I found with a full mix that had some elements slightly muffled or harsh, smart:EQ 2 usually improved the sound notably.
Professional Full Mix analysed with the smart:filter In such cases the tonal difference from corrected to original was so subtle as to be almost a non-issue and strictly a matter of taste. In such cases smart:EQ 2 suggested almost no correction, rarely more than a dB or so from flat. One instructive test was using the Standard profile on several very well-balanced mixes, both commercial CDs and my own finished projects. In short, I was surprised at most of the results I obtained using smart:filter. These instrument profiles are not intended for a full mix (unless that mix is solo piano or guitar, for example), but for use on tracks or buses in a mix project. If you use one of the other profiles, such as piano, kick drum, distorted guitar, etc., the curve developed will favor the specified source sound. It does not impress any frequency-level bias other than at the lowest couple of octaves. It analyzes the music and evolves an EQ curve based on the spectral content of the music and on a “profile” that Sonible has developed for different styles/tracks.įor full mixes, and useful in general, is the Standard profile. Smart:EQ 2 is not strictly a spectral matching EQ like others I have, and does not force a fixed EQ curve on your music. I’d not found generic “professional” EQ curves to be useful in general - I mean, how could you expect an EQ someone came up with for one rock/pop/jazz song to help on another? But Sonible have approached this a bit differently. But the correction of these seven EQ bands can be “added” to the smart:filter curve to adjust the overall EQ. The smart:filter generates very high resolution curves, whereas the general EQ section has only seven bands. Smart:EQ 2 has both an “intelligent” self-learning EQ balancing system using its smart:filter to “create a natural sounding tonal balance” and a set of very flexible parametric filters that include bell shaped (with Q from 0.01 to 20), shelf, low and high pass, and a “tilt” filter (raises or lowers levels below the frequency setting and does the opposite above the frequency). (Please refer to our website to find out more about the current demo period of smart:EQ 2)”.
The manual states, “you can use smart:EQ 2 a couple of days without any limitations.
You can run a demo mode to evaluate smart:EQ 2 before you buy it, but I’m not sure how long it operates that way. On the other hand, the iLok connection is good news for many - you can now authorize smart:EQ 2 with an iLok dongle, but note that you need to contact Sonible to get the dongle license set up.
Might be best to follow the manual suggestion to use the latest PACE version, but the one I downloaded with the smart:EQ 2 code worked for me. Also, the manual suggests downloading the PACE code from iLok, even though Sonible provided a PACE installation program with the smart:EQ 2 package. NOTE: you need the PACE module, but you do not need an iLok dongle or even an iLok account. Hopefully few people will see such an issue. Not really too time-consuming, but not what I like happening. but only after I uninstalled and reinstalled it all.
When I tried to authorize I got an warning message about my PACE version, so I installed the newer PACE code provided by Sonible, and tried again. Sonible uses the iLok PACE system, which I already had installed (an old version, it turns out).
However, smart:EQ 2 claims to be more than a normal match-EQ tool, and I’m always interested in new possibilities, so I gave it a go.įirst, the not-so-good news: getting it authorized was a minor pain for me. When I started looking at my plug-in stash I found more “match-EQ” plug-ins than I recalled having, and realized I hadn’t really been using them for spectral matching since I hadn’t found such use very profitable.
When I was asked to check out the recent update to the Sonible Smart EQ, a product I thought of as “spectral matching EQ“, I realized I had a few “automated” EQ matching tools already.