Adapt to pink noise

[sevaels]

Hey TDR people,

The adapt to pink noise feature is sort of described as an 'auto-eq'. I'd love a better explanation of this feature and how to put it to practical use.

Thanks!

[FabienTDR]

definitely make sure to check out the according sections in the manuals, e.g.: http://www.tokyodawn.net/labs/SlickEQM/ ... df?page=15

Check this out for a use case: http://www.tokyodawn.net/exploring-dere ... lickeq-ge/
It doesn't cover the match pink action, but the principle is the same.

Match pink often returns a reasonable starting point for mastering equalization. That's the main idea.

[Hermetech Mastering]

Yep, it can be great when working on an album of disparate tracks to get them all to sit a little more comfortably together. I often use it directly after the client's file, and before the analogue chain, along with the "Auto HP/LP" feature. I let it do its thing, then "pull it back" a fair amount with the "Range" control and tweak to taste.

I recently asked Fabien what the difference between "Learning" a whole track in real time, and using that particular audio file as a reference was. You'd think they'd be the same but they give quite different results, and I usually prefer the former. If the latter gave the same results, it would be great for speed of work flow, as it would save a whole listen through of the track. I think he's already looking into it.

[Hermetech Mastering]

To answer the original question, I think it looks at the average frequency response of the track, and then pulls that towards a pink noise spectrum, which is a very "natural" sounding curve that many acoustic instruments and mixes follow. You have to be careful though, for example if you have a dub track with loads of bass it will "see" that as too much and pull the bass level way down, which you probably wouldn't want. It's usually a surprisingly good starting point on most things, but often needs a tweak to the Range of the whole thing, or individual gains and frequencies, to sound best. In mastering it's rare I'm pushing or pulling any frequency more than about 1.5dB. It's really good when mastering compilations, to get the whole thing sounding more cohesive.

[pumafred]

I recently asked Fabien what the difference between "Learning" a whole track in real time, and using that particular audio file as a reference was. You'd think they'd be the same but they give quite different results, and I usually prefer the former.

I am impressed by the results of the Learning function (and most often do not need to run the whole track through it, except if it has very different sections tonally).
So much talk about Izotope Neutron Track Assistant while, IMHO, I get more useful results from humble Nova...