Which one is better? || Sonible true:balance vs iZotope Audiolens
Vložit
- čas přidán 1. 07. 2024
- Sonible true:balance: www.sonible.com/truebalance/
iZotope Audiolens (free until 22nd of November): www.izotope.com/en/products/a...
MIXING & MASTERING:
whiteseastudio.com/
AFFILIATE:
whiteseastudio.com/thomann
whiteseastudio.com/sweetwater
MEMBERSHIPS:
whiteseastudio.com/channelmember
whiteseastudio.com/patreon
MERCHANDISE:
whiteseastudio.com/merch
INDEX:
00:00 - Intro
00:30 - The 2 plugins
02:04 - iZotope Audiolens
03:19 - Is this too simple?
04:01 - Integration with Ozone
05:02 - Sonible True Balance
08:39 - Conclusion
09:32 - My thoughts on spectral balancing
10:34 - Small teaser
10:52 - Support me! - Jak na to + styl
Comment for da algorithm
Streak count: 100
Whoooho 100th comment streak 🥳🥳🥳
And thanks for the mention btw
Your comment literally does nothing for an algorithm that's not how it works dude
@@levondarratt787 actually does, every comment boosts the algorithm BUT the comment has to be different in every video. That's why I'm counting the comment streak cuz then the algorithm doesn't see it as a repetitive comment
@@levondarratt787 or that's at least how the algorithm worked a few years ago, the comments boosted the video to be caught by the algorithm.
Wytse, your videos never get old to me. And they keep getting better!
iZotope has similar analysis, the idea is that you use a number of tools together, for example you use music balance plugin with insight for additional details. The advantage is that all plugins speak to each other so you can change settings from one another, especially if you mix with neutron too. Sonible has a more straight to the point attitude, which I quite like. Both are great tools indeed.
Tonal Balance Contorl too.
The True Balance UI looks quite well designed, finally a user interface that is actually helpfull to the user. I wish more software in general had such suggestion text bubbles. This idea / concept would be ideal for a lot of engineering software who often have cryptic error messages.
I am a sonible fanboy, spectral balance seems promising. Looking forward for the detailed reviews.
I was waiting for this review since this morning! I like Sonible! They have good support too!
What I like best about this type of app is that it provides a reference to engineers whose speakers and rooms might be far better than my own, due primarily to budget. Mastering engineers who see Prince’s material through its final stage are likely to have, relatively speaking, a ‘cost is no object’ listening environment. By seeing these spectral balances, we can confidently over time improve our own setups without cutting a six digit check.
One thing I know for sure, my hearing has not gotten better with age. I am used to my speakers I've used for 20 years, however, this sort of thing, which I already have is a HUGE difference for me. It means I can also take my finished music and play it on ANYTHING, and it translates.
@@tonycarpenter-Makzimia years with a set of speakers makes a surprising difference, but so does being in the same room imo
This is definitely the superior form of “referencing” another track. I bet there is an evolution from this to something else out there but this feels very “final form of reference tracking” to me. That it will just be refinements of this
Audiolens is currently free and Ozone 10 is included in the NI Komplete 14 bundle, so I think Izotope products are going to be broadly distributed. We'll see if this gives them better market acceptance.
Great as always, really helpful. thanks!
Wouldn't it make more sense to compare true:balance vs tonal balance 2 ?
Audiolens doesn't just capture the spectral balance. It also captures the dynamics and the stereo image.
And it's not meant to be an analyzer. Just to capture data for ozone and neutron
And it also interacts with other Izotope product
And audiolens is free for a limited time
@@jasoncruizer never said it works on it's own?
Audiolens is FREE until Nov 22nd
*UPDATE* ...but if you want to use the references created you must have Ozone 10 and Nectar 4. ie. Audiolens is junk. Just use a wav version of your reference track in any version of Assistant.
FREE? FREE!? Wow! I'm Dutch, why didn't I know that...
