Equavescent equalizer release

[Shy]

First of all, I don't care about this specific plugin, I'm just reading discussions, and I don't like vagueness and marketing talk with "tm" and all that nonsense either.

but saying that your convolution algorithm cannot be replicated using fast convolution (or whatever the exact formulation of that claim was) is an objectively verifiable lie.

It would have been a verifiable lie IF he said anything similar, but he didn't. He said that their EQ does not "break down well" (which could be interpreted in various ways, I guess it refers to the ability to match the response with ->) into "traditional FFT components" (and "component" could also be interpreted in various ways). And he says that it's not possible to capture its response with a "match eq", which I guess means either one of those automatic matching EQs or an attempt to match (not "get close to") the curve with any EQ that isn't like theirs. If that was false, someone here would have been glad to demonstrate it long ago already by simply matching a single band, but it's not possible to match it with anything else that's available. Whether their "non-traditional methods" involve calculation inaccuracy, weird combinations of things or whatever, has nothing to do with the topic. He never claimed that they use out-of-this-world technology or anything other than whatever type of known and in-use convolution process, just basically that their plugin is non-traditional and different (gives results that the others can't) from ones that they (and most others would) consider "traditional".

so if a company advertises a $100 yogurt that contains a new groundbreaking ingredient that'll make you burn all your body fat in one week according to what you're arguing we should just let people get scammed for not doing their homework/being gullible? I mean really, think about it, you're in favour of allowing false advertising?

The worst that could happen to you from false advertising (of which there's non of, in this plugin's case) of an equalizer plugin would be that you'd buy a plugin that doesn't work properly on your system. The next worst thing would be that you would believe that another company or product is bad at something because of it. For example "Our product is better than that other company's product that's based on crappy technology while the company tries to make you think it's something it's not!" - Those two would be insanely horrible false advertising. The next worst thing would be that you'd think the product or the company is unique compared to others in the same field even though it's not, and the next worst thing would be that you wouldn't like the plugin as much as you thought you would. Nothing here is seriously comparable to false advertising of a food or health-related product.

I have opted not to overly engage in the discussion as my original post was aimed at users and has since been overtaken by developers who have time to comment and attack without having time to trial the Beta demo.

It may look that way, but actually us developers are primarily here because our users have downloaded the demo and asked us to come here, comment, and explain what's going on.

So in actuality, this conversation IS reflective of the users.

Sorry if that's a bit meta, but it's the truth. You pop up on the internet saying mad things about EQ, and people phone me.

Dave.

Before you "indirectly" call people mad (by claiming they're saying mad things), you should have a strong case. All I can see are vague claims that you've replied to with vague hypotheses, and only one side constantly attacking.

[Burillo]

He never claimed that they use out-of-this-world technology or anything other than whatever type of known and in-use convolution process, just basically that their plugin is non-traditional and different (gives results that the others can't) from ones that they (and most others would) consider "traditional".

except he did.

The standard mode of Equavescent™ includes processes primarily developed for ADC, DAC and image processing. They comprise of a number of progressive patented alternatives to the traditional equaliser implementation. This mode is designed for absolute clarity.
Damp mode is alternate maths designed to blur the crossover in a way similar to acoustic baffling.

In my opinion plugins can sound hazy because the fundamental building blocks of most digital plugins are inadequate fft filters, anti-alias filters and other filters created from ideas that date as early as 1805.

The equalizer in Equavescent™ does not use FFT or FFT libraries as Equavescent™ provides an alternative to the math in current eqs. FFT implementation is not difficult and users will quickly realise that the Beta graph view uses FFT. The Beta graph view does not affect audio quality.

There is more to the sound of a crossover than its curve shape.
<...>
There are differences to the sound of an eq curve other than the frequency response.
<...>
Equavescent™ works well in Logic X and on files that have not already been heavily digitally equalized.

i would tend to agree with you if i disregarded about half of the quotes i just posted, but i can't. as it stands, you certainly missed the part where he heavily implied that he invented new kind of math (i.e. something that's not based on "ideas that date as early as 1805") but somehow could not explain what it was when called out on it. it's no "out of this world technology" but it's certainly not "i'm not using freely available FFT libraries" either.

[samsam]

^ A bit of hype is fine but using "comprise of" is unforgivable.

[eidenk]

you certainly missed the part where he heavily implied that he invented new kind of math (i.e. something that's not based on "ideas that date as early as 1805") but somehow could not explain what it was when called out on it. it's no "out of this world technology" but it's certainly not "i'm not using freely available FFT libraries" either.

He says he doesn't use FFT for equalizing, can you or anyone prove otherwise?

As for exactly explaining what he does, why would he? According to many people who tested this EQ, it sounds better than anything else out there including of course the very good SplineEQ and the "mother of all EQs" that is Equilibrium. If his maths/methodology is different than what everybody else does and is not protected by patents why should he give away his blueprints for free to competiton?

To be honest, I am a bit tired of the relentless attacks of A_SN and DaveGamble in this thread who certainly, in my eyes, don't come across as the nice guys they claim to be considering the unpoliteness of both, the constantly aggressive tone of A_SN and the nearly permanently patronizing tone of Dave Gamble.

