iZotope Tonal Balance Control 3

With a healthy appreciation of the limitations of both my own recording/mix space and my ears, iZotope’s Tonal Balance Control (TBC) has been a regular on my DAW’s stereo output since it was first released almost 10 years ago. The principle underlying TBC is simple but very effective. Placed as an insert on your DAW’s stereo output, it superimposes the real‑time frequency spectrum of your own mix (shown as a solid line) upon another frequency spectrum plot, either one of iZotope’s supplied genre‑based Target presets or a user Target preset, created by importing an audio file (or folder of files) from your own favourite reference tracks.

The visual comparison is a powerful tool in its own right. But if you happen to also be using one of iZotope’s EQ plug‑ins in your project, TBC2 also offered the ability to control that EQ’s settings from within TBC itself, letting you nudge the tonal balance of your own track closer to that of the reference.

TBC3 expands on this concept in genuinely useful ways, including the ability to capture the frequency spectrum (and other data; more on this in a minute) of any audio playing within your DAW, to create a new user Target preset. You also now get TBC3 as a standalone desktop app, and it...