OMG :D
@@Whiteseastudio I'm curious to know what iZotope means with: "Referencing workflow and target library operates with the following products:
Ozone 10 Standard and Advanced
Neutron 4"
@@sebguyader It means that you can capture targets from reference songs with Audiolens and then match your audio to the target with Ozone 10 and Neutron 4.
@@sebguyader yeah...Ive 'installed' it several times, and it is nowhere to be seen, either as app or VST. Looks to like an upgrade/add on to Ozone 10 and/or Neutron 4? I have v9 v3. The installer completes, shows no errors, gives you no path info, but good luck finding it post install. Weird as ... if anyone manages to install it let me into the secret!
2:45 - this is incorrect. It's also capturing the Stereo width, microdynamics, and loudness of the streaming audio so that Ozone 10 Master Assistant can match all of those properties.
Sonible is really shining in the plugin world. Im normally an izotope user but have started using Sonible products more an more. Cant wait to see wher this company takes us!
It's actually Eventide... Sonible is just a sub name for some of their plugins.
Audiolens captures your system audio, i.e. audio coming from within your computer, and/or audio from a streaming service.
The aim of Audiolens is to provide the user with a raw image of the signal dynamics. All ensuing visual cues for the interpretation of relevant data require the user to import that information in Neutron 4 and/or Ozone 4 Advanced for further extrapolation.
Both Sonible and iZotope design and make top-notch plugins.
You dont need Ozone 10 or Nectar 4. You need and version of Nectar assistant or Ozone Assistant then it works well to match reference EQ. Processor heavy.
Its just hiden,
UPDATE. Path is C:\Program Files\iZotope\Audiolens\win64
Ozone Elements and Nectar Elements have Assistants, but it doesn't work with them.
iZotope's target group is musicians. Not studio engineers. Which I think is very good alternative that you can your self make without too much effort good sounding demo. This will let you have more time for song writing and for actually playing the instruments.
No, Izotope's market is for anyone working in audio. RX is used extensively in film and video post production as well as music as are many of their other tools.
@@jimkanter4180 Well RX is their flagship product. And very powerful one. So yeah of course you can do professional stuff. But what I am speaking about is how the interface is looking. You don’t need be engineer to understand the iZotope. There is lots of visual guidance for non-engineers and different kind of “all-in-one” switches to change the whole mix. This can be little bit off setting for some of the engineers who have practiced to read the actual values instead. In the end of the day. The pair of professional ears will decide.
I think it’s safe to say that iZotope doesn’t just fit into one category like “for engineers” or “for musicians” anymore. It depends on the product. Nectar, neutron, and ozone are kinda for everyone now, I can’t imagine most non-engineer musicians care about the difference between the many compressor types and modes iZotope put in those, Theyr trying to make a one-size-fits-all. I don’t imagine a ton of musicians care or know how to utilize RX either. But products like this balancer remind us that it does seem like they are aiming mostly to capture the non-engineers with their newer products. The real issue is them finding the balance between stuff that simplifies the process and leaving room for those of us who want control to still have it. By trying to please everyone, sometimes they end up pleasing no one
How do come to this conclusion? 🤷🏻♂️🤦🏻♂️🤔😅
@@GeneralMiller92FIN wtf are you to decide what is the flagship product? Ozone , Rx etc they are all flagship. Ozone gets used by mastering engineers more than any other digital product.
I've just used a generator to check the frequencies in Audiolens. The spectrum is divided at 250 Hz, 2 kHz and 8 kHz.
Hi, thanks and you are correct, btw in their manual is written ranges, paste here for conf.:
Low: 20Hz to 250Hz
Low-Mid: 250Hz to 2kHz
High-Mid: 2kHz to 8kHz
High: 8kHz to 20kHz
I really like the Carve EQ from kHs
delicious audio file and it creates a profile that you can use for your music
it does the same job as sonible or ozon, but it is much simpler and uses less resources and the result is the same
Can Carve EQ be used while mixing, or only on mastering a stereo track?
Thanks for your excellent videos, absolutely agree, this curve from Isotope is so unclear, Sonible is far better and more useful and I have already purchased True Balance and Trule Level....
