Larry Shelby Posted July 11 Share Posted July 11 https://www.pluginboutique.com/product/2-Effects/16-EQ/11473-Scaler-EQ 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PavlovsCat Posted July 11 Share Posted July 11 Hmmm... I've been anticipating purchasing Sonible's Smart EQ4, which seems to be pretty feature packed -- and planning to wait for Black Friday. But this EQ caught my attention when released. I'd love to get the thoughts of more knowledgeable mixers about this (SPOILER: most forum members are more knowledgeable than me on mixing!), especially how it compares to Smart EQ4. I would expect that Sonible's EQ is superior based on their history of making excellent plugins and PluginBoutique largely being a retailer that is doing this as a secondary business. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mibby Posted July 11 Share Posted July 11 I've been really curious about this one too since it came out. It's a unique idea, as far as I know. Is it a gimmick? Does it introduce phase issues with all the boosts and cuts? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PavlovsCat Posted July 11 Share Posted July 11 23 minutes ago, mibby said: I've been really curious about this one too since it came out. It's a unique idea, as far as I know. Is it a gimmick? Does it introduce phase issues with all the boosts and cuts? Mibby, what is your opinion of Smart EQ4? BTW, unrelated, but related to mixing, on your SoundCloud, you mixed a track that I would love to ask you about sometime. I just found the mix very different and would love to know what you did that makes it sound like it does so that I could attempt to mix a song like that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mibby Posted July 11 Share Posted July 11 22 minutes ago, PavlovsCat said: Mibby, what is your opinion of Smart EQ4? BTW, unrelated, but related to mixing, on your SoundCloud, you mixed a track that I would love to ask you about sometime. I just found the mix very different and would love to know what you did that makes it sound like it does so that I could attempt to mix a song like that. I own Smart EQ4 but haven't used it enough to have an opinion. I have a few of these anti-masking "smart" plugins that are on my list to sit down with and see if they will work for me. I'm flattered you like one of my mixes Peter. DM me and I'd be happy to pull up the session and go through it with you.. I could pick your brains about using my Orange Tree libraries too. ? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GTsongwriter Posted July 11 Share Posted July 11 3 hours ago, PavlovsCat said: Hmmm... I've been anticipating purchasing Sonible's Smart EQ4, which seems to be pretty feature packed -- and planning to wait for Black Friday. But this EQ caught my attention when released. I'd love to get the thoughts of more knowledgeable mixers about this (SPOILER: most forum members are more knowledgeable than me on mixing!), especially how it compares to Smart EQ4. I would expect that Sonible's EQ is superior based on their history of making excellent plugins and PluginBoutique largely being a retailer that is doing this as a secondary business. I have both Smart EQ 3 and 4. Smart EQ 3 is much more stable than Smart EQ 4. I've had Smart EQ 4 crash my DAW several times, but I've never had Smart EQ 3 crash. I reported this to Sonible, but I don't think they did anything about it. I love how Smart EQ can put one track more priority over the other tracks, then the track below it has more priority over the tracks under neath it. Priority meaning that the masking puts the frequencies of the top track more visible than the tracks below it, and then middle track more visible than the bottom track. I hope you understand that? Despite Smart EQ 4 crashing, I still use it because it has so much more flexibility than Smart EQ 3. It mostly crashes when you mess with the settings like extending the listening length. So, I don't touch the 6 seconds listening length, and it tends to be more stable. Scaler EQ sounds neat, but I'm not completely sold on it. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GTsongwriter Posted July 11 Share Posted July 11 1 hour ago, mibby said: I own Smart EQ4 but haven't used it enough to have an opinion. I have a few of these anti-masking "smart" plugins that are on my list to sit down with and see if they will work for me. I'm flattered you like one of my mixes Peter. DM me and I'd be happy to pull up the session and go through it with you.. I could pick your brains about using my Orange Tree libraries too. ? If you really need the best anti masking abilities, get FUSER by Mastering the Mix. Even though he's the rudest developer in emails for getting new features added by request, he's got the best plugin for anti masking. He hasn't updated any of his plugin for six months.. So I guess it's stable. I have had the trial crash on me, but he fixed it within a couple of weeks and then I bought it. It's never crashed on me since then. So, he will fix bugs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mettelus Posted July 11 Share Posted July 11 https://discuss.cakewalk.com/topic/71402-scaler-eq-crossgrade-from-scaler-44/?do=findComment&comment=506441 On cell here, so not sure if that link will work, but I reviewed Scaler EQ when it first came out and PB had a similar post. I am not sure if that has been resolved though (it was a static plugin on release regarding chord/key). Not been tracking it specifically. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
solodancer Posted July 11 Share Posted July 11 8 hours ago, PavlovsCat said: Hmmm... I've been anticipating purchasing Sonible's Smart EQ4, which seems to be pretty feature packed -- and planning to wait for Black Friday. But this EQ caught my attention when released. I'd love to get the thoughts of more knowledgeable mixers about this (SPOILER: most forum members are more knowledgeable than me on mixing!), especially how it compares to Smart EQ4. I would expect that Sonible's EQ is superior based on their history of making excellent plugins and PluginBoutique largely being a retailer that is doing this as a secondary business. I own both but haven't used either extensively. Both can do basic and apparently more advanced (dynamic) EQ duties just fine. Where they differ is in their respective standout feature: SmartEQ has unmasking including kind of an "auto mix" feature for multiple tracks, ScalerEQ can, well, EQ based on a musical scale of your choice. It seems to me like SmartEQ and particularly the unmasking feature would be perfect for you as a beginner mixer without too many ambitions to become a pro any time soon. I liked it when I tried it but stopped myself from using it because I wanted to learn to EQ 'properly', whatever that means. The scale feature of ScalerEQ is mostly a gimmick for 'regular' EQing, but ABSOLUTELY AMAZING on FX sends to declutter them a little bit and reduce them to the most important information. