sonible - smart:EQ 3 - Mixing With Mike Plugin of the Week

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[@rodneypaulhardy]

I paid over a grand to have my punk/rock ep mixed and mastered by an online mixing service. When it came back to me, it sounded awful and my vocals sounded like they had just been slapped on top of the track. It was literally so bad that I didn't release it. I took a chance and bought your smart bundle. Using just the smart eq and smart limiter, my ep sounds 100 times better and radio ready. Thank you guys!

[@kadiummusic]

We do the same, unless you've formed a working relationship with a mastering engineer you trust it really is luck of the draw. I put in a lot of studying reviews like these and over about 18 months built up a great mastering set-up. It may not be a 100% as good as a 'top engineer' could provide but it's 90-95% to my ears and that's fine by me. Good luck with your music mate!

[@jloiben12]

12:50 Something you can do is just use multiple sets. For example, I will normally have 5 guitar tracks for a guitar throughout a song (1 center, 2 left, 2 right). I will have all 5 in one unmask set. But I will also have all my busses on one unmask set (as I normally will have vox, drums, synths, guitars, bass, fx). I hope that makes sense

[@murraywebster1228]

Spectral ducking with the smart compressor is the tool that I find to be one of the best additions to my tool kit in years, love the Sonible products, great Service too, shout out to Larissa!

[@nichttuntun3364]

Hey Mike, watching this video to the end mainly for 2 reasons. I'm always interested in your point of view towards plugins and techniques, but I also do like this song and I'm looking foreward to practice with that one. I guess this still will take a while (entered Q2 recently). Have a great day. Cheers

[@sebastianhabicht4880]

well presented + killer song too!

[@TemmeSikkema]

Great song. Musically it reminds me of very early Killing Joke. And as usual: great video Mike. Thanks for sharing

[@lk0707]

Bar raised ! Future of eq has landed.

[@oliverpinelli3334]

Always extremely detailed and great tutorials!!!!

[@stfciu]

You can hear the difference even on mobile phone speaker. Thanks Mike!

[@imaginarytube]

Amazing! I see this as a learning tool too.

[@Burbah]

Great content! Subscribed! You can also eq match with the inverted eq curve and mix two instrument sections with opposite eq settings so they don't interfere with one another. Just keep it in the midrange.. Also, wanted to say that the reason that made me press the subscribe button was that I heard you say etcetera and not "excetra" and hearing it said this way gave me a huge relief 🤣 And there are more reasons too 😂

[@randyranson84]

Best breakdown given yet. Thanks

[@thegroove2000]

Brilliant EQ.

[@umanoid1523]

It would have been nice if they gave us four filter bands for a little better control. Two is better than the one they used to have, but more would be better. I haven’t played with this yet but picked it up immediately. I JUST bought a bundle two weeks ago with smart EQ2,Smart compressor and smart reverb. LOVE them. These are super light on the cpu unlike the izotope plugins I regularly use. I can probably remove a few of them and replace them with the sonible plugins. I’ll probably still use some of the izotopes on the master chain.

[@oinkooink]

They are saving up the filter bands for future expan$ion. You don't want to fire all your guns at once. ;)

[@mrnelsonius5631]

From the video, it seems better than Neutron (which has some great tools but the smart features were terrible in my experience) but I also don’t know if it’d find it helpful. The biggest hurdle with “smart” processing is that there’s not always a hard quantifiable reason for mix decisions involving EQ. For example: there’s two synth bass layers. One, you like the sound of the low end, the other you like the texture of the upper midrange so you mix them accordingly. But AI will never be able to predict that decision, they both just look like basslines but one you want to be the body and the other you want to be the texture. It’s totally a subjective emotional decision. There’s countless decisions like that in a mix. The good news is that our jobs are safe for the immediate future haha

[@laminethar]

fantastic job

[@Uberkarsten]

Hi Mike, can you please take a look at Baby Audio's - Smooth Operator?

[@marekvoosen]

Would be great to see more of the Sonible line here, like the comp and reverb, to see what’s possible in mixing until now with „ai „ technology by Sonible.

[@mrnelsonius5631]

I bought Smart Comp on sale some time ago and was impressed with it but then never used it! Part of that I suspect is that I really favor character compressors I know well on tracks and SmartComp is very clean and transparent. Should revisit it. I really want to play with EQ 3 but fear it would end up not used much as well, even though it seems thoughtfully designed

[@JimGramze]

@@mrnelsonius5631 For the hell of it I'm trying to do an all-Sonible mix to see how far I can take it. As an experiment. Reaper does not much care for Smart EQ 3, the meters and progress bar don't work with a few instances and groupings.