Sonible looks good, but unless I missed something, they are missing the next step after analysis. I would have thought in their eco system, the analysis could then make a template for import into smart EQ which would then apply it to the track in question, balancing it with their clever algorithms.
Great idea. Email them...
LOL... I hear you. I have both and use both. Haha! Just downloaded AudioLens today - free. Still on the fence with TrueBalance, since I have SmartLimit.
Today I tried Sonible True Balance and something seems very very wrong with it. I always used Tonal Balance Control from Izotope for this purpose. In both products I used the same track for referencing and for this test I applied EQ to my work in progress to match exactly the curve to reach less than 1dB difference across the whole spectrum in Izotope.
Well, when my track is perfectly matched in Izotope and I switch to Sonible, it tells me than my low end (under 500hz) is more than 5dB quieter than the reference, and my high end (over 4K) is more than 2dB louder than the reference. This is with Sonible's spectrum resolution in "smooth" mode.
Even more incoherence, when I switch Sonible's spectrum resolution to "detailed" it tells me that my low end is spot on but it also shows a deep pit in the 150hz range. To correct this, trusting Sonible, I have to apply almost +12dB of EQ in the 150hz range and the track sounds like shit.
The best part is when I apply the EQ to perfectly match the reference in Sonible. My track sounds completely different than the reference, while if I trust Izotope for applying EQ it sound so identical that is seems the original reference track itself.
In the end this plugin seems very erratic in what it tells to me, very incoherent, and even if I choose to trust it, my ears tell me that the track is far from sounding like the reference.
Still, a part of my brain is telling me that it is impossible for such a top brand plugin to be so bad, and maybe I'm the one doing something wrong. Looking for your opinions.
any update on your thoughts on this?
@@TexasTabla I really wanted this plugin to be good, because its interface is so much better than Tonal Balance Control's, so I took the time to retest it with a half dozen other tracks I'm working on. Unfortunately the results were always the same. Sonible pushes me to apply tons of EQ to my (near perfect) tracks, compared to references, especially in the low end.
Sorry, but until some engineer can explain to me what I'm doing wrong, or why Sonible is so off the mark, I'll continue to trust my ears… and Izotope.
@@aledarimini what do you think of the true level plugin
@@TexasTabla I haven't tried that.
compared to the same loudness?
I've used both Sonible and Ozone products. I felt like Ozone was trying to take over my workflow. Sonible still remains on my system.
White Sea by showing the Sonible one you just made me realize Izotope must be developing a more complex version of free Audio Lens that will cost (something$$) :-) Thanks for the great videos!
I think iZotope had some similar thing going on in some plugin, but the problem with it was that it simply didn't work correctly above 48khz sample rate. What about this one?
I bought the Sonible bundle. I started investing in iZotope in a big way about five or six years ago, but they way they support their products long term and the yearly product upgrades turn me off. They are asking new plugin pricing for just a slightly upgraded product. And when the old version is working perfectly well (i.e. I don't need their feature updates) but they won't update it to run on a newer OS...well this behavior is making me drop them. I don't buy into the Waves WUP pricing either, but at least those yearly prices are somewhat low and you can continue to use the product with changes in an operating system. We'll see how Sonible expects customers to deal with this stuff moving forward. I have smart:Limiter and it's nice. I also own Entropy EQ and honestly can't find ways to use it that I like it all that much.
I had a bit of the opposite experience with iZotope. I had not been using their plugins for years and logged into my account and they had fantastic loyalty offers for me. And they included massive discounts on the loyalty price. For example, I upgraded from a very old version of Neutron to the current version 4 for about a $150 Canadian all-in. The new price for that plugin in Canadian is pretty steep at around $550. So a good price. And they regularly have very aggressive sales. At the moment they are offering 50% off because of their mixing of the mastering month promo. I would not do WUP either. I have abandoned some very good plugins for the time being with them.