[Halma]

And regarding to the Abbedy Road thingy: that´s called marketing.

Or "fraud".

Only "unprofessional" dev I saw in this thread is LBarratt by the way. He can't explain his own product ... and it looks a bit like he does not even fully understand, what's going on inside of it.
The other two devs I noticed here are very open about their products and audio processing in general and share technical information to everyone, giving them the ability to make educated decisions.

It is not the fault of the developer if the customer does not do his homework.

Bullshit.
You can't expect everyone to know everything.
If someone is making wrong or very misleading claims about his product, it's not the fault of the customer, if he falls for it.

This might be "normal" in marketing, but it's still not right.
So I will always do "counter marketing", if I see something like that.
Because I have a personal interest in good devs succeeding instead of bad ones.

I totally agree with you that someone can´t expect everyone to know everything. But you know what? Most people behave exactly like this. They "act" like they know everything.

And it is THE CUSTOMER who is making the last decision: to buy or not to buy. It does not matter what kind of marketing talk has been used. THE CUSTOMER decides if something is worth it or not. If he believes what the company is telling him and the customer refuses to question that and is buying the product whatever it cost then THE CUSTOMER is making this decision. Not the company. Period.

And I am totally with you to support good devs. But who is making the decision if a dev/company is bad?

I think this won´t be tha last time I am writing this but heck: the only unprofessional behaviour I see is that this whole discussion could have been done via PM and EMAIL without all those accusations. At least I would handle it that way.

I find it highly unprofessional to deal in that manner with another dev in an open forum.

If I would be a CEO of a company and one of my devs would act like thisthen I would call him immediatel into my office and ask him "what the hell he was thinking in discussing such a topic in a public place."

And regarding to fraud: if it was an official fraud then why not sue them? The only damage I can see is that the company maybe has a problem in generating new customers in the future because of this incident.

Regards
Sebastian

[Burillo]

If his maths/methodology is different than what everybody else does and is not protected by patents why should he give away his blueprints for free to competiton?

except he claims it is protected by patents. hence, it should be out there in the open. or he could at least have a common courtesy of explaining what else is there to completely linear filters aside from frequency and phase response. it's not that hard to do. if i asked Dave Gamble how his compressor works, i wouldn't expect him to give me the source code, schematics or whatever, but he certainly would've told me general principles that he used, and it would be perfectly fine even if i were his competitor. now contrast it to LBarratt, who not only basically says that FFT is old and sucks, but also implies that there are certain other parameters to linear filters besides frequency and phase response while basically spitting on "traditional EQ techniques" saying that "they aren't designed for clarity" without giving any definition to what that "clarity" actually is, in technical terms. i don't know, maybe you simply don't get how strong a claim this is?

[Halma]

i'm about to sound kinda harsh, but here goes.

I am fine with that.

2) Imagine two car salesman. Both are selling the same car. But one gets more money than the other. Who is the better salesman?

depends. if one that gets more money uses shady tactics, he's not a better salesman, he's a fraud. you can be as good or as bad a salesman you can be, but there are certain lines you're not supposed to cross while doing your salesman job. if you're misleading (or downright lying to) your customers - this is usually the time authorities get involved.

But is this exactly the case here? Who exactly already bought this EQ for whatever money and feels betrayed? Anyone? I would agree, if he "would betray" the customer. But until now nobody has been.

The customer simply does not care "about the talk around a product". Obviously developers do but neither salesman nor customer do.

i assume you only speak for yourself, because i'm not in your "not caring about the talk about the product" club. that may work if you're selling iApps to morons en masse, but it's not how things work in a community such as we have on KVR. we love to discuss our tools because that way we learn how they work, and, among other things, we learn if these tools really do what we believe them to do.

You can see it the way you want but it is pretty hard to trick somebodys brain. That´s why people pay a lot of money for specialists that know their shit and how to advertise a product in a better and proper way. And pure tech spec marketing talk is not only uninteresting for most people but also pretty cumbersone in selling stuff. And of course some people are interested in tech spech (as you can see in this thread) and that is exactly what I was saying: people who care about it have been reached in a emotional way. Was it succesful? I don´t know. He does not sale anything yet. At least he got lots of attention. And that is per sé not a bad thing.

Btw maybe I missed it but where do some of you guys proofed him wrong? And I am talking about "proof as in a scientific and mathematically correct way" and not as "proof as in CSI". I mean iirc most of you guys are asking for proofes but not offering them. And if he is not interested in verifying his concept then you guys should at least counterfeit his arguments in a scientific way. At least I would do it that way if I would be capable of it.

