Anyone tried this one? This plugin is supposed to work as a time saver for balancing decisions.
I did and it doesn't work as intended.
For example I have 4 kick layers and single snare, the balance decisions made with this plugin are really off.
It's better to do it myself than relying on the plugin.
What am I doing wrong?

 

Looks just like a ducker/auto levelling plugin.

I'm not sure if you did something wrong, neither if this is really a time saver.

 

On 1:18, he says that the plugin gonna make the song mix itself.

 

i thought the same too, ozone did this already with their Relay system .. s

 

Do you want me to move it to humor sub?

 

That plugin doesn't work for me too.

So this plugin is a complete bs? Glad that I did not buy it yet. Lmao.

 

Last edited: Jan 17, 2021

Mischen is possible aber Mischen ist nicht automatisch?!

 

Here is what I think will work most of the time.
You can test it too.
Set all the faders to 0.
Now, put Hornet LU MK2 as the last plugin on each Channel.
Now, set the Loudness to whatever optimum you think, it is for you. I chose -23 LUFS for no reason at all.
Now for Percussive tracks, set time window to Momentary and for Non Percussive channels, set time window to Short Term.
(Just save two presets. One with say, -23 LUFS Short term, named 'Non Percussion' and other with say -23 LUFS Momentary, named 'Percussive').

Now play the song and make sure to make the LU MK2 in auto-mode so that it can do its work which setting every channel's output to -23 LUFS (here, in my case).
Let the song play till the end.

So, is it balanced now?
Hell no.
Now, every channel is at same loudness level.
Now, do anchor style mixing.
Anchor your say, Kick to 0 fader.
Now, this is your anchor.
If you want your bass to a little quieter than kick, start with -1 to -3 dB Fader for Bass. If you want your background vocals to be moderately quieter than Bass, start your BG_Vox with -9 and below on the fader etc.
When we have all the sounds at equal loudness, mixing with faders, seems fairly fast and intuitive and this will save time IMHO.

(There's no hard and fast rule about -23 LUFS, you can choose whatever you want but try not to have higher values as putting everything up to -10 LUFS means the Master Channel will clip heavily.
But if you want you can always choose even lower LUFS value for anchoring, thanks to internal 32 bit or even 64 bit processing of the channels in most DAWs).


And oh yeah, LU MK2 costs about 3-5 USD depending on when you're buying it and it doesn't have Copy protection but it uses some sort of watermarking AFAIK, so it is really really easy on CPU.

 

Last edited: Jan 17, 2021

I stumbled upon it yesterday by accident. Found the idea interesting.
I tested it with two projects and spent a total of just over two hours experimenting and setting it up. The results were completely unusable. I have once again wasted two hours of my life. I need almost twice as long for the setup alone as for a manually performed, well-balanced level mix. wtf

 

I use it all the time now. I had to submit a cue for broadcast and I wasn't happy with the mix when compared to a reference track. I tried it and it was 90% accurate to what I wanted. Just needed a little tweaking to suit my taste.
But it's a little annoying that you're supposed to add it to every track for analysis and processing, especially if it's a high track count. IMO, it's it's best for those who are lazy or inexperienced mixers like myself.

 

Damn, Paul Third... You made a lot of people loose their times with this shit...

(I also saw a video from his channel YESTERDAY talking about this, lost tons of time reading about it and after that i just felt the snake oilness smell coming through my speakers. I'm glad now i didnt even tested it)


WTF... A plugin that move faders? What are we supposed to do now? Throw the Dog Particle on the 2buss and master on Ozone 10? Genius, Ayaic

 

Hmm... yes. I was hoping I could save some time and work, have a coffee or make a phone call and then get to work with a halfway working level mix.... Unfortunately, it doesn't work for me. But if it works for others, I'm happy for them.

I'm still glad I stumbled across this developer. Their EQ is very interesting. It is advertised that you can EQ without listening to the material. And indeed! While I wouldn't go so far as to say you can mix with it without listening to the mix, it's interesting how far you can get with it while you're working in complete silence and know where you're going. It's a very cool concept. I could definitely see myself using this EQ to balance the individual recording tracks during the train ride to the studio, so that when I arrive at the studio, I can start right away with the creative part.
I don't know yet if it will be a buy, but I am thoroughly impressed.

 

Gobbledegook. Pure gobbledegook. I watched the vids of this guy telling me how I could mix without even hearing stuff, balance out harmonies so that they don't overtake the vocal etc. He is nerd-level 10 when it comes to his understanding of noise and all that and good for him. Wish I had his brain. But PRACTICALLY, this is not mixing, what he's doing. It's tech-ing your way through a process meant for your ears and mind working in union with each other. Once again, Paul Third has led us down the garden path and into a thornbush of complication along with his friend here at Ayaik. When I mixed and mastered back in 2005, I was okay. With a few tutorials, better plugs for a few things and USING YOUR EARS IN CONJUNCTION WITH A GOOD REFERENCE TRACK, I got better. Telling someone they can mix with their eyes is like telling someone they can be an safety-rated airline pilot via telekinesis and 'using the force'. Nope. Just ... nope.

 

Yeah, totally agree with you. I like his channel, because i love blind tests (i often do a lot by myself) and love understanding the sound and behaviour of some especific gear or plugin. But for mixing i prefer not paying so much attention because even himself already told he's not a good mixer, so when i do watch his mixing videos i end up:
1- very pissed with misinformation
2- struggling with myself because some nerd told "scientific" facts of audio that, in pratice, doesnt means nothing

 

Of course this is mixing! It's no substitute for craftsmanship and critical listening. We're talking about a tool for spectral balancing instruments while avoiding ear fatigue. It's not "tech-ing your way," but instead of being the construction worker who pours the foundation and builds the house brick by brick as usual, you play architect and construction engineer for a while and let COS do the heavy lifting until you take over again yourself.
For me, COS works pretty well so far. I've used it on 3 mixes now. After wrapping my head the concept and familiarizing myself with the noise guides, I used it on the last mix in blind flight (sitting on the couch with my laptop while listening to an audiobook!) and ended up exactly where I wanted. I inserted COS on each track, played through the song once, and took notes while COS created the spectrum for each instrument. Then I worked from my notes and created the noise ceilings for the tracks that needed to be adjusted. I hit "conform spectrum to ceiling" and made some minor adjustments. Done! From there, I just kept working the way I normally do. With the added benefit that I can still use the spectrum ceilings I've created to bring tracks back into the previously created balance with the push of a button after further processing, if I want to. Which definitely saves time.

 

Last edited: Dec 8, 2022

Glad it saves you time and works for you sincerely!

 

Happy Holidays!

The problem with COS is, it produces completely different results depending on the notes in the track, and how many notes there are - it can’t tell what the instrument actually sounds like. If you have a synth line with one note, as far as COS is concerned there will be too much of that frequency and it will simply remove it. With a snare, COS doesn’t take into account how it’s tuned and replaces the fundamental with the fundamental of the preset (making the snare sound thin). Mix Monolith is a buggy plugin that is more hassle than it’s worth - it has to relearn each individual track every time you make a minor adjustment - I struggle to see how this saves time.

Here’s my review:

Sincerely,
Harry