@@prepetually-exploding-mindI see the pricing you mention here as well and see it as anything but a good deal. This "loyalty" pricing is why I left. Not to belittle, but I think it's a sucker's deal.
please do sonible vs fabfilter too 😍
I already commented this on a previous video on yours, but I'd really like to see a video on your thoughts on Platinum Notes
Thanks bro! So if we already have Ozone we don't need audiolens?
these kinds of plugins are fantastic tools but when you start getting into situations where you think your curve needs to match another curve in order to be "right" the point is being missed. obviously the way something sounds has just as much due to other processing as it does equalization.
Well said.
The keys at 7:50; pure magic.
iZotope is giving it free for a couple weeks right?
Do FabFilter or Sonible have an iZotope RX equivalent?
Audiolense is actually FREE if you get it soon! About 2 weeks til it will be for sale.
Thanks for this video. Just picked up Audiolens for free at Isotope!
cool! the trick is, you are tempted by free AI tool, must pay $300 for ozone. so far Sonible seems more functional.
the difference is so subtle, it's probably better adjusted by ear, with EQ or multiband compression.
@@blendr64 Yep, they've thrown loyalty offers at me before, but I'm cheap (except for FabFilter stuff). Still slumming it with the free Ozone Imager and Vocal Doubler. Yes, I'll have to trial TrueBalance.
I picked up Audiolens for free yesterday (not sure how long that promo will last) and was a bit freaked out that it's not actually a plugin like the earlier Tonal Balance Control, but is a separate app. It works fine for capturing the spectrum and dynamics, but I think you need Ozone or Neutron to actually import the curve and do some EQ-matching in the DAW. It's a bit strange because you can do "match EQ" of pre-savednreference curves with FabFilter ProQ already. I think I'll probably keep using the TBC plugin to compare or match with reference tracks, as I don't really like opening up separate apps when I'm working in the DAW. Audiolens is probably a godsend for beginning mixers/mastering engineers that have the full version of Ozone 10 though.
Audio lens doesn't just do EQ through the other apps, it also does spectral shaping, Dynamics control, Etc
I’m a fan of hyper sensitive tools…
I’m also a fan of people who can offer critical input on my work.
I’ve caught a few of your videos and I’m somewhat curious about what you’d think of my engineering and sound.
If you have time swing by…. let me know your thoughts.
Vi
I would like some compare from that with T-Racks 5 Master Match too please.
Uhhhhh... AudioLens was FWEE for me when I logged into my iZotope install manager!
I was just about to go purchase True:Balance after watching your review video. And Sonnible has dropped the price of True:Balance to $49.00 probably in response to iZotope.
But honestly you really can't go any lower than FWEEEEEE! 🤗
Free. Learn the word. Not Fwee joker...
I always want to see the frequency range!
I'm gonna start doing my nails also. I love it
You guessed that the Focusrite FAST bundle was actually Sonible, but the true:balance app is NOT in the FAST bundle, right? I'm just trying to understand the complete picture and cost.
Can you use the exported audiolens files on Tonal balance control?
I'll have to check this out (I find TBC very useful) but I think the file type that Audiolens saves might only be recognised by the new Ozone 10 and Neutron 4.
So when downloading Audiolens, it was stated clearly that:
''Referencing workflow and target library operates with the following products:
-Ozone Elements (Version from Nov. 23, 2022 onwards), Ozone 10 Standard and Advanced
-Neutron Elements, Neutron 4''
However, I can't seem to find any information on using it with either ozone elements or neutron elements? could you help me out please :)
Apparently, it doesn't integrate with the elements versions.
how is audiolens different to their true balance?
_"they are priced exactly the same . . . they both cost €100"_
iZotope Audiolens is free.
true:balance is $39 (for anyone with a Sonible product)
Sonible, I can see and hear what to change, but I can't do in the same app! Ouch! I would love to have this plugin in a master chain and route the reference track by side chaining into.
Hello Sonible, awake!. 🚨💥
iZotope, nice Hipshot! 🚀
The T-Shirt Whytse is wearing says it all!
How is this different than match EQ?
IZotope Tonal Balance has been a tool I’ve used for a couple of years. From what I can tell Audiolens pulls the same approach out of the “plugin” constraint at lets it run outside the DAW.
