# Toontrack Guitar Gods (Devin, Meshuggah, Bulb, Freak Kitchen content)



## IAMLORDVADER (Nov 13, 2012)

It's out today!
Toontrack - Metal Guitar Gods EZmix Pack

I've never really been into the whole easy mix thing, but I love the Devin and Meshuggah tones! Also not bad for 39 euros







My inner Devin/Meshuggah fan boy is gushing right now!


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## IAMLORDVADER (Nov 13, 2012)

Also


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## Maniacal (Nov 13, 2012)

I have just purchased this. 

My mixing sucks so this should be a good solution for me.


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## IAMLORDVADER (Nov 13, 2012)

I'm more interested in messing around with the guitar tones!


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## Maniacal (Nov 13, 2012)

Yeah me too. I just can't get a distortion tone with the axe fx that I am totally happy with. It would be great if I could get all my tones from ex mix.


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## axxessdenied (Nov 13, 2012)

Toontrack EZmix 3 Pack Bundle | AudioDeluxe


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## Kurkkuviipale (Nov 13, 2012)

What can I say? Really impressive stuff. Would want to know how they've gotten over the mastering (the mixes in the videos are mastered, right?) since that seems to be the biggest problem with home recorders. People want that expensive and professional and commercial sound, but they won't achieve it without proper mastering. Wonder if they include mastering presets in this plug-in...

Anyway, don't be fooled guys! It might be so that they include mastering stuff in the plug-in, but if not, then you're really not gonna get what you're hearing!


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## IAMLORDVADER (Nov 13, 2012)

They do have a specific mastering expansion but I dont know if the basic EZ mix includes any?


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## Maniacal (Nov 13, 2012)

Yes it does. And they are excellent to my ears.


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## Paulsh90 (Nov 13, 2012)

Hmm never been interested in EZmix until now....so am i right in thinking this is essentially Toontracks own amp sims? With some presets made by those guys? As in will i be able to dial in my own tone or will i be restricted to just using these presets?

Could use a replacement for Podfarm and this seems pretty good and affordable!


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## Maniacal (Nov 13, 2012)

looks like it. I am just waiting for the download to finish so will let you know. 

EZ mix is great, especially when used with superior


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## Captain Butterscotch (Nov 13, 2012)

This is awesome!! I suck at mixing. Maybe this will gimme that much needed boost.

EDIT: The samples on the website sounds much different. I guess it really is all in the mastering.


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## Kurkkuviipale (Nov 13, 2012)

Oh well then this sound awesome! Must be worth the money, really.

Best would be if they just used impulses for cabinets and let you use your own impulses if you wanted to. Care to do some kind of review of the features Maniacal? Just a quick scratch to let people know what this thing is capable of; based on what I've now heard, this sound rather cool. (Not that I would buy it anyway, but for people who want to have their ideas demoed and don't know anything about mixing or don't want to practice it)


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## thegut (Nov 13, 2012)

This does sound pretty damn cool. I might just pick it up. Also that SD 2.0 preset from Koloss sounds awesome. I guess it's not out yet though.


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## Maniacal (Nov 13, 2012)

The Fredrik leads are awesome.

Unfortunately my interface is fucking up so I am getting loads of white noise. When it is fixed I will record something with it


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## ShadowAMD (Nov 13, 2012)

It's not the mixing bit that ever phases, it's getting the right sound in the first place.. If I said this on Gearslutz they would have a fit, but it's not mixing that's difficult.. It's everything else..

Might demo it though.. Why not?


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## axxessdenied (Nov 13, 2012)

Mixing isn`t too difficult. It`s all about getting your levels right in the first place and getting things to sound as close as to how you want it before you start adding your post-processing. The less you rely on EQ and Compression the better your overall mix will sound. Atleast, from my limited experience that is what my ears seem to feel.


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## ShadowAMD (Nov 13, 2012)

axxessdenied said:


> Mixing isn`t too difficult. It`s all about getting your levels right in the first place and getting things to sound as close as to how you want it before you start adding your post-processing. The less you rely on EQ and Compression the better your overall mix will sound. Atleast, from my limited experience that is what my ears seem to feel.


 
Whole heartedly agree.. As soon as you start battleing to sort out issues in recorded sounds after initial cleanup 
(LPF / HPF) it's downhill from there.. Bit of compresion works well..

Less is more.. Shit in Shit out and all that.. If I only took my own advice, I'm fine with others work... My own not so much


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## AlexWadeWC (Nov 13, 2012)

Loving the tones from this. Especially that Bulb guitar tone, so massive! This would be an amazing option for getting killer guitar tone while on the road. The Apogee Jam Interface plus this would be a perfect combo for portable guitar tracking!


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## X14Halo (Nov 13, 2012)

So let me ask you guys....what is the easiest, cheapest, best sounding way to hook up my guitar to this EZmix guitar program? (I have a PC)


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## Kurkkuviipale (Nov 13, 2012)

ShadowAMD said:


> Whole heartedly agree.. As soon as you start battleing to sort out issues in recorded sounds after initial cleanup
> (LPF / HPF) it's downhill from there.. Bit of compresion works well..
> 
> Less is more.. Shit in Shit out and all that.. If I only took my own advice, I'm fine with others work... My own not so much



Fundamentally, post-processing hardly differs from dialing the sound in your axe-fx (Well, there are two a/d converters in between, what even could happen) so no, it's not necessarily downhill from there. You just need to know where to look and what to do. Doing post-processing solely for doing post-processing is stupid, even though a lot of people seem to forget to trust their ears and do it just because they can.

And yes, I do agree that the deeper you go in your signal chain, the easier you'll "fix the problems". It's just that, not all the problems can be fixed by tweaking the presence knob or backing off the bass in your amp. All that said, 'initial cleanup' is a lot more than LPF/HPF in my books.

I'm saying that nothing in the world says that doing sound engineering in your DAW would make your mix/sounds sound worse.

Besides, it doesn't even have to do with this product since the "root" of the sound is after the A/D-converter (well, uncounting the basis of the sound; guitar). IOW, I'm not even getting the point of the post you're quoting. Just thought I'd share my thoughts on the matter now that it came up...


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## JohnIce (Nov 13, 2012)

I don't want to derail the thread, but I'm a little against saying that mixing is "easy" if the recording is good... if that was the case, why would big artists hire an expensive mixer after already hiring an expensive recording engineer? The source material will certainly sound top-class, but that doesn't mean you don't need a great mixer, or that you might as well mix it yourself if you have no clue how it's done.

Getting a "good" mix with great source material isn't too hard, but getting _the most out of_ a mix is another story. That can be easy, but it doesn't have to. Depends on what sound you're after, as with everything else. If you're looking for a polished, modern sound where everything sounds huge and wide and sparkly then you'll need to do a lot of meticulous post-processing or you won't get there. I'm with Kurkkuviipale, it's all about knowing where to look and what to do, but that takes experience and a lot of study.


