New Tool (3.0): Mix Balancer

Renoise Tools
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Mix balancer

Download On Tools Site:

https://www.renoise.com/tools/mix-balancer

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What it`s for

This tool is to help you achieve a balanced mix more quickly. It features 4 Gain-Nudge Buttons, which apply to the tracks post-faders. There are two modes of action:

  1. INVERSE mode: The Gain Nudge buttons effect the current track post-faders and all other tracks post-faders will be moved in the opposite direction. Similar to a Tilt EQ.

  2. CURRENT mode: The Gain Nudge buttons effect the current track post-faders only.

Controls

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Inverse%20Button

Pressing the INVERSE button changes the mode to CURRENT. In current mode the main large buttons will only effect the current track.

When in INVERSE mode, Automatic Headroom Control is enabled with the [A] button. When the mode is enabled the button turns orange. It means that the tool will keep the maximum fader automatically at around 0dB so you don’t have to keep making headroom adjustments via the ‘All Faders’ buttons. This feature only reduces volume, not increases so that you dont get any unexpected/unwanted volume boosts

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mix%20balancer%20fine%20cbox

There is a value readout for the current tracks dB level on the top right of the main Gain Buttons. Below the Gain Buttons there is a checkbox labelled ‘Fine’ which halves the values for each of the gain buttons, so you can make even smaller adjustments.

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headroom%20and%20faders

Beneath that are 2 ‘All Faders’ buttons [+] [-] that will adjust all instrument tracks in 1dB increments up and down; basically a macro for all your mixer instrument-track faders, so you can boost/ reduce all tracks at once.

The Headroom textbox shows you the current value of the highest fader/faders in the mixer and when you get close to maximum (+3dB) the minus button on the left will change colour first to yellow and then red to prompt you to press it to reduce all the faders at once. This ensures you retain your relative balances and gives you some headroom back.

Press the [G] button to go to the first track that has the maximum fader position. This will be the same as the headroom readout. When that track is selected the [G] button turns green as confirmation.

The View button toggles between the pattern editor and mixer view.

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Note: The tool works on instrument tracks and does not effect master/send tracks, leaving you to adjust these manually if needed. When you use the tool on a group track it will effect the group post fader but not the faders of the grouped track. Otherwise group tracks will not be effected either. The main target for the tool is instrument tracks.

Shortcut / Menus

Tools: ~ Mix Balancer

Tools menu: ~ Ledger`s Scripts: Mix Balancer

DSP menu: : ~ Mix Balancer

Changelog

v1.0
-now up on tools site:

v0.92

  • New ‘Fine’ Checkbox added.
    When enabled the gain button values halve to +/- 0.5dB and +/- 0.1dB for even smaller nudgers of the Post Faders

v 0.8

  1. New automatic headroom control when in INVERSE mode.

This is enabled with the [A] button next to the Inverse button. When the mode is enabled the button turns orange. It means that the tool will keep the maximum fader automatically at around 0dB so you dont have to keep making headroom adjustments via the All Faders` buttons. This feature only reduces volume, not increases so that you dont get any unexpected/unwanted volume boosts.

  1. New Goto [G] button

Press this to goto the first track that has the maximum fader position. This will be the same as the headroom readout. When that track is selected the [G] button turns green as confirmation.

v 0.81
-toned down green button so better with darker themes
-default auto limit mode changed to on. (still saves as user preference after though)
-“A” button disabled when in current mode"

Related / Tips
  • May be useful to use in conjunction with a reference track of the same genre to keep aim in the right direction.

Toggle Reference Track

  • afta8 has written a tool that allows you to drag multiple faders in the mixer via pattern matrix selection

Multi-volumes

  • An alternative free mac/pc spectrum analyser:

SPAN

A tip I picked up on KVR a while ago was to set the frequency response slope on Gliss EQ (similar to Span), to around 4.5. This can show a fairly horizontal response on a balanced mix. Not an absolute rule as you can tell by looking at different commercial mixes through it, there is variation, but a handy rule of thumb.

With setting Avg. time to 2000 works for me, but of course settings are there to be experimented with!

Snapshot of a track from Daft Punks Discovery with a slope of 4.5 in Span:

https://files.renoise.com/forum/uploads/5932-Daft%20Punk%20Freq.PNG

My Other Scripts:

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New Version 0.8 in first post:

  1. New automatic headroom control when in INVERSE mode.

This is enabled with the [A] button next to the Inverse button. When the mode is enabled the button turns orange. It means that the tool will keep the maximum fader automatically at around 0dB so you don’t have to keep making headroom adjustments via the ‘All Faders’ buttons.

  1. New Goto [G] button

Press this to goto the first track that has the maximum fader position. This will be the same as the headroom readout. When that track is selected the [G] button turns green as confirmation.

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This is a really cool idea for a script, thanks for making it and posting it. I rarely use the faders though unfortunately because renoise is a bit messy in that area. Definitely will be giving this a try though, I’m sure there will be times when I can use it.

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This is a really cool idea for a script, thanks for making it and posting it. I rarely use the faders though unfortunately because renoise is a bit messy in that area. Definitely will be giving this a try though, I’m sure there will be times when I can use it.