Wytsek ....i dont know. I went over to Sonible before watching your video and wanted to buy true balance but saw that its this and then "true dynamics" .
I wish they did it inside the same plugin with the ability to switch modes. I dont want to buy one plugin for each function.
Maybe next they bring out a different compressor that has only attack and then you have to buy its counterpart in order to adjust the release ......
On Pluginboutique, the Sonible is €69 full price and at the moment you pay an intro price of €49
Hasn't this VST-deal/possibility been around since 199x with FreeFilter?
05:00 You speak about "sounding like somebody else", but you can sound as "you", when listening to other tracks you have made, for mastering an album for eg.
What is that mic you're using here? Is it the new Lewitt 1040?
Yes
Is it the same as Tonal Balance Control? Or worse/better?
Audiolens is a more advanced update of TBC, but it's not a plugin, so you can't run it alongside EQ plugins from another company in your DAW. It only makes curves for Izotope tools. :(
Yay prince shout out
It'd be interesting to know how these compare to Process Audio Decibel
Decibel doesn't allow comparing your audio balance with that of a reference, it just shows the spectrum analysis of your audio.
What is cool with Decibel is that you can have the app running on tablet or smartphone, freeing some screen estate. I would love to see that with true:balance, having it permanently on a second smaller screen!
Love the questions Hehehehehe
snake in the mierder total oil ?
I did not see presets on Audiolens when I ran it this morning.
It’s a little unclear to me-is the Sonible one a spectral balancer akin to gullfoss, where it actually offers you ai based dynamic eq profiles to round out your mix for you, or is it purely just an analyzer?
It's just for analysis
@@imhaydenmelrose thanks for replying! That’s a bit of a shame, seems like a missed opportunity. But they did just license an algorithm to focusrite that actually does spectral balancing, the Focusrite Fast Balancer, which of course is part of the Focusrite FAST series which is all AI plugs using sonible algorithms. Maybe they didn’t want to be redundant and have two nearly identical plugs designed by their team competing with each other. 🤷🏻
I'm still a little unclear on how the AI is really helping. A clear visual display of the spectral comparison - that's great! Well, in the Sonible plugin it's great. But I'm not sure why I want it to make additional suggestions. I probably missed something - sorry, I shouldn't multitask whilst watching (mostly just listening) to your videos! It seems to me that there are too many options for making adjustments for AI to get me in the ball park of the particular sport I want to play with that track.
True Balance is not really AI and it's not changing your sound at all, rather it's showing what is currently there and what a potential target might be. Metering. These are built-in reference files, and they are showing different targets for different styles. So, this is taking some of your concerns into account. But if you don't trust their references, you can load in your own selected references. Look at the suggested targets and go back to fix your mix (or master bus) and see if you like the result when it's closer to the target.
Audiolens is free right now so go and grab it
Wytse's superpower is all in his nail polish
izotope is free until November 22 though 😁
But don't you need to have Ozone 10 or Neutron 4 to be able to use AudioLens?
@@sebguyader No, you can just use Audiolens as a tonal balance meter on your whole computer's output if you want.
I've yet to see iZotope soon a shout-out with Sonible.
Not having used either, I can tell you the difference in UIs alone would be the deciding factor for me- the Sonible makes sense and I can see using it both as a tool for tuning and analysis- and learning a lot from it! OTOH, every time I load an iZotope product, my DAW (Studio One 5) crashes. Maybe I need a faster computer for their products? Case in point, I note iZotope is free right now and just thought, "Yeah, no thanks guys!"
Hmmm, all my Izotope stuff works great. You might need to see what's going on there.
We already measure the Audiolens if someone wanna know the crossfades are: 20hz to "250hz" "2000hz" "8000hz" to 20Khz.😊
Every mastering engineer around the world knows technology is taking over the art.
Audio Lens is free right now.
iZotope is free until 11 22!
Isn’t tonal balance Control of Izotope not the same like these two?? What’s the difference?
