Hey everyone. Hope all of you are doing well
I'm trying to find some kind of a tool/plugin (possibly using AI) that can normalise levels of mixes i'm receiving.
The thing is that, I'm receiving "already mixed and mastered" tracks and it's a bit annoying but there are certain moments in the tracks where an element or two are bit or way too loud from the rest of the mix (i know. they are not very well mixed but what can you do). They are not perfect, and we're not going for perfect mixes but it's been very annoying for me. I'm not supposed to edit them but it's very irritating. Especially when for an example a crash hits louder, or the kick is above everything else in the mix.
I've been looking at iZotope, Sonible, Signum Audio, and a couple others but i'm not sure which one can do that from just a wav file.
The easiest thing would be to just edit and level them myself but most of the time i don't have the stems or if i ask for them it would take a lot of time for them to get to me.
Do you have anything in mind? Some tool that has been very helpful to you in similar instances
Would much appreciate any help

 

if I had people sending me all sorts of random things like this; it would not bother me to slap the God Particle on it and call it a day.

 

FabFilter Pro-MB. Deadass serious recommendation. It's not automatic, but you can set it in a reasonable amount of time with a reasonable degree of effect's transparency.

 

you have no idea how many times i wanted to off myself when i hear something like this and just call it a day but it's hard finding a job with competent people and i really don't have a lot of options. might as well recommend them using tgp in the first place instead of sending me a half assed mix

 

Last edited: Feb 10, 2023

thank you very much for this recommendation. i will definitely try it. will let you know how it goes. appreciate you

 

I bought this plugin from Plugin Alliance so cheap that I wouldn't pass up on it even if it was a bust:

https://www.ayaicinc.com/mix-monolith

It does what you want exactly. It measures the level of your tracks and then sets them "right" according to the parameters you request.

Does it do it? Yes.
Does it do it well? That's debatable.

I suppose it does, but it takes a little leaning how to make the best out of it. I ended up thinking that I could use that time mixing properly (take this from a lazy guy who loves Sonible and iZotope for doing their heavy lifting with tracks).

EDIT: Now that I think about it, I'll make the time to learn it to actually see how it works.

 

that was exactly my point. Maybe next time they will not waste your time as clearly. You are being sent junk and are not a miracle worker.

 

Another semi-automatic balancing tool is Sonible Smart Comp 3. It can analyze up to 6 instances of the plugin at once and balance not only the EQ curve, but also the "space" the balanced elements occupy in the mix. That's actually a good starting point for mixing.

 

What exactly is your job regarding those mixes? Are you supposed to really master them, directly put it in another media? If it's the second, i've heard some awful shit on multimedia productions but that sort of camouflages with the rest of what's going on, so a song being badly mixed might not be as big of a problem as it might seem. A little embellishment here and there could be enough.

If you're supposed to master them, it's pretty common to ask the client to send you the file they want and a second version without mixbus prcessing, at least (you can also ask for stuff like a version with the vocals a bit higher or lower, stems, whatever). That should give you a bit more room to do stuff. There are tools to "normalize" overall levels, but sadly i don't think there's a tool to automatically rebalance levels of different instruments from a single stereo file within a specific time and rebalance again in the next period of time, but there are some that can help you get there, like Izotope's music rebalance, with some automation here and there you can well...rebalance things.

Another option would be stuff like lalal.ai, extract the different elements of a song into separate files, level them as close as you can to the original file, then automate the level of each part when something is too loud or too soft.

 

Huh, that got me thinking. Maybe I didn't understand the initial task.

@Stumbling3610 Do they send you multitracks or mixes in a single file? If they send you multitracks you can just use whatever compressor, gain rider or even limiter you want.

 

I'll vote for Hit'n'Mix RipX. It does exactly what you want, plus lots more - it'll take a while to fully comprehend its workflow.

 

If you are stripping stems this is 100% the way to go. I have used this now to strip a few tracks to extract Vox,etc. and the results of this are the next level. It is just very slow doing the processing; but the results are well worth a little extra time.

Fuse Audio Labs DrumsSSX is another plugin for separation of mixed drums, somewhat like Music Rebalance.

 

Dynamic EQ and/or Multiband Compression will do the trick. Pick your weapon of choice (FabFilter Pro-Q 3, FabFilter Pro-MB or both).

 

Ever try Wavelab? You can apply a corrective plug in or a plugin chain of plugs on as little as 1 sample if you wanted to, A little bit of work to fix the small spots you speak of will usually yield better results than something your going to apply on an entire track.

 

If you really want the easier route try Waves F6. Combination EQ and multiband dynamics processor.

 

Ozone, Elevate bundle, Satin( on mix down first