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## axxessdenied (Nov 13, 2012)

Well, I never wanted to imply that it's easy 
Educating yourself is definitely key. I've been reading up a lot on mixing from different sources and it has definitely made a difference in what I'm doing and my end results are really improving on the regular


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## Kurkkuviipale (Nov 13, 2012)

JohnIce said:


> but that that takes experience and a lot of study.



or luck


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## MassNecrophagia (Nov 14, 2012)

"duh-jhent"
lol


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## Santuzzo (Nov 14, 2012)

I will definitely get this.
Judging form their YT clips it sounds awesome. My favorite being Bulb's lead tone!!!


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## ShadowAMD (Nov 14, 2012)

Kurkkuviipale said:


> Fundamentally, post-processing hardly differs from dialing the sound in your axe-fx (Well, there are two a/d converters in between, what even could happen) so no, it's not necessarily downhill from there. You just need to know where to look and what to do. Doing post-processing solely for doing post-processing is stupid, even though a lot of people seem to forget to trust their ears and do it just because they can.
> 
> And yes, I do agree that the deeper you go in your signal chain, the easier you'll "fix the problems". It's just that, not all the problems can be fixed by tweaking the presence knob or backing off the bass in your amp. All that said, 'initial cleanup' is a lot more than LPF/HPF in my books.
> 
> ...




Most engineers have more than just an Axe FX? I have real amps to pick through.. Axe is just an option.. Much of what you said is just common sense, initial cleanup shouldn't be that much more if you know what sound fit's the mix correctly, also know what you are doing in the first place then final processing with EQ and a bit of MB if needed.

I'm saying that nothing in the world says that doing sound engineering in your DAW would make your mix/sounds sound worse.


I'm not quite sure what you mean there, but there is obviously a million and one ways to screw up a mix.

Besides, it doesn't even have to do with this product since the "root" of the sound is after the A/D-converter (well, uncounting the basis of the sound; guitar). IOW, I'm not even getting the point of the post you're quoting.

The source is the king and always will be, Andy Sneap, ERMZ many metal engineers spend much time making sure the source is right.. Then you don't have to do much post processing, seriously most of it literally is HPF / LPF, slight EQ and MB if needed. If you are doing more than there's something wrong. Nearly fifteen years has taught me this....

Point I'm trying to get at is EZMIX is a product, but don't expect it to do wonders with shit recordings..


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## ShadowAMD (Nov 14, 2012)

JohnIce said:


> I don't want to derail the thread, but I'm a little against saying that mixing is "easy" if the recording is good... if that was the case, why would big artists hire an expensive mixer after already hiring an expensive recording engineer? The source material will certainly sound top-class, but that doesn't mean you don't need a great mixer, or that you might as well mix it yourself if you have no clue how it's done.
> 
> Getting a "good" mix with great source material isn't too hard, but getting _the most out of_ a mix is another story. That can be easy, but it doesn't have to. Depends on what sound you're after, as with everything else. If you're looking for a polished, modern sound where everything sounds huge and wide and sparkly then you'll need to do a lot of meticulous post-processing or you won't get there. I'm with Kurkkuviipale, it's all about knowing where to look and what to do, but that takes experience and a lot of study.



You still need the ears and know how to make it sound decent, there will be frequency reactions that cause Mud etc!.. But quality recordings do make it a lot easier, to the point where it may only take you two to four hours to finish a mix. If you mix day in and day out or have at least a fair bit of experience, big and sparkly is no different to lo-fi, it's just a different way of working.

My opinion is that I like this product, it's cool and does a good job.. But it isn't going to turn you into Sneap any time soon and if you're source isn't quite up to par.. Then you're too limited to do much about it.


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## MF_Kitten (Nov 14, 2012)

ShadowAMD said:


> You still need the ears and know how to make it sound decent, there will be frequency reactions that cause Mud etc!.. But quality recordings do make it a lot easier, to the point where it may only take you two to four hours to finish a mix. If you mix day in and day out or have at least a fair bit of experience, big and sparkly is no different to lo-fi, it's just a different way of working.
> 
> My opinion is that I like this product, it's cool and does a good job.. But it isn't going to turn you into Sneap any time soon and if you're source isn't quite up to par.. Then you're too limited to do much about it.



However, if your goal is to get songs down "in the bank", and have it sound great right away, then this is pretty much ideal. You just use presets made to sound great together in the mix, put down all the tracks you want, and you're done! Song is recorded, sound is good, no "i guess the composition is nice, but it sounds horrible!" problems. No hard work just to balance the frequency interaction between things, etc. 

I would love to have this for laptop recording, with a headless "travel" type guitar, and a guitar-focused USB interface, and my Akai MPK Mini for synths and drum triggers. Perfect mobile recording rig.


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## ShadowAMD (Nov 14, 2012)

MF_Kitten said:


> However, if your goal is to get songs down "in the bank", and have it sound great right away, then this is pretty much ideal. You just use presets made to sound great together in the mix, put down all the tracks you want, and you're done! Song is recorded, sound is good, no "i guess the composition is nice, but it sounds horrible!" problems. No hard work just to balance the frequency interaction between things, etc.
> 
> I would love to have this for laptop recording, with a headless "travel" type guitar, and a guitar-focused USB interface, and my Akai MPK Mini for synths and drum triggers. Perfect mobile recording rig.



I get it from a composition and demo stance, but is it really good enough to compete with a professional and / or decent mix engineer?


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## Kurkkuviipale (Nov 14, 2012)

There are a lot of things that you can do in DAW that you can't do with the stuff you have at home. Not everyone has the channel strips or awesome 60-band graphic equalizers like Andy Sneap and other big producers must have. 

For example, harsh sounding overtone treatment for guitars, scooping them out in most cases, can be a really good way in bringing the fundamental tones up in the mix (thus making it tons more clean sounding than with only LPF/HPF) and well, making your tone sound less harsh. Plus if you don't like some part of the character of the amp you're using, this is a good way of making it less apparent. I can't do any of that with my 3-band EQ on the amp or on my Avalon.

What about if my snare is ringing and I don't like it? Well I scoop the rings out.... over two ringing tones and I'm fucked since my Avalon can't handle that. Should I now go and buy a really expensive multi-band graphic EQ to fill my rack? Hell no, I'll rather go get a freeware EQ-plugin that maybe won't make it shine, but it'll get the job done for sure.

Might be that you are fine with the tones you get, but not everyone is. You might like the nice ring that a fine birch snare provides and that's fine. I don't, and the least expensive, and the most efficient (for me), way of getting rid of what I don't like, is doing stuff digitally, most of the times that is.

And I see your point, but seriously, what could go wrong with it? If you're shitty @ tracking, it won't sound good. If your guitar is low quality, it won't sound good. If your A->D converters are shit, it'll sound cloudy and not good. That's common sense too, but that's seriously just not usually the case since the source is reaaallly close to the actual machine that does all the job for you.


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## Schivosa (Nov 14, 2012)

I plan on purchasing EZmix 2 and the Guitar Gods expansion. The EZmix 2 metal bundle seems like a decent deal. I was just wondering if anyone here has used any of these expansions in that bundle and if you think it's worth it.


