Sonible true:balance

[chagzuki]

I'm just trying the demo, and I'm keen on this type of feedback due to my limited monitoring equipment. Seems well thought out, but the first thing I notice is that the included profiles for universal and electronic genres are vastly more bass-heavy than my mix references. Now, my mix references are old, generally electronic music from the early 2000s. Has music become way more bass-heavy since then... I doubt it.

Anyone here using this plugin?

[MJACau]

Wasn't music CD's in the early 2000's at the peak of the loudness wars. Where streaming today is an average of -14 lufs you would have a more bass heavy smiley face of a Fletcher–Munson curve?! I could be wrong.

[aberration123]

More likely the older tracks were mastered for vinyl release, bass management is more important when taking vinyl into account. Also limitations of the equipment used, signal chains, I've heard some older producers laugh at modern producers wanting that "analog sound" when they spent most of their time trying to avoid it.... we have the luxury of tools to manage everything. Modern kicks seem to favour the transient making room for more bass.

Loud and lots of bass (especially sub) is rather oxymoronic, not really doable, something has to give.

You can load your own references in to Balance, just ignore the presets and go with what you like.

I'm with you on the earlier sound, especially the progressive house of old.

[_al_]

Anyone here using this plugin?

Yep, I got the True Balance / Level bundle in a sale a while back.
I actually thought it wasn't working at first, because I didn't realise you need to click the little target icon, to switch from int refs to ext refs.
Still think they need to make that selection border a little clearer.

Once up and running though, I was pleasantly surprised. Does what it says on the tin, and makes me feel a bit safer.

I do still use Blue Cat Freq Pro, to store and toggle my 4 fave refs though. More accurate readout, zooming, and storing refs without folder digging

[MogwaiBoy]

True Balance is a worthy alternative to iZo's Tonal Balance Control, in my opinion. It was crashing my DAW a bit though but I'm going to try it soon on my new PC.

PS don't worry about the built-in genre profiles - just chuck a bunch of your references in a folder and scan that.

[yzcoruhT]

True Balance is great tool. I use it in all my new projects. I reccommend you to load and scan your favorite songs with similar genre you are working on into True Balance and use them as a refference instead of using "prefabricated" ones in plugin.

In other hand - I also like the free alternative TDR Prism. You can load an audio, analyze it and than use it as a refference.