Sonible smart:chain in Logic Pro: mixing tutorial and review

Sonible smart:chain is the focus of this Logic Pro mixing demonstration, which uses recorded drums alongside virtual instruments and a vocal stem. The speaker places plugin instances on individual tracks, organizes them into groups and accesses their processing through one interface.

The workflow starts with instrument profiles and a learning pass during playback. Front, middle and back priorities guide the balance within each group. The walkthrough covers the input rider, adaptive EQ, compression and saturation. Vocal profiles switch the de-harsher to a de-esser, while group auto leveling includes music style profiles.

Playback comparisons separate the untreated stems, processing without auto leveling and the combined result. The speaker reports roughly 15 minutes of adjustments at that stage. A CPU demonstration uses 12 instances on a Mac Studio M1 Ultra, with about half using adaptive EQ. The speaker describes the load as light; this is an observation about that session rather than a general performance benchmark.

The review also notes that smart:chain lacks delay and reverb. The speaker could not find a way to reorder its processing modules. A separate SSL auto EQ demonstration compares profile-based suggestions as starting points for manual work. Throughout, the speaker treats automatic processing as preparation for a mix that still needs listening and engineering judgment.