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## ShadowAMD (Nov 14, 2012)

Kurkkuviipale said:


> There are a lot of things that you can do in DAW that you can't do with the stuff you have at home. Not everyone has the channel strips or awesome 60-band graphic equalizers like Andy Sneap and other big producers must have.
> 
> For example, harsh sounding overtone treatment for guitars, scooping them out in most cases, can be a really good way in bringing the fundamental tones up in the mix (thus making it tons more clean sounding than with only LPF/HPF) and well, making your tone sound less harsh. Plus if you don't like some part of the character of the amp you're using, this is a good way of making it less apparent. I can't do any of that with my 3-band EQ on the amp or on my Avalon.
> 
> ...



I have outboard racks and even at one point had a smaller API mixing desk, I got rid of most of it due to really starting to dig some of the ITB channel strip's like Waves SSL and really cool other plugs like UAD / Wave comps. There is also slate VCC to add a bit of grit to a dry recording, (Also because I was skint .. 

Something about a preset style mixing fashion just rings alarm bells, I'm going to demo it and see how it stacks up to Waves and UAD.. Always willing to try something new


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## axxessdenied (Nov 14, 2012)

Curious, is this just for DI signals or does it have presets for other sources?


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## Kurkkuviipale (Nov 14, 2012)

Yea, it should ring bells indeed, but as Devin said, it's supposed only to be an easy way for demoing stuff and make it sound good without much effort. I don't even know why anyone would want to sound like "Koloss" when making your own music, though who am I to judge?

I'm anyhow looking forward to hear what people come up with this. It's probably gonna end up being something as definitive to metal home recording as what pod farm, guitar rig and things alike are.


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## JamesM (Nov 14, 2012)

I feel like people should use this just for demos, though I'm sure we'll be hearing a lot of stuff coming out using this all the way. 

I guess it isn't wrong, it's just that I worked my tail off to get a unique sound to my mixes and I think I've found one. That makes me happy, and I feel like other people could get the same satisfaction if they work for it!


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## ShadowAMD (Nov 14, 2012)

JamesM said:


> I feel like people should use this just for demos, though I'm sure we'll be hearing a lot of stuff coming out using this all the way.
> 
> I guess it isn't wrong, it's just that I worked my tail off to get a unique sound to my mixes and I think I've found one. That makes me happy, and I feel like other people could get the same satisfaction if they work for it!



Well as I say, I won't dismiss until I try it.. But I can't see it being near the same standard as mixing it yourself.

I could be wrong


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## shredfiend (Nov 14, 2012)

ShadowAMD said:


> Well as I say, I won't dismiss until I try it.. But I can't see it being near the same standard as mixing it yourself.
> 
> I could be wrong



I'm pretty curious. seems like a lot of bang for the buck, EZ Mix and GG. If someone could start with a great set of presets and continue tweaking from there I think they could get some great results.


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## ArrowHead (Nov 14, 2012)

Kurkkuviipale said:


> Yea, it should ring bells indeed, but as Devin said, it's supposed only to be an easy way for demoing stuff and make it sound good without much effort.




Thing is, you can see Devin carefully choosing his words so he doesn't ever actually admit to USING this product.

He says it fills a need for late night demos where he wants the sound of his live rig. We've all seen Devin's studio - his live rig fits in a 4 space rack right next to him. Why wouldn't he just ... turn it on? The whole thing is a bit dave-mustaine-ish, endorsementally speaking. 

Definition:

Dave-Mustaine-ish: "You'll pay me what? Yeah, sure, put my name on your sleeping bags. I don't care. I'll say I love em! Coffee? Marshall MG? SUUUURE! It's all I ever use!"


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## MrGignac (Nov 14, 2012)

cant wait to try this out


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## Kurkkuviipale (Nov 14, 2012)

ArrowHead said:


> Thing is, you can see Devin carefully choosing his words so he doesn't ever actually admit to USING this product.
> 
> He says it fills a need for late night demos where he wants the sound of his live rig. We've all seen Devin's studio - his live rig fits in a 4 space rack right next to him. Why wouldn't he just ... turn it on? The whole thing is a bit dave-mustaine-ish, endorsementally speaking.
> 
> ...



Yea, might be. Really can't say yes or no to that since I haven't heard a "recording noob" use the product yet...


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## xCaptainx (Nov 14, 2012)

ShadowAMD said:


> I get it from a composition and demo stance, but is it really good enough to compete with a professional and / or decent mix engineer?



I dont think anyone here, or in the toontrack advertising, is saying that at all? Devin himself said in his testimonials that while he LOVES the big, slick production of a huge studio, he's often left with capturing his ideas on a laptop while on the road. EZ Mix is for that exact situation. 

This product is basically or people like me. I have a live rig (HD500, powered monitor) and I use a mac, superior drummer, a small interface and EZ Mix exclusively for demo tracking. I have no access to a 'studio' nor do I need one, or want to spend a crazy amount of time (and money) on advanced production skills.

I simply want to capture ideas quickly, with minimal effort. I don't have the time or patience to spend a few years fine tuning my 'production' skills to make my demos sound better. 

Products like this mean I can leave my gear in their flight cases and simply plug in and play. Chuck a few VSTs over the guitars, bass and superior drummer presets I have (I use bulbs avatar, bounce them down to individual tracks for kick, snare, overheads etc and then add EZ Mix presets, plus an ez mix master preset) Everything on my soundcloud xcaptainx's sounds on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free is EZ Mix, HD500 and bulb SP2.0 Avatar kit preset. It's working for me extremely well. 

It's simply to make your home recording sound MUCH better, without having to invest a lot of time and effort into learning advanced production skills. Which leaves me with much more time to concentrate on songwriting. 

I'm upgrading to EZ Mix 2 tonight, and getting this next week. Genuinely excited about this product, especially the bass presets as all my bass patches are rubbish. 

Arrowhead - Devin has stated clearly that Terria was recorded using Toontrack drums exclusively, I doubt he would bother being flown to sweden to create these patches if he wasn't genuinely endorsing the use of this product. Everyone chosen in this guitar gods product have an extremely long standing history with Toontrack.


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## ArrowHead (Nov 14, 2012)

xCaptainx said:


> Arrowhead - Devin has stated clearly that Terria was recorded using Toontrack drums exclusively, I doubt he would bother being flown to sweden to create these patches if he wasn't genuinely endorsing the use of this product. Everyone chosen in this guitar gods product have an extremely long standing history with Toontrack.



You'd have to point out where I said anything about drums. 
Devin's pretty clear in the video about what Toontrack products he's used. This doesn't really seem to be one of them.

It's a new modeling product. Cool. And they got some of their other product's celebrity endorsers to create some presets for it. Cool. But let's not paint it as anything more than that, really. None of these guys are using this product, and you're not going to nail their signature sounds with it. Just like the Misha drum presets won't make your drums sound like his.


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## Webmaestro (Nov 14, 2012)

Please don't kick my ass for asking this but, will this work with Garage Band?

Yes yes, I plan on getting a real DAW sometime soon... but in the meantime...


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## MF_Kitten (Nov 14, 2012)

Webmaestro said:


> Please don't kick my ass for asking this but, will this work with Garage Band?
> 
> Yes yes, I plan on getting a real DAW sometime soon... but in the meantime...



Yup, pretty sure it will. I've used Guitar Rig and EZDrummer in GarageBand before (oh god the shit i dealt with in those days, on my PowerPC G4 CRT screen eMac!)


