It's just brutal how good software Sonible makes. For some reason I could never quite make SEQ3 part of my go to tools, but having used the version 4 now for a few weeks it has just drastically helped my mixes. It feels like there is a big jump in the algo from version 3. It's ability to unmask sound sources is now really uncanny while getting you to a pleasing mix.
I tried it and at first I wasn’t that impressed with it but after using it again I started to like it more. For fast mixing of live shows it is really great because mostly those post mixes don’t have the budget for surgical equalization. So for fast mixing it’s a great tool. For most projects I like to create a vibe which sounds and feels different from what smart-eq delivers. But it gets you in the ballpark pretty fast and can definitely be a great problem solver.
The plugin is amazing, ive used smart eq since ver 1 and the latest is finally delivering on the potential ive always wanted from it, the masking only feature in group mode is a game changer
Great video. To those who actually use this, also pay attention to the decisions it suggests you to make to your audio, it can help you understand what the AI thinks we want to hear, and even if you don’t like it, you can make an educated decision to not follow the AI, although having the knowledge of why it might have made the decisions it made in the first place.
Thanks for a really good exposition of a really good piece of software. I am a huge admirer of of SEQ3 and will definitely spring for the update based on this video. Sonible is one of company's making really high quality useful tools and I am big fan. I agree that the quality of the SEQ filters are superb and about as "natural" as one can get in the digital domain
Love this software. But where is it best placed in the signal chain when EQing individual tracks? If you do it before compression and saturation for example, it might give a good starting point, but then when analysed as part of a group, the algorithm will ignore the compression and saturation, even if that's changed the tone, meaning unmasking will be less effective. So are you best leaving the EQ until after the compression and saturation in this case? Or would you use two instances on the same track (e.g. one on "track" mode before compression, and then a second instance on "track and group mode" at the end of your signal chain?) 🤔
I wouldn't necessarily use this on every channel. Plugins don't mix for you, they are just tools. As for where in the chain, it's gonna have to be case my case. If you're smashing a drum with compression and saturation you might want to put it after, if you're correcting a badly recorded track, before etc..
Thanks for the track mode Pro Tip. I was wondering what happened to my low-end with some of my tracks. I'll need to go through them all again to double-check each one. Peace out!
For the most part, no. Soothe2 is a resonance suppressor. It's listening for resonant build up in unpleasant frequencies and pulling them out for you. EQ curves are normally static. The adaptive EQ is allowing the over all EQ curve to fultuate and accommodate to the incoming signal. Both are adaptive, but used for different reasons.
I like how Sonible is careful with the AI stuff, they make them so we feel they are helping us but they watch out not to offend our ego because we hate AI and may not use the plug in if it does to much of the work 😅😅
David, you cancel the benefit of groups when you select Track Mode (Track Mode does not consider the other tracks in the group) 😉 Also, the fact that you chose Track Mode most of the time, shows that, from your POV, the Group feature does not work very well : )
Context is everything. These were extremely well recorded tracks, and I'm a control freak. That's why track worked more often in this context. But yes, we still need mixing engineers to do their job lol
@@mixbustv I’d rather say that very well recorded tracks should not benefit from the Track Mode (remember Al Schmitt? may he rest in peace), but rather from the Group Mode, which does exactly that: trying to mix/blend tracks together as a whole (which is why we do as mixing engineers). But hey! I’m being a bit teasing here. : ) Btw, thanks for your generosity throughout all those years!
@@adriano_sp Melodic techno often has single instruments playing with high dynamics. You need some tweaking for bass and stabs and pads/leads to work together. And i found that eq4 ai tends to flatten everything, removing dynamics. I'm mostly disappointed with its unmasking feature, all it does is just dropping volume in all frequencies that clashes and it seems its not even dynamic. I achieve much much better and cleaner results with dynamic eq like pro q3 and its sidechaining or even with normal ableton's eq8 with envelope triggering frequency compression.
Fabfilter still reigns supreme in terms of the EQ user interface, though. I find myself using Smart EQ4 to set an initial curve, then edit it with ProQ3. If Sonible just copied Fabfilter's super convenient controls, this really would take the prize.
You can also load a reference track as the learning profile too (and I don't know off the top of my head if it was an option on any prior version). I can imagine this will be a no-brainer to use if you have a full mix you want to go for, but this can be applied if you have stems of something else you like for particular instruments.
Have been using 4 for a week now, f-n love it. As a bonus I use eq2 early in the mix on tracks and eq3 groups on busses later in the mix and then add eq4's awesomeness, this may sound like overkill, and probably is, but the clarity and separation I am getting is well, F-N awesome. Did I use the word AWESOME more than once? I do have to do the normal eq tweaks like shown in this video. As I am just f-n around with it right now, this is a tool to be used. An added bonus, these tweaks can be saved as user profiles and smart will use these profiles if you ask it to.
Have a great 2024 man, really appreciate all your tutorials and reviews you have helped me so much the past couple years improve my mixing and mastering skills.
I wish there were more profiles per instrument. Like vox has 2, electric guitar has 1 etc.. If they analyzed 1,000+ songs like they say, there should be more profile options.
I have the whole Sonible Collection and use this the most. I actually can't really use the Compressor at all. I do most of my stuff in Maschine. I have a Macbook Pro M3 so should have no issues but for some reason when I use the Smart Compressor it makes the Track lag so bad. It is really bad. Have not figured out why it does this when the other plugins work just fine.
I just can't vibe with SmartEQ, no matter how many people recommend it. It just does not seem to quite work for EDM drums, because they all function differently (compare a techno drum versus a handsup drum versus a progressive house drum), and none of them function like acoustic drums do. That's just an example. It's so weird at determining what the kick and bass in such tracks are doing that it might as well be a randomizer function. Keep in mind that if you use it track-wide, it is very much still treating it like an acoustic set of drums for the purposes of mixing it against other things. Maybe I'll get more appreciation for it when I have to deal with live drum recordings as a foundation rather than a fill for a track, but I doubt it.
I upgraded from Smart:EQ3 as soon as I saw it was out. I loved your demo, as I haven't had enough time to play with the new features yet. I simply love their plugins, with Smart:EQ, Smart.Comp, and Smart:limit, even a badly recorded mix becomes passable real quick.
Hey David! This seems like a hell of a plugin! My only issue is I'm thinking in my head it could be either used at the beginning of the mix or possibly towards the end for like added eq after all other processing. What would you think would be the most effective to use the plugin? The first plugin or maybe later in the mixing process?
Man, just finished a mix using SEQ4, but I feel like I could have done a 10 times better job had I watched this video before starting. Live and learn... Live and learn...
That Cambridge multitrack website huh? I recognized that song instantly as I’ve randomly used it in my class to teach mixing with at the university I work at 😂 Great stuff thanks for the excellent vid :)
It depends if you want to drive a certain band/range into more saturation (after) if you want instead to shape the sound with saturation/color first then correct potential unwanted excesses with the eq (before)
A bit out of subject but when balancing a mix do you tend to undermix the kick/ bass so you get the low end from fx treatment later? I’m trying this these days instead of putting them full on at the beginning, but then I have less margin mixing, although we could argue you don’t need that much treatment with electronic drums.
I usually asses how big and what type of low end I'm gonna have (or shoot for) when I do gain staging. From there I know how much of my low end is gonna come from certain machines later on (yet not so late), either 2bus or groups or hitting the 2bus with all the low end needed from the beginning. In both cases, I tend to do low end first and build from there, knowing that as you push other things you will end up needing some more.
