When do you guys (if ever) use this and why? I know its not supposed to shift the phase (or at least not as much) as other types of EQ's such as parametric. Any further insight would be much appreciated!

Linear phase is good when EQ boosting as it does not add as much nasty noisey ringy sound - excuse my technical term lol

+1 also interested in this, was actually thinking about this today.. I heard it's necessary to use this when layering sounds and splitting frequencies such as bass sounds due to phasing when eqing different bands that cross eachother in frequency, don't know if this is true or false though? any inputs?

It always has a group delay associated with it, so it's not big in live play. It is a mastering EQ first and a sound design EQ second.

Barely any mastering engineers use linear phase EQs, that's a marketing gimic. You might not get phase issues, but then you have to worry about ringing (transient smearing more or less). Here's more reading if you want other opinions:

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/mastering-forum/647133-master ers-what-your-opinion-use-linear-phase-eq.html

so then the big question comes in:

how do we actually avoid phasing when using EQ's to isolate different areas in the sound (i.e. low high mid), especially low?

There must be some kind of technique, because after all we don't want any phasing, nor transient smearing/ringing, right? tips, thoughts? discuss! would be very interesting to get abit more knowledge about this.

Also, how would you guys do when you have an EQ in linear phase going? would you bounce it down to audio in order to not get the delays? I tend to get huge spike lags when having Fabfilter Pro-Q in linearphase mode, high latency (which was recommended from some guys I've read, due to maximum LP giving too much ringing)

I think it's like anything, you just need to use your tools judiciously. Use just as much boost or cut as you need to fix any issues, and try and use as broad of curves as possible. A lot of the phase issues and things like ringing are really not a problem if you just don't go overboard trying to EQ every little thing with huge boosts and cuts.

Right, with the linear phase EQ, small moves will add almost no preecho. Narrow Q's are not really what they are made for. The more narrow the Q, the smaller gain adjustment is required to not allow smearing.

so, when isolating frequencies such as high mid low, do you guys recommend using a linear phase eq or not? if not, what tools would you use instead? the phasing can really be a huge problem when doing this, I noticed.

I think the key is to stop thinking of it as "isolating", you don't need to completely kill all other freqs to make the one you want stand out. Sometimes just reducing those other freqs a few dB is all you need to do, and then you don't have to worry about phasing issues.

much appreciated guys! answered my question well.

I thought that was the ideal thing with phasing? NOT killing all the EQ's completely, but letting them merge into eachother quite abit to still maintain the full sound without getting it to sound very "isolated". And therefore the phasing?

Hey Jontah not sure if you already know this/have Logic but recently when I have been splitting frequencies I use logic's multipressor on each channel and solo'ing the individual bands. However as already mentioned there is some crossover between frequencies even when using this. I believe Waves has a plug-in that is similar that does not allow any crossover between bands but I can not remember what it is called :/. Hope that helps!

thanks alot bigdaveo11, that's a great tip! Do you recommend this over EQing the different bands? if so, why? I'm interested in the crossover.. to minimize the phasing (basically don't get any phasing) and also what's the best method for this. I don't want any unwanted artifacts.

Thanks!

Not entirely sure, still new to some of these methods, I wish I could find the thread that talked about crossover/phasing/methods to split frequencies, I will let you know if I do, might have been over on the Dubstep Forums.

Anyway I just noticed in the spectrum analyzer that using Logic's multipressor to split the bands had some frequency crossver, although I didn't notice any problems and assume it would create less problems/phasing than using a EQ with a steep slope. The Waves plug however I did not see any crossover, I will look it up when I am at home on my other computer, it was multiband compressor of some sorts as well.

I also use ohmnicide and fab filter saturn but usually I just apply that on one channel, don't think you can use it to necessarily split frequencies across lets say 3 different channels, but anyways I wonder if there is any crossover between those frequency bands within the plug-ins, guess only the manufacturer could tell us that but I really love those two plugs for affecting various bands.

Didn't really answer your question, just rambling/repeating myself, but I will PM you with more info as I find it/come across it!

Oh here is a helpful thread although its not the one I was looking for but yes the plug I have been using instead of logics multiband is the Waves C4 multiband compressor.
http://www.logicprohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=58659