Free EQ Tutorial about minimum the distortion and negative effects

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Dear all kvrers,
Originated for our online tutorials for our customer, we would like to share something useful with you. Even if you may not be a customer, but you can feel free to read it because it is open to public now

This week's topic begin with
"While the use of EQ is usually a "good thing" in a mix, it can have a negative side as well. Some say that EQ adds distortion to their music, making their music lack definition and clarification. This article is all about what causes this distortion and the negative effects of EQ, and what solutions are available to keep them to a minimum."

For more information, figures and demos, please visit
http://www.supremepiano.com/learn/eq2.html

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Is 80ms realistic in the real world? Or 10ms, for that matter. Can you describe a test scenario that would demonstrate group delays of this magnitude?

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Yes it is realistic and appearant to the trained ear. If you want to hear the effect of group delay, use a bell filter and set the Q really high, boost it, and the time it takes to reach a steady volume would be the group delay.

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You don't need a "trained ear" to hear an 80-millisecond delay.

What I'm asking for is a test scenario. I've measured group delay with very sharp, very extreme filters. But we're talking microseconds, not milliseconds.

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bbaggins wrote:You don't need a "trained ear" to hear an 80-millisecond delay.

What I'm asking for is a test scenario. I've measured group delay with very sharp, very extreme filters. But we're talking microseconds, not milliseconds.
What microseconds..he said milliseconds. ms stand for millisecond. I've never heard anyone pulling microsecond in practical DAW system..

Anyway or other i think his article is flawed bigtime. Especially part about group delay and blurred elements and that part about two frequencies separated in time..

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bbaggins wrote:Is 80ms realistic in the real world? Or 10ms, for that matter. Can you describe a test scenario that would demonstrate group delays of this magnitude?
I also think about a test scenario for that, but after I found it is too difficult to get done and accepted by most common audiences. In the original tutorial. I use a very bad Reverb plugin to show the effect. But soon I found that it also requires trained ears to hear the metallic effect on the highs.
Group Delay is one of the most hard-to-understand concept in DSP. And even harder to let people know its exist and how it sounds like. The real problem here is how to let people know the effects of group delay, not what exactly it is.

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So if when taken to extremes (and isolated) only trained ears can hear the difference, is it really making a difference on the clarity of entire mixes?
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shane1980 wrote:
bbaggins wrote:Is 80ms realistic in the real world? Or 10ms, for that matter. Can you describe a test scenario that would demonstrate group delays of this magnitude?
I also think about a test scenario for that, but after I found it is too difficult to get done and accepted by most common audiences. In the original tutorial. I use a very bad Reverb plugin to show the effect. But soon I found that it also requires trained ears to hear the metallic effect on the highs.
Group Delay is one of the most hard-to-understand concept in DSP. And even harder to let people know its exist and how it sounds like. The real problem here is how to let people know the effects of group delay, not what exactly it is.
dude what are you talking about? Really...Reverb effect is literally created with series of delays(literally it's working like that). This is not same as EQ. You can't talk about something of being a problem in Reverb then translate this to EQ. FYI bad reverbs do sound metallic.

And even my friend little sister can notice 80ms of delay. Are you sure you are on to something real here.

I don't understand. What practical gain one have if your problem in reality is as you say hard to understand and how it sounds alike if it can't be heard. We are not talking about black holes here.. Come on it's 2014 here. Post some examples, your testing method and we'll see..

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kmonkey wrote:
bbaggins wrote:You don't need a "trained ear" to hear an 80-millisecond delay.

What I'm asking for is a test scenario. I've measured group delay with very sharp, very extreme filters. But we're talking microseconds, not milliseconds.
What microseconds..he said milliseconds. ms stand for millisecond. I've never heard anyone pulling microsecond in practical DAW system..

Anyway or other i think his article is flawed bigtime. Especially part about group delay and blurred elements and that part about two frequencies separated in time..
What I meant was I've never been able to create delays > 1ms with an EQ.

Sub-millisecond delays can be clearly audible when summing identical frequencies, but I don't think that's the case for harmonics. It's even less likely to be true for inharmonic frequencies.

But I will test that assumption. However, it'll have to be done with an actual delay plugin, not an equalizer. Unless, of course, someone suggests a test scenario in which an equalizer can actually produce a 10-millisecond delay (or greater).

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80 ms delay with an EQ would be extremely much, this would make an EQ unusable. Maybe 20 ms for a Haas effect but 80 ms? :o :scared: :-o

(It should be less than 5 ms in every case...)

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If you delay a signal, the group delay is the same in all bands.

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Tricky-Loops wrote:80 ms delay with an EQ would be extremely much, this would make an EQ unusable. Maybe 20 ms for a Haas effect but 80 ms? :o :scared: :-o

(It should be less than 5 ms in every case...)
Well, high-pass at 20Hz with a 4rth order filter. It will rotate the phase at the corner frequency by 360°. Now, what is the wavelength of 20Hz? It's 50ms. And that's not everything, the phase shift doubles (720°) as it reaches DC.

Simply use 20 of these and you have a second of delay at low frequencies.

It's highly frequency dependent, but such low HP filters aren't unusual in EQs (and in daily use).

Have a look at all-pass filters, that's how analogue delays are build (standard EQ elements).
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High-passing at 20Hz isn't unusual, but a 24db/octave HPF would also greatly attenuate the already barely-audible 20Hz band, so I'm wondering how relevant this is to the document under discussion.
Frequencies that low aren't usually musical in nature, so it's not like we're worried about distorting the relationship between some instrument note and its harmonics. We're just trying to get rid of extraneous junk down there.

The article that is the subject of this thread suggests that long group delays are both commonplace and a practical problem in real life. I'm trying to establish whether or not that's the case.

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Here is a linear-phase EQ example:
The EQ plugin has whatever amount of delay, which corresponds to how low a frequency it can filter effectively.
Somewhere in that delay, there is the true signal, unmodified, only delayed in time.
Then the convolution process starts, and being linear phase, adds frequency content to a point before the input signal.
The group delay is still the same, because it's linear phase, but the group delay is in phase with the signal.
It's peak amplitude is at the same place as the input signal.

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Which is precisely why i think his article is totally flawed and shouldn't be online because people could get confused..

unless i misunderstood something..

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