[@mrnelsonius5631]

@@JimGramze that’s a shame, it might improve though seeing as it’s just been released. I’ve seen a couple plugins lately that had issues in Reaper at release but then got fixed quickly.

[@murraywebster1228]

I use my Sonible plugins for surgical and clean up duties, very often side chain ducking which is very powerful with Sonible, side chaining in the EQ can also save your ass, I then use my „character“ plugins to „colour“ the mix, using Sonible first really helps the colour plugins to really shine

[@caspermaster-com]

Seems like a great tool. As when you bypass it, its pretty obvious the change is very reasonable, and it'd be sort of ridiculous to try and then copy it with a manual eq. I'd probably use it very early on and get the tracks into shape by quick A/B tests and then move on from there with more manual tools. The thing that also makes it more special is, you wouldn't do these small jagged intricate eq moves in manual mode on tracks that sounds fine, here you get this extra work on every little track, and it seems to sound good.

[@EgeYakut]

Hey! I'm not a pro or something. But to me, first using eq for high and low pass filters, manually working on bad resonances then compressing and finally using this plugin sounds more logical. (Manual EQ>Comp>Sonible Smart filters+ manually fixing) Because it has a masking eq feature. And if you use this plugin as your first one on the list, if you compress your signal eq' it manually (Sonble > Comp > Eq), all your balance will be messed up again and there won't be any reason to use this. It's like somebody corrects your homework but you change what he does and make it worse. Anyway, I'm not a professional. It's just an opinion.

[@WaltMecleary]

@@EgeYakut I can agree with that, however that premise would work in both directions. It would just depend on understanding what it is doing and how it effects processing post smart eq3. For instance if you use it first on an unruly sound, that might be smart method before running into a compressor. Unless you want to compress the unruly frequencies first, which there may be a reason to do. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I think either way would work - post or pre. It depends on the source and the sound you are trying to achieve. AND I don't think the A.I. knows what you are going for, nor will it ever... in my lifetime anyway.

[@adampeters9684]

@@WaltMecleary exactly, to me I think it makes the most sense to have it as your first EQ on the channel, and your last EQ on the group busses. Best of both worlds

[@huberttorzewski]

From my experience Smart: EQ 3 adds many unnecessary cuts and boosts and you're way better off by just shaping it yourself with Pro-Q3 or even stock eq and using something like Soothe just for cutting temporary harshness or muddiness.

[@adrianschinoff2896]

Great Review, thanks Michael!

[@ChrisAnsonPhotography]

What are your thoughts about this compared to Gullfoss?

[@henriqueslionel5064]

Hi Mike, great video as always. Could you do a video about new Vertigo Sound release "VSM-4"? Thanks in advance.

[@filbertneon3813]

Starting at 13:50 on your video you give an example of a guitar processed through the Universal setting. I took a picture of what that gave you. You then switched it to guitar, without any adjustments, I took a picture of what that gave you. The, you ran the Processing button again and I took a picture of what that produced. They're all different, and quite a bit different? I would think if something is accurate it would give consistent readings. Does something smell to you?

[@rickyred001]

Thanks Mike, the bass sounds like you're only happy when it rains by garbage, cool video...

[@bradferguson9840]

Thanks Mike, great content. Quick question: if I only have 4 tracks (vox, piano, bass and drums - no busses required), would I put the 'group function' of SmartEQ on the master bus? Thanks.

[@roxville]

Hopefully, you have found your answer after 9 months lol. But just in case, you can start the group on any instance of SmartEQ3 that you choose to do so.

[@bradferguson9840]

@@roxville Thanks Chris 🙂

[@michaelpaul3481]

Version?

[@todezwis]

I would like to see you review the DMG Augio Limitless limiter and their Multiplicity Multiband Compressor.

[@bradferguson9840]

Can anyone who's reading the comments and is knowledgable with Sonible smart:EQ 3 help me with this please? (Mike doesn't seem to engage with subscribers in the comments). Thanks Mike, great content. Quick question: if I only have 4 tracks (vox, piano, bass and drums - no busses required), would I put the 'group function' of SmartEQ on the master bus? Thanks.

[@mixingwithmike]

Yes, putting the Group function on the master bus would be the best way to go with so few tracks.

[@bradferguson9840]

Thanks - appreciate that Mike!

[@larsthomasdenstad9082]

Never a huge fan of smart EQ 2, but this looks sick.

[@murraywebster1228]

You didn’t cover the dynamic eq function, find it especially useful when it comes to group/stem masking

[@themarcos150591]

Mike, do you think the SmartEQ 3 competes with the Wavesfactory Trackspacer?

[@Arcessitor]

It's not even a remotely similar plugin.