Audiolens is an app (not a plugin) that can capture the audio from your system (so straight from any streaming services, etc.) and creates a target you can immediately use in Neutron 4 and Ozone 10. The spectral metering is similar to Tonal Balance Control, but they have different workflows and can do different things
@@corygoldsmithmusic thanks
Do Pulsar Modular p11 abyss.
Hmm.. i took today izotop's plugin, but don't test it yet
Hi My Litle Music Guru 😂 . I appreciate what you doing and I think make a perfect work .
You can try please tested the new Basslane Pro ? If is possibile;)
I am a Sonible fan, but Izotope has Audiolens for free at the moment.
true balance: winner plugin!
Isn’t this just tonal balance control?
Why I can not add these plugins as vst into the master channel and select the mix and reference over a bus by side chain?!
Then I can see the reference track spectro and the mix at the same time.. so I'm able to master with all my plugins and be able to came close to my reference track. Sonible doesn't make sens in my opinion. Why is there no integrated EQ, Comp, and Imager or the ability to add-In some plugins? Sometimes the brains of the developers shut down on 50% of the way to the perfect goal.
You can do what your asking with Ozone 10...Audiolens is just the app you would use if you didn't have your own copy of the reference track you want to use. You would use Audiolens to capture the reference info from a streaming service, save it then hop into your daw and open it in Ozone 10.
Audiolens free on plugin alliance
iZotope Audio Lens is free for the next few days direct from iZotope's website (I received an email)
Though they are good, the only reason I rarely use Fabflter plugins is because of their ugly UI. Certain Izotope plugins I tend to use more over Fabfilter but then again Izotope is a CPU killer. The perfect world is just simply Sonible. For me they are just perfect by any means. It's a funny way to judge plugins but yeah that's just me and how how feel most comfortable.
Audiolens is free right now!
they are at war for the AI plugin market
I get it that Audiolens is a standalone app and it'll capture anything you play through it but what is the point of it if iZotope already has a plugin like this? They made Ozone 10 a plugin only (which is a big fail) and Tonal Balance Control a stand alone app now...
It's essentially so you can capture reference material easily from sources like Spotify... there isn't really much difference otherwise to Tonal Balance Control 2.
The great thing about TBC was that you could use that plugin in a chain alongside any other plugs, like FabFilter ProQ for example and then tweak your EQ until the TBC curve matched your reference. Audiolens isn't a plugin, and it seems it can only be used to it's full extent if you have the full versions of Ozone 10 or Neutron 4. I much prefer using plugins from rival manufacturers together in the DAW. Proprietary stuff that only "communicates" with software from the same firm isn't ideal for the end user.
@@AutPen38 I agree.
Audiolens is free on plugin boutique now !!! Get a free license now before she's gone !!
Could use both IZotope and Sonible to get an average of what is recommend from both and aim for what you believe is the average between them.
Why bother? The measurement metering isn't exactly foreign from one brand to another. It's just how they are presenting you with your reference targets that are different.
@@alexbreyer6921 Exactly, each brand will present different reference targets, so the idea was to find an average between them.
i think true balance is way more useful i think you can kinda do the same thing with the match eq in ozone but i guess being able to capture desktop is good. also love your nail colours
Using Audiolens plus Tonal Balance would probably have the same outcome as True Balance
As an Izotope user I can get the Audiolens for free. But I fear it is just a marketing trick to make me upgrade Neutron and Ozone to version 10. I'm fine with version 9 so I probably won't have any use for the plugin, free or not.
It is, there was already Tonal Balance which do the same thing but inside the DAW
They will not get more money from me, too greedy and focus on new customers. Bad karma. I regret big time that I bought Musicians Bundle and upgraded a year after.. Just mention the EA reverbs... Tonal balance is the only iZotope plugin I use. Great Senile is coming with this :-)
This. The free Audiolens just seems to be an 'advert' for Ozone 10. I loved how the TBC plugin could be used with *any* other plugins (EQ, compressors etc). I like Izotope plugins but I don't want to be limited to only using software from that company.
Big izotope fan but Truebalance wins by far here.
