Track Spacer from WavesFactory

Just reading about this in SOS Magazine.  Looks interesting and is reasonably priced.  "...'bracket' equalisation, where EQ cuts are applied to minimise the overlap between two instruments in a mix, with the aim of improving clarity...in effect, to automate the process of equalising one instrument to make more room in the mix for another..."
Anyone familiar with it?

Track Spacer--http://plugins.wavesfactory.com

Really interesting concept.  Wish it worked.  Far more interested in writing and performing than mixing.  This could really minimize my mixing issues if it worked.

SoS likes pretty much everything. I've never read a negative review there.

You can achieve the same effect yourself for free - with a little more work but a lot more control - by automating an equalizer. 

First, use a spectrum analyzer such as SPAN to find what frequency range the meat of your vocal is in. This may be in 1-2KHz range, or it could be between 400-700Hz, depending on the vocal. Insert any EQ into the instruments bus and add a single, fairly wide band around that frequency. Experiment with how far down to dip that band. It'll typically be under 6db, but possibly more if it's a real dense mix.

Turn on waveform preview for the vocal bus and play the song through. The resulting waveform will give you a guide as to where to dip the instrument bus EQ. Create a new envelope and assign it to the EQ. Hand-insert automation nodes so that the EQ dips when the vocals are happening and comes back up in between vocal phrases. Start the dip at the beginning of the vocal phrase, not before, and end the dip just before the end of the vocal phrase, not after. This will make the transitions more transparent.

This method will let you keep the instrumental energy high without masking the vocal, and eliminates the need to push the vocal up. You'll have a more consistent overall level that will be easier to compress and limit at the master bus.

Best of all, you don't have to buy anything to make it happen!

 looks like version 2 has now been released. demo version avaible.

Glad to learn about this tool. I like what it intends to do and the price seems reasonable.

I'm going to bookmark it for my wish list.