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## Webmaestro (Nov 14, 2012)

MF_Kitten said:


> Yup, pretty sure it will. I've used Guitar Rig and EZDrummer in GarageBand before (oh god the shit i dealt with in those days, on my PowerPC G4 CRT screen eMac!)



I'm dealing with PLENTY right now... ever since I "upgraded" to Mountain Lion. That effed everything up on my Mac.

Thinking of buying the PC version of Reaper and just switching the whole operation over to my self-built PC instead.


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## xCaptainx (Nov 14, 2012)

ArrowHead said:


> You'd have to point out where I said anything about drums.
> Devin's pretty clear in the video about what Toontrack products he's used. This doesn't really seem to be one of them.



.......yeah he just flew to sweden to help *make it* this product, if that's not clear that he 'uses' it, I don't know what is...



> It's a new modeling product. Cool. And they got some of their other product's celebrity endorsers to create some presets for it. Cool. But let's not paint it as anything more than that, really.



......no one is? 




> None of these guys are using this product



Bulb, care to jump in here? Devin himself in the video says he uses EZ Mix, his entire testimonial is based on that, so your point there is somewhat redundant. And each artist clearly had a huge part of making this product. Bulbs/Periphery/Devins relationship with Bill @ Toontrack is pretty clear and public. 



> and you're not going to nail their signature sounds with it. Just like the Misha drum presets won't make your drums sound like his.



Well of course not, BUT if you wanted to get in the 'ballpark' to make your home recordings sound much better, than this is the perfect tool for it. Which is exactly how it's being advertised. Again I'm struggling to see what your point/concerns are. Devin released his axe fx ultra patches last year and people still don't sound exactly like him, and the long term relationships between these artists and Toontrack have always been very public, so both your points are somewhat redundant. 

Tools like this are not a one button 'instant Bulb tone' solution, but they are great building blocks for guys like me that would prefer to invest time in composition over production, yet still have a listenable product at the end of the day. 

Bulb himself said that his Avatar preset is simply the building blocks for anyone to expand on,his 'big and open' preset is the backbone of my SP Project Avatar kit, that + Ez Mix has improved my demo tracking immensely, which is the whole point of products like this really, isn't it? 

ANYWHO, purchasing tonight. Looking forward to tracking in the weekend with it. Will post results.


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## MF_Kitten (Nov 14, 2012)

ArrowHead said:


> You'd have to point out where I said anything about drums.
> Devin's pretty clear in the video about what Toontrack products he's used. This doesn't really seem to be one of them.



Didn't he say he used EzMix on Epicloud?


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## conjurer_of_riffs (Nov 14, 2012)

axxessdenied said:


> Curious, is this just for DI signals or does it have presets for other sources?


I am wondering the same thing. I typically record my dirty signal out of my RP1000. I have been wanting to record DI style, but have no idea how to.


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## xCaptainx (Nov 14, 2012)

EZ Mix itself has pre sets for other sources, I use quite a lot of EZ Mix preset options over my HD500 tracks to shape the sound. Will report back on what this offers after I buy it. 

Looks to be purely D.I options, the 'type' in the details tab usually explains what it is. They all say 'amplifier' where as others I use are 'inserts'


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## iceythe (Nov 14, 2012)

Just had a 15 minute go with this, here are the initial impressions of the simulations of EZMix, Metal Guitar Gods preset pack.

If you were thinking of tweaking the presets by much, think again. There's only two knobs for any given preset. They control.. like.. delay 

Haha. Actually, most rhythm presets let you control drive or gain. Some even has a knob called "Depth" (wtf).
Lead presets mostly lets you control just delay or reverb.
Clean presets mostly let you control delay, reverb and sometimes compression.

So, the tone is pretty much set in stone. The drive, bass, mid, treb, cabs are all locked except from a couple presets that - if luck bestows upon you - has a knob for it. Most of the others just lets you adjust delay and room. If there's two or more post effects, you usually only get to tweak one of them. Can't even turn off effects that isn't assigned a knob. Lead with delay and reverb? Can only change settings on one of them. 

It seems that controlling drive can be done half-heartily through adjusting the input gain to the plug-in.



On to the more uplifting parts.

Presets are definitely the heart of this plug-in. I've only checked the guitar preset ones, though. The ones that caught my attention the most is Fredrik-presets from the Metal Guitar Gods pack. Both leads and rhythms are tasty as fuck. The cab sims for his presets are nice and airy. The high end is pretty raw, so I'd EQ that a bit.

There's also a great deal of clean presets by Fredrik that are nice. Misha-presets I haven't really gotten too much into yet, but the "Ampy Lead" has a really fat tone.

///////

Had some time to reflect a bit on this product.

All in all, it's obvious that EZMix and whatever presets available to it isn't going to replace the kinds like Podfarm, Amplitube, Guitar Rig etc. or any good mastering or mixing suite. As an amp simulator, EZMix is in the same way how EZDrummer is to Superior Drummer. You might be getting a good tone from a preset, but you can't go in and alter any of the fundamental values as found in an actual amp(sim), neither can you bypass nor use a different cab to whatever preset you choose.

In a way, the design choice it understandable, because the product is targeting a specific group of people - those who want a quick tone or a specific processing, period - and not for anyone who's into tinkering with settings.

But still, EZMix provide so much more than guitar and bassamp simulations. Everything from subtle to dramatic processing for vocals, snares, kicks, toms, overheads and such. The flip side is that all these processing happens through presets which again locks the user out of the tinkering part. Presets that has to be bought through packs or bundles.


I'd rather see Toontrack try a little harder at a more fully fledged suite where the user has all the processing plugins at his dispense, where he may choose processing he wants and alter settings as he see fit. A "Superior Mixer" in short. If they even did a separate product with a good amp sim, I'd even consider that.


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## Lorcan Ward (Nov 15, 2012)

Sound samples on the site sound pretty bad. The presets must be an EQ match as oppose to an amp sim. Probably more along the lines how the Kemper Profiling Amp works except it might be matching their guitar aswell which isn't going to play nice with certain guitars/pickups. 



Webmaestro said:


> I'm dealing with PLENTY right now... ever since I "upgraded" to Mountain Lion. That effed everything up on my Mac.
> 
> Thinking of buying the PC version of Reaper and just switching the whole operation over to my self-built PC instead.



Revert back to Snow Leopard with the latest version of Garageband and you should have a near flawless recording system. Garageband is very limited though since you can't change tempo/key sig mid-song, no multi-outs for plug-ins like superior drummer, fixed at 44.1 etc etc so if your up for making the jump get Logic Express 9. There is a big learning to curve to DAWs and recording but there are lots of videos and tutorials online to help you out.


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## metallkrieg (Nov 15, 2012)

I've been an EZ MIX 2 user almost since it was out.

I was reading this thread and there seems to be a lot of confusion about what ezmix really is...

The "plugin" gives you guys presets - almost non-editable - that you feed you guitar/bass/drum/vocals/keys DIs. They sound as they sound and there's not much that you can do about it. It also runs as a standalone application, effectively letting you play in real time (provided you have a low latency sound card) as you would with Pod Farm/Guitar Rig/etc...

