Tonal Balancer

In this video, I want to show you something I made in Bitwig, called Tonal Balancer. (It's inspired by zynaptiq's Balancer) It's a tool that automatically balances the tonal distribution of your track to match a target curve. It's a pretty simple concept, but it can make a big difference in how your track sounds. Let me walk you through how it works and how you can use it!

Key Points:

• Tonal Balancer Overview:

  • It's a device I created to automatically adjust the tonal balance of your track.

  • The core idea is to match your track’s tonal distribution to a pre-set target, which helps create a more balanced and cohesive sound.

• How It Works:

  • Target Curve: You can choose different target curves, like pink noise or a smiley curve, to shape the tonal balance.

  • Adjustable Speed: You can change how fast the EQ adapts to changes in the audio signal by adjusting the rise and fall knobs. The faster you set these, the more it starts to behave like a compressor, but with slower settings, it functions as a leveler.

  • Band Splitting: The signal is split into multiple frequency bands, and each band is processed to match the target curve.

• Pink Noise as Reference:

  • I use pink noise as the reference to create a target curve. You can also create your own custom curves and apply them as the reference.

  • The noise level can be adjusted, and each frequency band is processed to match the levels of this noise.

• Level Matching:

  • The device uses a level-matching technique for each frequency band, comparing the input sound (your track) to the reference noise and adjusting the volume of each band to match.

• Dry Signal Blend:

  • You can blend the dry signal with the processed signal, but it’s recommended not to use the mix knob too much as it can affect the overall compensation.

• Stereophonic Control:

  • You can unlink the left and right channels for independent processing or return to mono for uniformity.

• Threshold Feature Coming Soon:

  • Right now, there’s no threshold control, which means the device raises the volume of the quieter parts of the track. I plan to add a threshold feature so the device doesn’t raise the noise floor during quiet moments.

• Free and Available on GitHub:

  • The Tonal Balancer preset is completely free and available on my GitHub. You can download it and create your own target curves.

Conclusion:

The Tonal Balancer is a simple but effective tool for balancing the tonal distribution in your track. It's still a work in progress, but it can help you achieve a more cohesive sound. You can experiment with different target curves and adjust how the EQ adapts to your track’s dynamics.

If you're interested, check out the preset on GitHub and let me know what you think!