And MTM Refference 2 :)
Tc finalizer did something very similar with their standalone app - those kinds of spectro-dyanmic graphs are really useful to get a feel for possible problem areas. Gonna look into the sonible one i hate izotope lol
So did izotope just combine two plugins they already had with tonal balance control and that panning one? I dont get it😂
Spoiler alert: you won't get the answer to the question in the title. Except if you consider "it depends" as an answer.
But still, the hidden answer is in the video. Not in the words, on the t-shirt!
I dont usually comment but I feel that no ones said this yet. How is audio lens different to izotopes already existing tonal balance 2? they do exactly the same thing.
The only thing audiolens does that tonal balance cant is capture straight from spotify, youtube etc. And as far as the whole "pair this with ozone and neutron for better results" schtick that they're pedalling i have to say this;
when you load a reference track into ozone and use the mastering assistant, surely its already analysing the track in the same way to audiolens to create the settings that master your track to sound like the reference you loaded in? I do like Izotope and i use neutron 3 and Ozone 9 a lot, but audiolens seems like a needless extra step in the mix/mastering process. Audiolens just seems like something they're releasing to nudge people into getting the latest ozone or neutron, as by itself its just tonal balance 2 with a new skin. At least sonible are doing something seemingly new with their plugin and there is a lot more useful information presented as well as the spectral balance display.
The value in Audiolens is mainly that you don't need to have the files for your reference tracks, you can analyze the streamed audio and use it to drive the Master Assistant.
@@billpodolak7754 yeah I get that, and it is a pretty good feature, but that's the only thing that makes it different from tonal balance 2 and they're charging quite a lot for it
@@denholmrobert528 It's free...?
@@billpodolak7754 only for a limited time
I mean, nobody's talking about the fact that audiolens should be a free update to iZotope Tonal balance? (it's basically the same thing but not standalone)
Here's the problem with using these tools as a way to mastering your music. With all of these types of AI learning tools, they doesn't take into consideration the instrumentation used in the source track or how that relates to the destination track you're mixing. So you would have to be very careful what source you choose to analyse and also careful about which part of the song/arrangement you would choose to analyse. Each section of a song will have a very different profile depending on what is going on. The instrumentation and how they all fit together within a song/mix to create the frequency spectrum content is often quite complex and the AI is only using a snapshot of a particular section of a song to create an average (like RMS) tonal curve of that mix. This leads to another problem in that the AI learning is a purely a broad tonal equalization curve (although Audiolens also analyses dynamics and stereo image and uses that to create an AI mastering chain within Ozone 10). So it won't be able to sort out issues within your mix if one or more elements in your mix are either too bright or too too dull. One such example... if the tone of your snare drum is exactly how you like it to sound but the rest of the mix needs more high frequencies and less bass in order to sound balanced or closer to the source profile, when it applies that EQ curve, it might completely destroy the sound of your snare drum and make it too bright and thin. Same could be said for vocals that are already bright but the rest of the music is dull and needs to be brightened up. Applying the source EQ will make the music sound more balanced but the vocal EQ will likely cause it to sound way out of balance, creating sibilance issues or harshness etc. These AI learning tools won't take transient information into account either as it's focusing more on the overall balance of a mix rather than the individual elements such as drums that make up part of this mix. Having said all of this, I would still encourage people while mixing to use it as a learning tool and as an aid to help identify problems within your mixes. Listen to what sounds out of balance when you apply the AI learned profile to your mixes, use it to help you make better mix decisions on an individual element basis and not as a way to bandaid fix or master your mix.
All of these 'AI' systtems are intended as guides and workflow enhancements, not magic solutions. I see no problem in that. An untrained ear and regular mixing tools can ruin your snare and vocal just as eaily. If the AI process doesn't work, change it, same as you would with any other tool.
True Balance is not really AI and it's not changing your sound at all, rather it's showing what is currently there and what a potential target might be. Metering. These are built-in reference files, and they are showing different targets for different styles. So, this is taking some of your concerns into account. But if you don't trust their references, you can load in your own selected references. Look at the suggested targets and go back to fix your mix (or master bus) and see if you like the result when it's closer to the target.