Got the idea after trying out some tilt EQing. A big fan of it now and I ended up buying the Softube one; pricey but such a useful tool with some nice saturation built in.

I find with the renoise post faders I`m often chasing things down to about -48dB which may be due to their small size vs range but this tool seems to really help with keeping things towards the top. I quite like haveing the buttons to nudge a dB or two which is not so easy as you go down the slider exponential range; even though 1dB is still 1dB in mixing terms! The inverse action also seems to make things problems pop out a bit more. So it makes me look at fixing problems elsewhere with better EQ rather than burying stuff with more volume reductions.

Out of interest what do you use in place of the post faders, something like Hornet`s Track Utility?

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Out of interest what do you use in place of the post faders, something like Hornet`s Track Utility?

I just use a gainer on every channel. It’s a bit of a pain but I’m used to it now. The down side is that the faders (pre and post are absolutely useless for me most of the time.

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I see,

yes the gainers at least give you nudge buttons, but less convenient for overview.

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v 0.81
-toned down green button so better with darker themes
-default auto limit mode changed to on. (still saves as user preference after though)
“A” button disabled when in current mode"

Minor update in first post:

https://forum.renoise.com/t/new-tool-3-0-mix-balancer/44382

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Updated to v0.9

  • DSP lane menu added
  • Call from menu re-initialises gui (opposed to the the toggle behaviour of shortcut)

Updated to v0.91

  • Added text readout of current track post-gain value
2 Likes
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Updated to v0.92

  • New ‘Fine’ Checkbox added.
    When enabled the gain button values halve to +/- 0.5dB and +/- 0.1dB for even smaller nudges of the Post Faders.

92arrow

1 Like
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v1.0 now up on tools site:

https://www.renoise.com/tools/mix-balancer

1 Like
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Did not know I needed this. It is brilliant in the end-stages of a mix. Makes you listen instead of looking at meters in a mixer. Thank you, Ledger!

1 Like
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thanks for the feedback xerxes!

Glad your getting some use with it! I was surprised that I ended up wanting to add the ‘fine’ control values down to 0.1dB, but it`s amazing how much those small nudges can make sounds, lock/ balance against each other in the scheme of things.

Just a thought: another tool that you might be interested to try along the lines of helping focus mix decisions is Spotlight Solo:

LINK

It basically reduces the volume of all tracks except the current track, so you can make processing decisions while it’s in focus but still ‘in context’. Mainly I find useful for EQing/ thinking about levels.

2 Likes
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Oh man! That is seriously awesome. Listening in solo is not completely useless, but not far from it without hearing it in context of the mix. This solves that :slight_smile: Again - thank you so much for spending time making these tools, I can not thank you enough!

And yeah - 0.1db is a massive difference, specially if you make dynamic non-sausage music :wink:

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Well there is self interest in making the tools aswell, basically making stuff that I use (or at least think I will use!). if it helps others aswell, then all the better!

We all love music and music-making here after all, and it turns out even with all this modern tech, getting a good mix (on top of a good song) is damned difficult! There’s a ton of stuff working against you aswell, including monitoring, room-acoustics - room bass acoustics being the worst by far… very unfortunately, scripting can’t help with that…

Would be great to have AI mix engineers, but then come the AI musicians…doh! A whole other conversation… :slight_smile:

Anyway, good to hear your taking it easy with the limiters there :wink:

1 Like
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Ledger, since you seem to know Renoise better than most - any idea if there is tool that will put the knob on a VST of VSTi first in the instr.automation box? Getting tired of hunting for it :slight_smile:

Cheers! :slight_smile:

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@ffx 's tool may be able to help you here with the shortcut/ menu:

Setup Automation Device

You can auto-setup a instrument automation device by using the shortcut “ Global:Tools:Setup automation device " or " Instrument Box:Tools:Setup automation device ”. Also there is a context menu entry available on instrument slots.

The plugin GUI will open, and now you can move the controls you want to use. Please notice that you should not use another instr. automation device then, use only the instr. automation device created by this tool .

You have to move all wanted controls within the timeout, which is set to 5 seconds by default.

-_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

I also have a similar ‘Grab’ function on my Automation Single Slider tool. It works slightly differently though and will only set to the first value of the device when all other slots are used up. Here you can use the drop-down for already automated parameters and automate from the tools GUI rotary.

HTH

1 Like
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v1.2

ledger.scripts.MixBalancer_V1.2.xrnx

  • adds buttons to give you extra/ control headroom in your individual tracks: [-Room] and [+Room] . These control a gainer, named MBal Gainer that is added into your tracks to give you up to 12dB extra headroom before your post faders. Useful when they are pushing over the 0dB line for those tracks. The button [>] will move all of those gainers to the end of their tracks if they’ve drifted when other DSPs have been added.

As you press + 1dB is added to the gainer while 1dB is reduced from the post fader of it’s track. You can use this in conjunction with the ‘All Faders’ buttons and ‘Go’ button for raising the level going into your master track.

mix bal

  • Also a new shortcut `MIB` Mix Filter Cycle which adds a filter to the master track and cycles between 4 states for help with frequency focus when mixing.

OFF/ Hear Lows Only/ Hear Mids Only/ Hear Highs Only