izotope - Tonal Balance Control well or go by ear?

[jacoustics]

Tonal Balance Control is useful as a guide, but I wouldn’t chase the target curve blindly. A darker or moodier track will naturally have a different spectral balance than the reference profiles Ozone uses.

I usually get more value from comparing directly against reference tracks in the same style. We actually built a free plugin called jReference for exactly that purpose/reference comparison, tonal balance, loudness, dynamics, etc. It’s available on jacoustics.com if you want to check it out.