[@Camille-nf9bl]

You will notice that's always more or less similar eq settings on drums, on guitar etc it's just presets and they call it artificial intelligence! V2 always attenuates low end on drums, v3 boosts now, well... You have to find some tricks to sell your plugins , I suppose

[@zombizombi]

None of that disproves the presence of AI.

[@DavidBoura]

, 🎶 it's automatic... nana na na 🎶

[@JimGramze]

If I read the manual correctly, you did not need to keep redoing the smart eq when changing their vertical tiers. Otherwise fantastic job as usual. I'll be giving this a lot of consideration.

[@slunkzilla]

Everyone loving this plugin and for a good reason

[@DouglasComical]

How does it talk to itself, does it just recognize when you have 5 other instances? Or do you have to manually send the plugin to a bus version of the plugin or something? Like if you had this on all vocals to balance them out into the vocal bus, and then had this on the vocak bus to balance it out within the rest of the mix?

[@Uberkarsten]

Yes it talks to itself - cross channel processing

[@DouglasComical]

@@Uberkarsten so then what happens if you have more than 6? Do you select which ones are included in the group view?

[@Uberkarsten]

Hey @@DouglasComical , correct. Though, you can build many layers of groupings. Just like in the movie "Inception" - a dream in a dream. Mike explains it at minute 12:45.

[@JG-to8sp]

I think plugins like this throw up as many problems as they provide solutions. It requires that you know how you want your audio to sound, not necessarily a skill a potential buyer for this would have and bypassing the process of intimately learning the flaws of your audio, I think misses the opportunity to hear it working, or not, against other elements in your mix. As perplexing and infuriating as the mix process can be, completing a mix that you know has been built on lots of listening, trial/error and breakthroughs seems quite essential to me. I would feel quite unsure that my bases are truly covered using this, or that a better mix isn’t yet to be discovered. The technology is fascinating and clever, but I prefer a humans flawed technique over an algorithm that has no ability to account for musicality.

[@MattGarwood777]

Maybe a dumb question... could a newb pre-process their tracks with smart eq, bounce in place, and remove the eqs, and start moving forward from a more balanced place? I have smart comp and it’ll suck cpu pretty bad so I’m thinking of ways to use this without hitting that ceiling.

[@nichttuntun3364]

Why not? You can keep the original audio in the session and blend off that track within the DAW. Going back and forth while having to do more adjustments when going further with different mixing stages become more difficult than of course. I also thought about such options in other cases, when I'm mixing sessions with over 50 tracks. But I threw that over board as I rather invest in a new PC soon, as my projects get bigger and bigger. Even small projects get very CPU heavy if you start complex multiple routing chains, parallel settings and so on. The more I learn about and practice mixing I realize that doesn't make sense with an old PC. But please do it like you asked, you will for sure get also good results with this technique. I really don't want to discourage you with my thoughts. When going with this approach it may be a good idea to keep the pre - procession relatively subtle, so you can go better and faster back and forth live in your session for example with an additional (low CPU EQ) for further shaping. A great non CPU consumpting EQ is the Massenburg MDWEQ6, or maybe the CraveEQ which is very affordable regarding the great audio quality. Cubase already has a very good EQ build in on every track too. I think most DAW offer a good alternative here which is not charging much of the Core power. Cheers

[@joechapman8208]

Sounds like a good reason to use Freeze, if it's available in your sequencer.

[@nichttuntun3364]

@@joechapman8208 good idea too, I'm not a fan of it. Too much time consumption, many options disabled, for example getting into automation parameters and such. But yeah, in the end you got to finish the work. Everything that helps is a valuable option. Cheers

[@ThomsenTower]

Not dumb question at all! I don’t know other DAWs, but in Cubase you could render the tracks and keep the original “disabled” in case you want to go back to change something.

[@AizenIPlannedIt]

how cpu friendly is this?

[@queenpurple8433]

It doesn’t use much cpu until you add “dynamic” in. It immediately takes like ten times as much cpu to be dynamic

[@rickspyder6159]

After mixing for 55 years I love and hate all this AI stuff ... am I gonna use it 100% ... but listen to Robert plants vocal... buried yet ... its all about style ...presets for era ???... lol

[@oinkooink]

Unfathomably bad plugin. Just wildly inappropriate "ai" decisions. It slaps on 20, 30 boosts and cuts. Absolute dog of an eq.

[@levondarratt787]

why is there no HZ indication on the bottom axis - lol - that' s a must.

[@levondarratt787]

1/2 of PA's , None of UAD's, none of Soundtoys,none of SSL's have resizable GUI's which is a must in 20221 (or 2016). We all have 4K monitor snow, and staring at blurry tiny graphics is an insult. Why won't they update their GUI's ? This here is a great example of a well scalable (vector like) GUI!