This may sound really limited, but I don't think it is...

As a mix aid, it will mostly serve those o can't/won't mix their own recordings. The final result is quite OK.

I use it mainly while recording. I record guitar and bass DI's and immediately assign those tracks to the EVH simulation. It helps me focus in the recording process itself and stop thinking about guitar tones and mixing in general.

Also, I don't have the time to learn how to properly master a music track. The mastering presets give great results and again, they help me focus in the important factors to me: composing and recording.

Overall I think ezmix works as a kind of Music-Production-Relief-Program. If you're really into mixing and/or mastering, this won't be of much help in those areas. If you mainly want to record your own songs and want them sounding "good" without much effort, this is great value.

Also, there is another way in which I really like using ezmix... playing along (practicing) to albums. The guitar tone, while not great, mix really well with recorded music (no surprise there...) and what I found is that using Pod Farm I would loose a lot of time tinkering with the presets and... not practicing. With this, I turn it on and just play. I don't even think about changing the sound because, honestly, there's almost nothing to change.

I hope this helps shed some light in what to expect from the Metal Gods add-on.


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## ShadowAMD (Nov 15, 2012)

Anyone got any tracks mixed with it yet?

A long time ago I did a recording and mix with for the total sum of £200.00 that's for pretty much everything guitars, drums, mics, interface (everything bar a PC) Just to prove it could be done.. So I'd like to know how people's tracks are turning out compared to that?


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## guitarnoize (Nov 15, 2012)

I threw this together quickly yesterday, I don't have a bass so could only record guitars sorry and didn't spend much time mixing just a quick overview of a couple of tones:


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## ROAR (Nov 15, 2012)

Hey it's John from GuitarNoize!!!
WTF I didn't know you had an account on here


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## Cancer (Nov 15, 2012)

JohnIce said:


> Getting a "good" mix with great source material isn't too hard, but getting _the most out of_ a mix is another story. That can be easy, but it doesn't have to. Depends on what sound you're after, as with everything else. If you're looking for a polished, modern sound where everything sounds huge and wide and sparkly then you'll need to do a lot of meticulous post-processing or you won't get there. I'm with Kurkkuviipale, it's all about knowing where to look and what to do, but that takes experience and a lot of study.




This is exactly why I like the concept of EZMix. Seems to me it would much more efficient and educational to start with great mix presets and deconstruct what makes sounds good, as opposed to the other direction, which seems like it would take much more trial and error.


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## iceythe (Nov 15, 2012)

Cancer said:


> This is exactly why I like the concept of EZMix. Seems to me it would much more efficient and educational to start with great mix presets and deconstruct what makes sounds good, as opposed to the other direction, which seems like it would take much more trial and error.


Sadly, though, whatever presets you use with EZMix does not give any sort of insight on the processing it applies other than displaying what kind of effects that are present in the preset. 

So if a mixing preset says "Clear up vocals", and has EQ and compressor highlighted, you can't - apart from knowing that those two plug-ins are used in this process - know what kind of values that are used.

Still, it's better to at the very least know the steps for the "Clear up vocals" process. It involves using an EQ and a compressor. Heh.


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## JohnIce (Nov 16, 2012)

Cancer said:


> This is exactly why I like the concept of EZMix. Seems to me it would much more efficient and educational to start with great mix presets and deconstruct what makes sounds good, as opposed to the other direction, which seems like it would take much more trial and error.



Absolutely  Just to clarify I'm all for the EZMix-idea, I was just responding to someone making an argument that mixing was easy in and of itself (a reductive quote of course, no disrespect intended to him).


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## ArrowHead (Nov 16, 2012)

MF_Kitten said:


> Didn't he say he used EzMix on Epicloud?




Why is this so hard to follow, am I being unclear?

DEVIN DOES NOT USE THIS PRODUCT TO GET ANY OF THE GUITAR TONES YOU HAVE HEARD FROM HIM. And as Fractal Audio endorsers, I highly doubt that any of the above musicians is going to turn off their Axe Fx and instead use EZ Mix to create tones in the future, either on albums OR demos.

Is that clear enough? Yes. They use Toontrack products, including Ez Mix. (_although if I REALLY wanted to argue - I doubt that as well - Devin's endorsement history is sketchy and Misha is way too accomplished at mixing with too many awesome plugins in his arsenal to want or need something like Ez Mix.)_

This is simply endorsement, just like Misha's presets. He himself uses Superior, but mixes out of the box using his own DAW and plugins. But he, at the request of toontrack, created an IN the box preset for them to sell. Will it sound like his drums? Not much. Does he use it himself? No. So what, exactly, is the point of the endorsement?

Money. Good will, and a previous relationship with the company.

I see people going "oh wow, get Devin's guitar sound". I point out he doesn't use this product to GET that sound. It's that simple.

Doesn't mean I don't want you to get Devin, Misha's, IA's, guitar tones. Start a thread for it and I'd be the first guy in there trying to help you dial it in on whatever piece of gear you own. I just don't dig chasing endorsements to sound like an artist. I'd prefer to look at what they actually USE to get those sounds, and how it works. Then I apply it to my own gear, or I buy new gear.


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## sakeido (Nov 16, 2012)

this EZ Mix thing sounds very average to me. "polished demo" quality at best, and too limited to be of much interest to somebody who has cut their teeth on the real tools. 

I don't even like the concept or idea behind this product because if you are using it, you are not actually learning anything. My first mixes sound like complete and total ass because I was trying to use that terrible Slipperman guide to recording distorted guitars, ezdrummer, and a complicated software program I had no idea how to use. But I learned and kept learning throguh trial and error and voila, now I'm kinda okay 

but if I had just been using EZ Mix that whole time... my stuff would have started off sounding better, but I wouldn't have developed my mixing abilities at all. it doesn't show you whats under the hood, so you don't know why things end up sounding the way they do. 

biggest downside. now it puts bedroom recording within the reach of even more people, so we'll get even more insanely bad djent music 

if somebody wanted to buy something, had a budget for EZ Mix, I'd still make the recommendation 10 out of 10 times to get the Systematic Mixing Guide instead so you can learn the real way to do it instead of faking it. and I'd also recommend that nobody ever, EVER use a misha mix as a reference. that guy's mixes had promise, once upon a time, but now he is even worse at mixing than michael keene


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## Stealthdjentstic (Nov 16, 2012)

EZ mix 2 is awesome. If all you want to do is slap together demos for friends it does it really well. Obviously you arent going to get 1337 mixes from it but who cares if all youre doing is making a demo?


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## ArrowHead (Nov 16, 2012)

Stealthdjentstic said:


> Obviously you arent going to get 1337 mixes from it but who cares if all youre doing is making a demo?



It's a tool. That's all. Who endorses it, uses it, it doesn't matter. You can get leet mixes with anything. Someone somewhere is going to do something amazing with these plugins. Someone else is going to release some complete crap they record with it. 

I just found this round of endorsements to be a bit bizarre. The whole "metal month" thing was cool, I guess. But then lumping IA, a guy who has always bugged me with his dislike of metal (love him and freak kitchen though), as a "metal god" is a bit weird. And toting guitar presets from two fractal users is even weirder.

