit your mix sounded just fine too. A little tweaking - mainly with Smart:Comp and I think you would like what you have there. At the end of the day, its up to you, right? Now, Izotope stuff is also good, but if you are going to use their AI, you really need to do some adjusting or just use it without that at all. Nectar is amazing with vocals and has more tools than I would ever use, built into it. They also have a relay plugin, that you can drop on other channels. None of these tools are going to give you a finished mix or master, but imo Sonible comes closer to that. Ozone 11 can screw up a good mix fast, in what should be a mastering, more subtle plugin - its too extreme. You can also find similar reference tracks in your genre and load them into profiles in Ozone, which is actually pretty cool and usually comes out a bit better that way, than their references. I like to divide up mixing vs mastering plugins a bit more and use the hell out of Span, during both. Metric A|B is a great tool to do comparisons with, even with reference tracks. I have the Izotope suite, with the annual deal and it pays for itself in just the Ozone 11 upgrade, as well as the new RX, let alone the recent updates to Nectar and Neutron. Sonible pushes out regular updates and the only thing that I think I actually had to upgrade was Smart:EQ4, which was an improvement. For Sonible I feel their EQ is pretty good and their Smart:Limit is very easy to use. I am on the fence with Smart:Comp, as I feel there are a lot of great compressors out there already, even in your DAW of choice. Spectral compression aside. I have also picked up some of Sonible's Pure plugins - and I am a bit meh, albeit they do make for quick easy checks on tracks or a quick early mix down - just don't forget about them later. I never have anything on my master to begin with, as I need to know about problems earlier and always use a pre-master in a mix down, so I can separate things a bit more. Good comparison video!

[@InspiredWithAC]

Well said. Thanks for watching!

[@iamhunterreece]

I think the takeaway is that you have a really nice production. Sounds good throughout, though I was impressed by the Sonible (on iPhone speakers). The izotope was hyper squished and thin to my ears.

[@InspiredWithAC]

Precisely. There’s also more compression than necessary on the iZotope mix as well. All in all, I think they both give you a good starting point (although Sonible seems to do a better job - at least on my song). So as long as you know how to make the adjustments after, then you’re good. But if someone is strictly depending on the “assistant” to use its machine learning algorithm to make the decisions, then I think we’re still some ways off from getting clean sounding songs that are properly balanced.

[@harvolee]

Hi Adrian, thanks for doing this video, very interesting. May I ask, did you find any issues with FL studio and Sonible EQ4 groups feature? The EQ itself works for me but when trying to assign everything to a group the plugin glitches out and doesn’t allow me to use that feature, I have seen a few other complaints about this. You are the first person I have seen using smartEQ4 with FL, and you don’t have any issues.

[@InspiredWithAC]

Hey. The group feature worked for me without any issues when I loaded EQ:4 in my project. You helped me find another bug though. When I open up a project that already has a group, every instance gets removed from the group. The group still exists and all of the unmasking configurations are still applied to each EQ instance, but if I want to further tweak them, I have to do it to each instance independently. It won’t even let me add them back to the group. Im going to try it in a new project in Cubase 12 and on MPC 2 to see if it’s exclusive to FL Studio or if it’s a common bug in the plugin itself.

[@InspiredWithAC]

I just tried the group feature in Cubase and MPC on my comp and it worked just fine even after closing and opening the project again. It seems that the bug is exclusive to FL Studio. I’ll reach out to Sonible and see if other producers raised this issue with them.

[@harvolee]

Thanks for replying and testing, I think I might try uninstalling and reinstalling to see if that makes any difference, otherwise I’m holding out for an update from Sonible, fingers crossed

[@flstudiotipshindi05]

Great 👍😅

[@InspiredWithAC]

Thanks!

[@mikemccormick1624]

I noticed one thing you did to change what Ozone wanted. You changed it's choice from Rock to EDM. How did it sound and compare before you made that change? Just FYI: I have both the iZotope and the Sonible products and use them both a lot. Great video, BTW!

