Anyone here have experience with these new fangled “smart” mixing plugins like Sonible smart:eq 3 and the like?
I’m really interested to hear people’s experience and if they think these plugins help or hinder them?
For backstory I have a very small setup in the corner of my bedroom (my son took the spare room a few years ago) so I will never have an ideal mixing environment. I use iLoud Micro monitors and DT770 headphones for reference but it takes a lot of guesswork via visual plugins to get a decent mix. I could spend a ton on better monitors but feel that they would be wasted in the space so maybe something like smart:eq 3 would give me a better jumping off point for finishing mixes.
I have a degree in audio engineering so I’m loathed to let a computer think for me but honestly I have so little time now I like the idea of spending more of it playing rather than fixing my mixes.
i bought it and messed around with the smart:EQ … i’ve got an impression how my mix could sound … it draws an eq-curve and I could tweak it … well nothing special about it, the only thing which bothered me was the reference they provided on how this thing learned
I really like Gulfoss on the mix bus. I only use it sparingly, but it helps with balancing and separation.
Ive just got Soothe 2 as well. It does exactly what it says on the tin and saves a load of time notching out frequencies. Im finding it quite addictive and think Ill need to reign it in a bit.
Honestly though the best thing I have got in ages really is Slate VSX. I know its not actually a smart plugin, but once I got used to it being able to hear things properly has been amazing.
I use loads less plugins in the mix and have come to realise Ive been trying to sort things in the mix that weren’t there and more as a result of my listening environment.
I have MTMs which are great but dont get much chance to mix in them, so I mostly mix on my DT1770s with Sonarworks, then finalise in the MTMs when I get a chance.
But using VSX has been a game changer in a very short time. Ive remixed my latest mixes and they sound superior in everyway, took less time and used less plugins.
Ive realised the core tools and knowledge I have work and it was the listening environment all along so whilst I have no problem using smart plugins to enhance my mix I don’t feel I need them as my skills are sufficient.
Sorry for the ramble but it might be worth a look. It appears like l Snake Oil but Im seriously impressed. The translation of my mixes is brilliant. I’ll also track in using them in future, along with sound design.
Also on Ozone I was never happy with the AI, but testing these latest mixes, the AI has done a fantastic job, so again it was me putting crap into it expecting a miracle.
Yeah I really like Gullfoss. The results can vary depending on the track - sometimes it doesn’t make much difference but other times it’s like taking cotton wool out of your ears.
I use Ozone but I only use the ‘smart’ features as a starting point. I think that’s pretty much how it’s intended to be used.
If your listening environment isn’t very good I can recommend Sonarworks SoundID Reference - it’s made me a lot more confident in my mixing decisions
I’ve tried a couple of them, izotope and focusrites fast series, they’re okay ish but no substitute for spending time and effort to learn to do it yourself, the way I see it is if they were as good as they purport to be there’d be a lot of mix engineers looking for a job…
I got me some VSX a couple of months back. Love em!
I still do the bulk of my work on open speakers but when I switch to the VSX and switch back, the results are ridiculous. Mad how well bass translates out of them. I swear I can feel my chair vibrating sometimes and have experienced the forgetting I’m wearing headphones phenomena which users speak of on multiple occasions.
I mostly use the slate mids, the mono box thing, archon Far field and SUV.
I held off buying for a while as I heard there was issues with the headband breaking, but as soon as they released the reinforced headband I whipped my wallet.
Good stuff
I have been a slate everything subscriber for a couple of years now. Really nice plugins. The new FG-X2 is also a game changer.
…they don’t think on their own and can’t replace u doing the thinking…
but they’re pretty good in making a 1st guess for u…
smart eq is not that smart, but does quite some heavy lifting once u use a few instances and start to group them to work with each other in bus masking…
while smart compressor is pretty damn good in first guesses, can clear and tighten things up impressingly and has a real 21st century next level interface design…
smart limiter is really smart…and shares the same great interface functionality…does great with luf standards and can really finetune and nail ur final master loudness beyond all ur guessing…
but smart does not mean ai…while all their signal analizing process is not learning but listening and then shaping to reasonable sonic standards…
if u wanna invest in sonible…compressor and limiter are worth it…
but u can also catch good bundle prices…and if u find their smart reverb included…well, it’s all good for tedious small room guessing, too…
if ur in for another sonic treat, gulfuss does little but wonders…
Responding here @Gunark with a quick snap overview of some testing away from the sales thread. I have a test set of unmixed stems that I use to run through any plugins like this through.
The Smart Limit looks to be a quality limiter all in all, and the way it displays information is very informative. Smart Comp 2 is also very impressive, and these two seem to be the real winners in the pack. The EQ seems to mostly make sense as a tool for working with multiple busses, perhaps less so on an individual track. I quite like how they aren’t as bloated as the iZotope tools, and it’s all laid out very clearly. As for downsides, anything that relies on recognised patterns could always use more references, but they seem to have a wider range than iZotope. They are quite a bit heavier on processing than a standard comp/limiter as well, which needs taking into account. For example, even with oversampling, Pro-C2 introduces 1.5ms latency, where Smart Comp has 47.8!
Sound is definitley clean, erring on the side of “safe,” but it does sound good quite quickly (eg: using the compressor to get a kick punching.) They look interesting as learning tools in the same way that Pigments has in-app tutorials, (though in this case the whole plugin is the tutorial.) I guess you’d want to pick these up and then at some point, move on to doing stuff by hand yourself. But if you’re stuck on a mix somewhere, it could be nice to have in your toolkit.
On the price, as I mentioned over in the other thread, on sale these are roughly the price of a single FabFilter plugin. Latency knocks aside, Smart Comp and Smart Limit are no slouches compared to FF, as they are also clean and punchy. So for the money, I think those 2 plugins are pretty solid, with the EQ as a bonus.
I guess in that question about what does this do that my DAW doesn’t - Sonible has an interesting offer. Analogue modelled EQ’s aren’t the same as the clean ones in your DAW. Fabfilters are clean and have more features , and iZotope gives you the kitchen sink - both charge you handsomly for it. The Sonible stuff seems to be offering a light-ish bundle of utilities that do something stock tools don’t and at a price that beats some of the more fully featured offers. So if you could lend a hand on the mixing end, it’s worth a look.
Unsure if I’ll go for it just yet, but very tempted.
I guess my unformed question regarding things like Ozone is how it listened to my track. It took a few seconds to decide how the final track should be and you’re supposed to play the “loudest” part for it so it knew the ceiling, etc. But shouldn’t the software that aims to improve your track listen to your whole track before making a decision? Isn’t it better that way? A few seconds at the peak of the track and it can decide the eq curve? I don’t understand why that is the best practice…