It's like when I was a kid I bought a Digitech DSP21 Legend processor. At the time, I was a huge Metallica fan, and the whole gimmick with the 21L is that they got celebrities to create patches for it - including Kirk Hammett. I was massively dissappointed that when I got it, it was just another crappy preset - just a crappy preset which happened to be written by Kirk. It wasn't the tone I knew them for because it wasn't the gear they used to get it.

Nothing like a teen scraping up extra cash to buy something that doesn't do what they think it will.


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## flint757 (Nov 16, 2012)

Yeah or Kirk's endorsement of that Randall amp with interchangeable pre's. I sincerely doubt he used that as well.


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## ShadowAMD (Nov 16, 2012)

JohnIce said:


> Absolutely  Just to clarify I'm all for the EZMix-idea, I was just responding to someone making an argument that mixing was easy in and of itself (a reductive quote of course, no disrespect intended to him).



No offence taken , only a formed opinion from my personal experience. 

For me it's 70% Recording / 20% Mixing and 10 % mastering. I don't think personally mixing is that difficult going on EZ (Ha ) if, big if: 

You don't overtweak stuff, I have wrecked mixes and had to start again from going OTT and using chains of plugins longer than a whales dong. Get it in a shape where you have everything intact to survive commercial level mastering, that's where decent and copious amounts of compressions comes in.. I was listening to scar symmetry (Astronomicon) the other day, man that song has been smashed to pieces with a limiter, sounds boxy as hell.

Then what's left, a bit of harmonic saturation and eq sound sculpting.. The only relatively difficult part is making sure you know what frequencies are masking what and then cut some out, or boost if something's lacking.. Rest is just FX like a decent vox slap or multi-delay / Reverb etc.)

Take a break come back to it, don't hit the *Wall* or freeze.. Where your brain turns to mush. 

I have a friend, real pro guy worked for tons of labels etc. etc. he can whip a commercial level mix in what 20 / 30 minutes? Sure he has experience, but if you can get to that stage (Some people it doesn't take long). Then why restrict yourself to preset sounding demo's? If you can do more, why not do it?

I really don't see the point in EZmix, by the time you have selected all your presets.. I could of probably mixed it to sound as good if not better then spend another hour or so polishing it before a final release.!


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## slaws (Nov 16, 2012)

Coming from an inexperienced mixer...but from what I've read it seems to me that a lot of the mixing process involves making space in the eq spectrum for all of the parts to fit nicely together. How does EZmix know that the guitars are not squashing the bass, etc? I'm guessing all the presets were built within a given range of parameters and that's why the tweakability is limited? Just trying to gauge on whether I would get use out of this tool or not.


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## xCaptainx (Nov 16, 2012)

EZmix Metal Guitar Gods Test.mp3 by Daniel DL Laskiewicz on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free

Here's a sample of Supeior Drummer/EZ Mix made by the Acacia Strain Guitarist. Sounds pretty good. 

Arrowhead I'm really still struggling to see what on earth your point is. Yes you are saying it won't replace professional quality VSTs, yes these artists probably won't use it on their albums, yes this is simply a tool to polish a turd, so to speak. But we all already know that. The advertising clearly states it (it's a tool to use for Demos, with your laptop, on the road, on tour, when you don't have your rig etc) 

You're simply stating the painfully obvious, and no one here is arguing otherwise? No one here is going to throw out thousands of dollars of VSTs with a 'be all and end all' tool (it doesn't even have editing options, for a start) 

And again I'd love for Bulbs point of view on here. While Bulb/Devin obviously have rigs they prefer for actual recording, their presets would no doubt be used by them on the road as a simple solution to track an idea down with a laptop and basic USB interface in the back of a bus/van/venue. Which again, is the entire point of this tool.


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## ShadowAMD (Nov 16, 2012)

xCaptainx said:


> EZmix Metal Guitar Gods Test.mp3 by Daniel DL Laskiewicz on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free
> 
> Here's a sample of Supeior Drummer/EZ Mix made by the Acacia Strain Guitarist. Sounds pretty good.
> 
> ...



On that one, guitars sound excellent, really like them.. Everything in the centre channel seems to be suffering for some reason?

Now I'll put my ass on the line and be completely honest, I spent 15 - 20 mins on this mix below.. that's all I swear, from what I heard I much prefer the EZmix guitars from anything I got from my Axe FX (Although I'm still a N00b with the Axe).. everything else in the centre channel with EZMIX (From what I have seen / heard seems to lack seriously).

http://soundcloud.com/theshadowkind/axertestsup2

I posted this somewhere else but use it for reference, I'll tell you exactly how I processed it...

HPF / LPF guitars from 100hz / 11KHZ (Slight boost at 4K, slight drop at 400hz and 2khz)
HPF for drums etc.. (Drop at 100hz for bass, add some click at 6K (Kicks), added beef to snare 250hz,) LA2A mostly for drums and a slight reverb on a bus.
HPF 50hz / LPF 3Khz Bass with slight drop at 70hz, compressed with UAD 1176 LN.
VCC every channel mix of API and Brit N.
Master EQ (HPF @ 32hz just to make sure, high end bump at 10Khz to give air)
API 2500D Waves master comp just a tickle for -2b
Slate FGX with slight push on the dynamic perception.

Blamo!


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## edsped (Nov 16, 2012)

sakeido said:


> this EZ Mix thing sounds very average to me. "polished demo" quality at best, and too limited to be of much interest to somebody who has cut their teeth on the real tools.
> 
> I don't even like the concept or idea behind this product because if you are using it, you are not actually learning anything. My first mixes sound like complete and total ass because I was trying to use that terrible Slipperman guide to recording distorted guitars, ezdrummer, and a complicated software program I had no idea how to use. But I learned and kept learning throguh trial and error and voila, now I'm kinda okay
> 
> ...


Like others have said, this is mostly for people who want to get decent quality recordings without having to bother learning about mixing. Personally, I guess I'm developing a slight interest in learning more about the whole production process now, but for the longest time I was and still largely am simply not interested in it. For me it's just a means to an end.


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## guitarnoize (Nov 17, 2012)

ROAR said:


> Hey it's John from GuitarNoize!!!
> WTF I didn't know you had an account on here



Hi! Well I've just ordered a custom 7 string so wanted to get in on the community


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## Schivosa (Nov 17, 2012)

Currently I am using a Line 6 UX1 as my interface. Will I be able to use EZmix 2 and Guitar Gods with this or is the UX1 Pod Farm specific?


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## niffnoff (Nov 17, 2012)

Schivosa said:


> Currently I am using a Line 6 UX1 as my interface. Will I be able to use EZmix 2 and Guitar Gods with this or is the UX1 Pod Farm specific?



To use this (at a guess) you record your guitars dry, and then add the vst in afterwards on your channel. Podfarm isn't used. It's kinda like using LePou amp sims, for examples sake.


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## JohnIce (Nov 17, 2012)

ShadowAMD said:


> No offence taken , only a formed opinion from my personal experience.
> 
> For me it's 70% Recording / 20% Mixing and 10 % mastering. I don't think personally mixing is that difficult going on EZ (Ha ) if, big if:
> 
> ...