[@InspiredWithAC]

Good question. I didn’t actually check. I changed it to Hip-hop/Rap since I wanted to profile to be genre specific. Regarding using Sonible and iZotope, I think I use at least 1 iZotope module in all of my songs but not for their A.I capabilities. Sonible has been hit and miss on my end mostly due to their instability with FL Studio. I do use them in Cubase though.

[@mikemccormick1624]

Yeah, I use both as well. I still have much to learn about the Sonible groups feature and the unmasking capabilities. I did do a test on it a while back and I was rather suprised. The unmasking thing made a somewhat significant difference. I will have to take some time and learn more about the intricasies of that feature. Thanks again for the video!

[@InspiredWithAC]

@@mikemccormick1624 awesome! Thanks for watching by the way.

[@gypsyfrank4826]

For some reason sonbile eq locks up on my mac and cannot type into the software to create groups or relabel items.

[@InspiredWithAC]

Are you using it inside of FL Studio? If so, I did a follow-up video here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/injQgWeJYtVgY8U I’m comparing Sonible Smart:EQ with Pro Q 3 and touched on the instability issues I’ve been having with Smart:EQ 4, especially in FL.

[@vcodev108]

Do you mix and master on headphone?

[@InspiredWithAC]

Yes. I built an office / studio in my basement and the room is not treated. I get a lot of reflection off my walls. So I make my music on my monitors (unless I’m filming while working on a song). Then I do my final mix on my headphones. I use the ATH-MSR7b and found that it gives me a balanced mix. Apps like Sonarworks’ SoundID Reference also help in flattening the output on your headphones for getting a more accurate sound (and they have profiles for most of the headphones that people use to mix).

[@georgemoore8577]

Your mix highs sound muddy or covered. Yours sound good but it still zound covered. What I mean is your strings are suppose to sound bright bcuz of the attack. That is why your strings sound is not as bright.

[@InspiredWithAC]

Full disclosure, I rushed the mix of this track. If you saw my “making of” video, I began to make the song as a tutorial but really liked how it came out. I wanted to post the video but also wanted to release the official song alongside the tutorial. So it’s definitely not my best mix - hence the disclosure I gave in the intro of this video. Thanks for watching and the video and the feedback though.

[@vcodev108]

What do you think about Master Plan mastering plugin by Musik hack?

[@InspiredWithAC]

I tried their trial but found that I could get a better final mix using the individual plugins I have instead of just using one that does everything. It’s good at what it does as it simplifies the mastering process, but it wasn’t a plugin I personally wanted to spend money on.

[@jaminjohnson7225]

I bought both. AI mixing is trash. Straight garbage. Nectar and Neutron are great because of the modules included, not the AI. Sonible, on the other hand, I wish I had not purchased. Nothing special about the Smart compressor and the Smart EQ interface is bad with its small windows and menus. Good luck dialing in the dynamic eq setting with such a small pop up menu.

[@InspiredWithAC]

Well said. In regards to Sonible, I still have hope for smart:EQ. I haven’t used smart:comp on any project yet. I have used smart:limit. Not for the smart features, but because I find it pretty transparent. In addition to the group problem with Smart:EQ / FL studio, I found it’s hanging UI instability when I updated to 1.0.1. I reached out to Sonible and they said they’re hoping to have it fixed with the next patch release. Until then, it’s been useless for me.

[@jaminjohnson7225]

@@InspiredWithAC I want smart EQ to be great, but using it as a regular every day EQ is a chore because of the small texts and menus. AI just hasn’t come along far enough for me to utilize it in my every day mixing. I hope they update it, but knowing how these companies do, GUI improvements will be availabl in Smart EQ5. I find it to be a waste of money as a piece of software.

[@jayholm3285]

@@InspiredWithACwhats wrong with FL and smart EQ?

[@InspiredWithAC]

@@jayholm3285 it has a bunch of instability issues. I made a follow up video about it here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/injQgWeJYtVgY8U Basically the group settings don’t get saved and the 1.0.1 version has UI problems. Lots of people seem to be experiencing it - especially with FL.