The Mix Engineer’s Guide: Smaart as a Creative Tool
Many mixers think Smaart is only for the system tech. “I have ears, I don’t need a screen,” is a common refrain. But for the modern FOH mixer, Smaart isn’t about *replacing* your ears—it’s about *protecting* them and providing a visual “sanity check” during a high-pressure show.
1. The RTA as a Masking Tool
When you have 60 channels of audio, “Masking” is your biggest enemy. If the guitars and the vocals are fighting for space at 2kHz, you might not hear it immediately as your ears fatigue. A quick glance at a high-resolution 1/24th octave RTA in Smaart will show the “build-up.” If you see a massive energy hump where the vocal should be “cutting through,” you know exactly where to apply a narrow cut on the instruments.
2. Spectrograph: Finding the “Ring”
We’ve all had that one frequency that starts to feed back or ring out, but it’s so subtle we can’t quite pin it down. The Spectrograph (the “waterfall” view) is a time-machine. You can look back $5$ seconds and see the specific line of color that lingered longer than the rest. It identifies the “howl” before it becomes a “scream.”
3. Monitoring the Master Bus
By running a Transfer Function between your Solo Bus and your Main Out, you can use Smaart to see exactly what your plugins are doing. Are you losing low-end because of a compressor’s sidechain? Is your “vintage” EQ plugin shifting the phase of your lead vocal? Smaart reveals the “hidden” processing of your digital console.
4. Saving Your Hearing
Mixing at 99dB for two hours causes “Threshold Shift”—your ears literally stop hearing high frequencies as well. You’ll find yourself slowly boosting the highs on the console as the night goes on. By referencing your Smaart Target Curve, you can see if you’re actually getting duller, or if your ears are just tired. If the screen says the top end is still there, don’t touch the EQ. Trust the data, and your mix will be more consistent from start to finish.
Smaart is excellent on its own, but most users find they get much more out of it after some structured training. That’s where our seminars come in. At TZ Audio we run practical seminars, both online and in-venue. We offer seminar-only or full “all you need packages” including software & hardware. It’s simply the fastest way to become comfortable and confident with the measuring a sound system.
If you’re in Norway, Sweden, Denmark or Iceland – or elsewhere – we offer is online seminars and traveling to Norway is a valid option too of course. We’re here if you have any questions about the software or upcoming seminars.
Thanks for reading!