I respectfully disagree, with reservation for the fact that our musical styles and tastes may differ  Overtweaking is different from meticulous attention to detail. I'm an emotionally driven mixer and my main objective in mixing is to highlight and enhance the emotional content. I'm used to working on multitracks with 100+ tracks sometimes, often with 20 mics on the drum kit alone, and in order to make all that hard work matter you need to spend some time with it also in mixing. Just cleanup can take a few hours. It'll sound good after just setting the levels, sure, but good's not good enough in my book. If you want maximum power and dynamics (musical dynamics, not volume dynamics) no amount of mastering can accomplish that on its own.

The idea that compression comes in at the mastering phase is probably fine if you're doing instrumental riffing with sampled drums, but in commercial grade rock leaving anything to the mastering engineer to clear up is to me quite irresponsible. For vocals, drums and bass I'll apply a ton of compression, sometimes more than one on a single track for flavor, and then grouping instruments differently to send to separate busses and apply bus compression.

Another thing that can really make a mix go from good to awesome is painstaking volume automation. I automate everything in songs, even bass sometimes. Vocals, guitars and overheads can really make the song explode if you put the time in getting the automation right. It's all about rolling with the emotion that you want the song to portray to the listener.

In short, I don't like the "set and forget" style of mixing. It can work, but it could usually be made even better. I had the great fortune of spending a few days watching Bernard Löhr (who's produced and mixed people like Britney, Céline Dion, Westlife and ABBA) working, and even though he produced the best source material I've ever heard, he still spent two whole days mixing it. That was ONE song. He didn't overtweak a single parameter, it was JUST attention to detail.


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## flint757 (Nov 17, 2012)

So I watched that 4th video and the guy calls the 'genre' da-jent. Have I been pronouncing it wrong all this time (when I see the word I think gent)?  Not that it matters...carry on.


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## ShadowAMD (Nov 17, 2012)

JohnIce said:


> I respectfully disagree, with reservation for the fact that our musical styles and tastes may differ  Overtweaking is different from meticulous attention to detail. I'm an emotionally driven mixer and my main objective in mixing is to highlight and enhance the emotional content. I'm used to working on multitracks with 100+ tracks sometimes, often with 20 mics on the drum kit alone, and in order to make all that hard work matter you need to spend some time with it also in mixing. Just cleanup can take a few hours. It'll sound good after just setting the levels, sure, but good's not good enough in my book. If you want maximum power and dynamics (musical dynamics, not volume dynamics) no amount of mastering can accomplish that on its own.
> 
> The idea that compression comes in at the mastering phase is probably fine if you're doing instrumental riffing with sampled drums, but in commercial grade rock leaving anything to the mastering engineer to clear up is to me quite irresponsible. For vocals, drums and bass I'll apply a ton of compression, sometimes more than one on a single track for flavor, and then grouping instruments differently to send to separate busses and apply bus compression.
> 
> ...



Sorry if I'm coming out with nonsensical garbage here, because that reply had nothing to do with the point I was trying to get at .. 

Agree with attention to detail, if I release mixes for others it can and probably will take me days.. But let's not get confused about releasing a full mass produced translatable album with all the amazing sonics that even a lot of commercial releases don't even seem to live up to with EZmix. We are moving away from the topic it has to be quicker and more beneficial than whipping up a quick *Demo* mix of your own..

I never said you should leave it up to the mastering engineer either, chances are for a demo you will probably do it yourself... EZmix in it's entirety has to be more beneficial than doing it yourself.

I enjoy music like Scar Symmetry and early in flames and soilwork which I think production isn't cracking. For production bands like Lamb of god especially on tracks like laid to rest have some cracking production.. If they want to use my style of mixing for clientel that's what I go for and it takes work.. Ezmix ain't going to get you there in my opinion, but that's not the point of it...

A twenty minute mix by anyone, even if you think I suck shouldn't be better than EZmix or it defeat's the whole purpose.

P.S some times less is more and CLA is known to do mixes in a couple of hours.. that's if you like his mixes


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## Schivosa (Nov 17, 2012)

niffnoff said:


> To use this (at a guess) you record your guitars dry, and then add the vst in afterwards on your channel. Podfarm isn't used. It's kinda like using LePou amp sims, for examples sake.



So, it's not possible to hear the amp modeling in real time using the ux1 with other software?


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## edsped (Nov 17, 2012)

You can use it in real time, just add it as an effect before you record.


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## metallkrieg (Nov 18, 2012)

Schivosa said:


> So, it's not possible to hear the amp modeling in real time using the ux1 with other software?



Yes, it is. It comes with a VST pluggin (to load in your DAW) and a standalone application that will run just like Pod Farm or Guitar Rig.


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## Xifter (Nov 18, 2012)

ShadowAMD said:


> On that one, guitars sound excellent, really like them.. Everything in the centre channel seems to be suffering for some reason?
> 
> Now I'll put my ass on the line and be completely honest, I spent 15 - 20 mins on this mix below.. that's all I swear, from what I heard I much prefer the EZmix guitars from anything I got from my Axe FX (Although I'm still a N00b with the Axe).. everything else in the centre channel with EZMIX (From what I have seen / heard seems to lack seriously).
> 
> ...


I am hoping to get this when I can scrounge up some $$$ and give it a go. I really thought that your 20 min mix sounded fantastic. 

I don't care to have a "professional" mix myself, but I really just enjoy writing music. In the past, my craptastic attempts at mixing have actually deterred me from recording. This is due to the fact that I don't have the time these days to learn from scratch and something like this product might really help me out. 

Again, for those of us with not so much time... this would be a great use and tool. It would make me less likely to blow off recording because in the past, the process itself was just so damn tedious to me. 

This product definitely won't be for everyone, but if I can get a mix that is 70% as good as what you pulled off then it would be worth every penny to me.

Thanks for throwing that together man.


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## ShadowAMD (Nov 18, 2012)

Xifter said:


> I am hoping to get this when I can scrounge up some $$$ and give it a go. I really thought that your 20 min mix sounded fantastic.
> 
> I don't care to have a "professional" mix myself, but I really just enjoy writing music. In the past, my craptastic attempts at mixing have actually deterred me from recording. This is due to the fact that I don't have the time these days to learn from scratch and something like this product might really help me out.
> 
> ...



Reading that, it's a great reason for the product.. Kudos sir, I have been in the same boat and not released anything in years for that exact same reason.. (From rubbish mixes to half decent mixes > doing it for others (For experience) > doing it for money and finally never did what I was set out to, create good music.)

I wish you all the best.


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## Andromalia (Nov 20, 2012)

That's a pretty good tool to record music on the fly and present ideas to other people, withotu having to spend more hours editing on the PC than actually playing. I can come up with riff ideas and song structures pretty easily but suck at mixing (frankly, as an amateur, I just don't have the time to go into it)

I'll likely get it, just waiting to see what are the other releases of the "metal month" beforehand.