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PavlovsCat Posted July 11 Share Posted July 11 (edited) 5 hours ago, solodancer said: I own both but haven't used either extensively. Both can do basic and apparently more advanced (dynamic) EQ duties just fine. Where they differ is in their respective standout feature: SmartEQ has unmasking including kind of an "auto mix" feature for multiple tracks, ScalerEQ can, well, EQ based on a musical scale of your choice. It seems to me like SmartEQ and particularly the unmasking feature would be perfect for you as a beginner mixer without too many ambitions to become a pro any time soon. I liked it when I tried it but stopped myself from using it because I wanted to learn to EQ 'properly', whatever that means. The scale feature of ScalerEQ is mostly a gimmick for 'regular' EQing, but ABSOLUTELY AMAZING on FX sends to declutter them a little bit and reduce them to the most important information. I know that someone on this board was puzzled how I could work as semi pro musician 12 years and not learn mixing. When you play drums and rely on sound pros to do the mixing live and in the studio, you don't become a sound engineer. All the hardware gear and mics I purchased back then were on the advice of the sound engineers I worked with. Admittedly, it was, "You should buy these mics for the toms, these for snare, this for the bass drum..." For the studio, they'd use their mics and effects it and I would stand over mixing consoles while engineers asked if I wanted adjustments on the mix. But I never touched a fader in a pro studio. I tuned my kit and they did the mics and mixing and I played. I recorded demos using reel to reel and cassette multitracks since I was a kid, but never knew what I was doing with eq and effects. So now, long past those days, I'm very slowly learning. Edited July 12 by PavlovsCat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heath Row Posted July 12 Share Posted July 12 (edited) I have all the Sonible stuff from the start, I recon it's all great stuff, never really had any issues with any of it as I move along. But I use Studio One now, not SONAR/CbB/Sonar any longer, so things may be different there. I've always been interested in Scaler EQ, the idea is very interesting, gimmick or not? wouldn't have a clue. But like I said the idea is very interesting to me. The fact that it comes from the Scaler people(?) gives me faith, because Scaler, Scaler 2 are awesome products, so ScalerEQ gets a couple of points straight off the bat. I've just got to stop umming and arring and get it, it's cheap enough, I think I'll grab it today, if not this weekend, but there's soooooo much other stuff to check out and use, and all those TONEX packs to get to, hmmmmm, life just isn't long enough? Edited July 12 by Heath Row Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GTsongwriter Posted July 12 Share Posted July 12 The really odd thing is... plugin boutique is really pushing this, yet I don't see it being pushed by any of the people I watch on YouTube. Nobody else is giving any kind of opinions on this software that I trust. Scaler EQ sounds like a good idea, but I'm still on the edge until someone that's not plugin boutique and someone that isn't given the plugin from PB would give an honest review on YouTube that I might consider this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heath Row Posted July 12 Share Posted July 12 Have you demo'd it? There is only 1 you should trust, and that's yourself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BTP Posted July 12 Share Posted July 12 3 hours ago, Heath Row said: The fact that it comes from the Scaler people(?) gives me faith, because Scaler, Scaler 2 are awesome products, so ScalerEQ gets a couple of points straight off the bat. He's the one who's created the plugins. Seems to know a thing or two about music. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davide_Carbone 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mettelus Posted July 12 Share Posted July 12 I just checked quick and Scaler EQ is still at version 1.1.1. The biggest liability of this plugin is that it is static (i.e., not capable of following a chord track or adjusting resolution to the current chord in the song). While the key parameters can be mouse-clicked during playback, there are no MIDI taps into them (a little better), nor the ability to have this be automatic (ideal case). While this can be useful on isolated clips, it is not practical and too much overhead to utilize effectively. The original post I made reviewing Scaler EQ is here, with a quick follow-up post just below it. The link to the post on the Plugin Boutique forum is in that follow-up post, which had requested pretty much the same thing that I did way back when. Without the ability to follow a chord track or the active chord, Scaler EQ is essentially a dynamic EQ with a little better refinement, but remains "static" by key/settings chosen for the clip otherwise. 1 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
antler Posted July 12 Share Posted July 12 18 hours ago, El Diablo said: The really odd thing is... plugin boutique is really pushing this, yet I don't see it being pushed by any of the people I watch on YouTube. The thing about YouTube is that most (though not necessarily all) people are really just sales-people in disguise. They do a review and claim it to be unbiased, but they've probably either taken a chunk of cash to say good things about a product, or received a free version, or have an affiliate link to buy the product. Plugin Boutique likely don't want either the extra effort involved in getter influencer marketing, or the reputation associated with it - after all, they have (I expect) a large user base they can already advertise to. 18 hours ago, El Diablo said: Nobody else is giving any kind of opinions on this software that I trust. By all means, use YouTube as an info source for what a piece of software can do/sound like, but it's probably a good idea to keep in mind that potential negative aspects can be de-emphasised. (e.g. an extreme example is the well-known MIDI chord pack advert that frequently pop up on YouTube.) The best thing to do is to demo the software yourself to see if it fits with your workflow and existing toolset. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kevin H Posted July 13 Share Posted July 13 On 7/12/2024 at 1:00 PM, antler said: The best thing to do is to demo the software yourself to see if it fits with your workflow and existing toolset. Nailed it. This is why I always buy first and then try it ? 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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