Hey all!

I’m not 100% sure this is a mastering or mixing thing (probably both), but when I try to mix a tune, the louder parts (choruses etc) are hitting the iZotope Tonal Balance Control 2, where I want, but in the more stripped down verses (anywhere else with less energy), my low end can start to appear to blow up and overtake the low end spectrum.

I know it’s more of a guide, but my low end does appear to be a bit bloated and overtake things at the more quiet parts. If I turn it down, it starts to feel weak over all. I guess I could gain ride those areas, but is there a better way to deal with this?

If it matters, I tend to do a lot of acoustic guitars with a bit of a reggae/rock vive (ie: Jack Johnson, Sublime, Dirtyheads…)

Thanks!

Trust your ears! If the spectral balance in the verses sounds appropriate, then it probably is. What you describe makes perfect sense for a reggae-esque tune during sparse sections where the bass is carrying the track.

Remember that the range/curve in Tonal Balance is created from the average of 100s of songs but each of those had their own unique balance and would look more "uneven" during sparse sections.

Be careful not to fall into the trap of mixing with your eyes. If the bass or any other part of the spectrum is way outside the range in Tonal Balance and your monitoring environment is not entirely trustworthy, then that might be something to worry about. Otherwise, if what you see on the analyzer is appropriate to the song, don't worry too much about it.

After personally spending countless hours with tonal balance control 2, if it tells you you have too way too much low end, you most likely do. In fact, the only bar that I would trust in that plug-in is the low end bar.

But as you said, if there are more stripped down areas of a song, it may tell you certain areas are lacking more than others and try to overcompensate.(For instance, it may say you have not enough low mids, when there are no vocals in the song.)

But before making any changes take it to several different places and listen to it. You also have the option of adding individual references to the plugin for analysis.

As the gentleman said above, definitely use your ears, and I say don’t trust the plug in for much more than a good indicator of whether you have too much bass and trust it more on the busiest part of the song where all of the elements are happening at once.

Please note; Tonal Balance Control informs you about relative values, not absolute ones like in regular analyzer software.

So if there's little or no mid information in (a section of) your mix (eg guitars, vocals etc) you will see the bass curve rise accordingly.

Something to be aware of.

A few things to consider…..

Tonal Balance works very well, and makes a great guide to see how your various levels are. However, it takes about 10-15 seconds for the meters to adjust to the program…..open the plugin, hit play, and give it some time for the meters to “settle in.”

It does not respond accurately to brief dynamic changes in the music. It gives an overall perspective, so if you have a much quieter part that is only representative of a small part of the song, it’s not going to be very accurate.

Regardless, you might consider automating a high pass filter around 40-50Hz for the quieter parts.

There's actually a setting for that.

You need to use these types of tools in reverse. i.e if you hear a problem then you could use an analyser to pinpoint the exact frequency and range. What you should not be doing is looking at TBC and adjusting your track to fit inside it.
I have more RTAs than anybody. I am very tech in the studio BUT my big cheat in music production is using my ears.

My goto is Span Pro. I use the slow preset and adjust to show Nyquist, 4.5dB slope 1/24 smoothing and 8k window resolution.

Wow, I had no idea! I’m gonna check it out, that could be very useful!

Yep. You can change the response time to whatever you want. I believe it defaults to average over 10 seconds.

This is how I’ve been using it…mostly. I don’t usually pay much attention to it until I have a mix 90% “there”. Then I take a look at the TBC2 and start trying to shape the: 1) Original Tracks, first, followed by 2) Stems, but I was running into issues at this point and if I took too much out of some things, it would sound too thin.

Thanks for the responses, everyone!

This actually led to me to mute the drums and bass, and run the TBC2 through it’s paces (since I kept assuming those were where my real problems were).

Turns out I had too much low end in the acoustic guitars and they were muddying things up and leading to an inflated low end.

I was worried that, either rolling off or scooping too much low end in the guitars, would end up sounding too thin on the stripped down parts (a common problem for me), but doing so while watching the TBC2 allowed me to scoop to a suitable point and not lose any of the darker guitar feel I was looking for.

When I put the bass and drums back in the mix, it was like magic. Everything opened up and I could turn down the bass and kick a bit, and now everything fits solid.

Dare I say a lesson was learned?

Thanks all!

Note length on the lows affect TBC results a lot.
So maybe you don't need louder, just longer.