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## MrGignac (Nov 24, 2012)

i messed with the demo, and i have been doing amateur home recording for a while. and i think the big allure of this is the sheer time and money you spend on VSTs. you can get the sound of $1000 woth of plug-ins for a decent price. i use EZ mix to quickly demo ideas for the band, but will consider using it when we record again.

here is a doubled guitar track with the 5150 and Recto sim

excuse the bad drums im terrible at midi programming 

sickening thud by Mike Gignac on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free

but it works for vocals, drums, bass, and has a mastering setting i believe


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## Fathand (Nov 28, 2012)

I just found out about the EZMix 2 (and this package at hand) - Toontrack got my money about 10s into the introduction video of EZMix 2. I think I really sit in the middle of the target group for this product. Why?

I'm a hobbyist musician with gear (Guitar, Bass) slut tendencies, who likes to play, write songs and record them so that I can go and play, write and record more. I've got a day job, family + other stuff to attend to so my time is really limited. 

When I do have the time to do music, I don't have ANY desire to fight with ANY stuff not directly related to playing and putting my ideas "on tape". I don't want to tweak, micromanage, use a million different things and spend more time searching for a decent sound than doing the actual recording. So throughout the years I've pretty much honed my home recording gear into the most simple P&P setup: Guitar/bass -> USB interface -> Mac (with EZDrummer + other plugins)

All I make is "demos", but I want them to sound decent with a minimal effort. In my mind, even (amp)plugins with full tweaking capabilities are too much of a hassle (I usually look for a couple of "ok enough" sounds and use them all the time). With this, I don't even have to search & tweak for them -> decent sound out of the box.

Thanks, Toontrack. 

...I don't really understand the arguing about this vs. real amp/recording/mixing/mastering gear (and their capabilities). Those are for a different purpose and for different target group than this product. A selection of good & usable sounds at home (or on the road if you're a full-time musician) just one click away VS. s**tloads of full blown hardware for live/real studio use - seems a bit redundant IMO. 

ps. sorry about the rant.


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## xCaptainx (Nov 28, 2012)

here's a couple of riff ideas I captured using metal guitar gods and superior drummer/ez mix 2. 10 minute mix. Loving it so far. Exactly what I wanted. 

https://soundcloud.com/xcaptainx/toontrack-metal-guitar-gods-1


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## ShadowAMD (Nov 28, 2012)

MrGignac said:


> i messed with the demo, and i have been doing amateur home recording for a while. and i think the big allure of this is the sheer time and money you spend on VSTs. you can get the sound of $1000 woth of plug-ins for a decent price. i use EZ mix to quickly demo ideas for the band, but will consider using it when we record again.
> 
> here is a doubled guitar track with the 5150 and Recto sim
> 
> ...


 
It cost me around $800.00 for a UAD card, bunch of limiters / comps / effects / tape sim and vcc / fgx and a couple of waves plugs.. Hard hitters like Pensado and Sneap use some of these these so I don't recon it cost's the earth and moon and is so flexible it will do whatever you want it to. EQ's etc. I use stock pro tools, does the job just fine..

Nothing I have heard so far sounds like it came straight from a dream theatre / LOG etc. production.. So I don't recon it's not up to conventional methods. 

In all fairness, I think a lot of the issues are due to things like room and phase variances.. Recording an amp with a mic (Even close mic'd) you will get some variances and I have just been doing a recording with a Mesa and JCM, it sounded absolutley brutal with no mixing done to it whatsoever.. It was better than demo level once you brought up the volume with a limiter.. I noticed on a fair few professional recordings even with amp sims, like POD / axe fx they will still record it from a cab and not go direct..

I have an ENGL here and even at lower volumes it sounds br00tal!, my honest experience is how it's recorded which contributes massively to the sound.. Also using preset's you stand the chance of sounding like everyone else.. Kinda warps the creativity IMO..


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## Andromalia (Dec 3, 2012)

I finally bought it and am a little perplexed.

For exemple, in the Throdedals presets you have stuff like: 
guitar - low
guitar - high
guitar - mix

Am I supposed to use all three on different tracks ? Same with the bass templates.
Should I then record 3 takes or apply them to copies of the same one and do it for each of the quadded parties (which would result in 12 guitar tracks)


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## iceythe (Dec 3, 2012)

I'm pretty sure that they are just different presets just to cater to everyone's needs. To me, low/high/mix sounds like what the presets emphasize. Low being low-end oriented, high being the slight opposite and mix being more flat sounding.


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## slenderman (Dec 4, 2012)

this is just sad.


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## ShadowAMD (Dec 5, 2012)

slenderman said:


> this is just sad.



What's sad?


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## xCaptainx (Dec 5, 2012)

well my bands now using it EZMix 2 + Guitar Gods for all our pre production needs. Great way for us to have decent sounding references while tracking.


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## Alexis (Dec 6, 2012)

hm... I think I have to try this out


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## vertibration (Nov 11, 2015)

I love EZMix2. Guitar Gods with my 8 string SC208B sounds incredible, especially the Meshuggah patches. I mean, I am not using the same guitar, so the tone differs a bit from the M80M. I just happen to think great recordings and tones are made with slick techniques, and good know how in a DAW. If you suck at mixing, your recordings will suffer, but if you know what you are doing, EZMix2 can sound amazing on a track. I love it, and I am definitely looking forward to whatever Toontrack releases this month. Guitar Gods 3 sounds great too.


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## KingAenarion (Nov 11, 2015)

HOLY NECROBUMP BATMAN!

Maybe check the thread age before posting mate


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## vertibration (Nov 12, 2015)

KingAenarion said:


> HOLY NECROBUMP BATMAN!
> 
> Maybe check the thread age before posting mate



Ok Mayor of threads, just trying to contribute an honest opinion that would help others who read this thread and are looking to get other peoples views.


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## KingAenarion (Nov 12, 2015)

vertibration said:


> Ok Mayor of threads, just trying to contribute an honest opinion that would help others who read this thread and are looking to get other peoples views.



Don't be a smartass mate. Honest opinion or not, this thread is a few years old. A good portion of the people who are contributing to this thread aren't regular posters here anymore/atm.

The thread had plenty of honest opinions... 3 years ago.

You're literally being that guy who HAS to say his opinion on something, and does so even when the conversation has moved on to something utterly different... no one likes that guy. No one listens to that guy...


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## vertibration (Nov 13, 2015)

KingAenarion said:


> Don't be a smartass mate. Honest opinion or not, this thread is a few years old. A good portion of the people who are contributing to this thread aren't regular posters here anymore/atm.
> 
> The thread had plenty of honest opinions... 3 years ago.
> 
> You're literally being that guy who HAS to say his opinion on something, and does so even when the conversation has moved on to something utterly different... no one likes that guy. No one listens to that guy...



Calm your t!ts, its not the end of the world.


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## T40 (Nov 14, 2015)

Here, we can jump back to relevancy and modern times!

New Guitar God Pack is out!!!

https://youtu.be/aW9mJCGiNm8

I'm personally a huge Adam D fan and would like to hear what his tones sound like in a mix


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## vertibration (Nov 16, 2015)

T40 said:


> Here, we can jump back to relevancy and modern times!
> 
> New Guitar God Pack is out!!!
> 
> ...



I bought it, and it sounds pretty good. Depends on the guitar you use, but my Favorite is from Andy James. Overall I like the pack


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