And I am curious about the benefits of this "discussion" because the only thing I see from a Marketing POV: some professional devs acting highly unprofessional in one of the most famous, highly frequented and open forums on the www where potential customers could be biased in not buying their products because they might ask theirself:"If a developer behaves like this and in such a manner on such a trivial topic do I really wanna make a contract with him?"

not really. what i'm seeing is two knowledgeable people questioning claims made by another developer who talks like he's straight out of "software sales for MBA's 101" class. granted, A_SN went a little overboard on the offensive tone, but the developer himself displays such a condescending attitude (your math is 150 years old, dude!) that anyone with a shred of knowledge about these things would be offended, so i don't blame A_SN for being a little oversensitive towards this subject.

so yes, this thread made me biased, you're right. but it didn't make me biased against Dave Gamble or A_SN, on the contrary - it made me respect them more. it, however, made me biased against the developer of Equavescent (tm). not the product, mind you, but the developer. this happens - i like Antares Harmony Engine as a product, but i hate Antares's guts as a company.

Sry but the more professional you are the better you can deal with that kind of situations. If someone easily gets offended do you think it is a good idea to let him deal with that? And that was exactly my point of "unprofessional" behaviour. If he would have done it via email or pm nobody would care "how offensive someone behaves". And I am talking about proper behaviour and that has nothing to do with marketing.

And regarding to the Abbedy Road thingy: that´s called marketing.

...which is exactly why i don't own any of them, and part of the reason why i avoid having to deal with Abbey Road Plugins as a company (the other part is the history of abandoned products).

Thanks. So it was YOUR CHOICE not to support them (anymore)? Does this one differ from my statement that in the end THE CUSTOMER DECIDES IF HE BELIEVES WHAT A COMPANY IS TELLING OR NOT and that he is responsible for making a contract witrh them?

Regards
Sebastian

[bmanic]

But because I am not a developer and have quite some experience in all kind of marketing (direct/backoffice/customer etc) and dealing with all kind of products...

It is not the fault of the developer if the customer does not do his homework.

You definitely have done some work in marketing.

EDIT2: nevermind.. took out the fluff. Trying to get back on topic. Lets see if I can get this thing to work in FL Studio.

[Halma]

But because I am not a developer and have quite some experience in all kind of marketing (direct/backoffice/customer etc) and dealing with all kind of products...

It is not the fault of the developer if the customer does not do his homework.

You definitely have done some work in marketing.

...

Thx.

...

Edit: hmm, you edited your post while I was writing an answer so I edited mine too. I am fine with that. I hope you too.

Regards
Sebastian

[Nokenoku]

It would have been a verifiable lie IF he said anything similar, but he didn't. He said that their EQ does not "break down well" (which could be interpreted in various ways, I guess it refers to the ability to match the response with ->) into "traditional FFT components" (and "component" could also be interpreted in various ways).

Yeah, the way he writes is indeed pretty unclear.
It's so unclear, that it will raise wrong expectations in people, who don't know a lot about those things.

To me it certainly sounded like:
"The response of my EQ can't be replicated by capturing an IR of it and reapplying it by using FFT."
... and:
"My convolution algorithm is more exact than FFT. FFT can't do as good convolution as my algorithm."

So I asked him, if there is any kind of modulation or saturation, but he didn't answer, which (together with what bmanic stated) makes me assume, there isn't.
And in that case, the whole talk about his proprietary convolution is just bollocks. Not because he might not use a different method, but because he claimed, it does something special while it doesn't.

According to many people who tested this EQ, it sounds better than anything else out there ...

Which means absolutely nothing.

I post this link again:
http://www.gearslutz.com/board/music-co ... -pack.html

Read the praise and know, that those people are talking about an EQ, which uses the cheapest of standard-behaviour, which you'll find in almost any other EQ-plugin (especially freeware).

To be honest, I am a bit tired of the relentless attacks of A_SN and DaveGamble in this thread ...

You should rather be thankful.
I don't see it as "attacks", but rather as "potentially protecting users".

The real aggression comes from a guy, who tries to get into a market by being dishonest (at least that's my impression ... if I am terribly wrong here, the OP has every chance to correct that by finally talking straight).
I personally am offended by stuff like this.

But is this exactly the case here? Who exactly already bought this EQ for whatever money and feels betrayed? Anyone?

This absolutely doesn't matter.
Trying to scam someone is as bad as succeeding in doing so.
(Speaking generally here.)

You can see it the way you want but it is pretty hard to trick somebodys brain.

Sadly the exact opposite is true.

[A_SN]

My aggressiveness, besides being part of my character (you should have seen the hell I gave to my 7th grade physics teacher for claiming that winter happened because the Earth moved further away from the Sun), was quite warranted by OP's attitude and outrageous claims, starting with the message right before my second message in the topic, which claimed:

In my opinion plugins can sound hazy because the fundamental building blocks of most digital plugins are inadequate fft filters, anti-alias filters and other filters created from ideas that date as early as 1805.

I would have taken it initially easier on him if I wasn't also the only person at the time to call him out for his BS claims.

Point is, if you try to bullshit people who don't necessarily have the technical knowledge to know what degree of bullshit we're dealing with, someone who knows better is going to call you out on it, and if you persist in spouting impressive-sounding vague meaningless bullshit it might get ugly. Yeah, someone at a company with a job and a boss probably would probably have shut up about it, but that wouldn't have been a better thing.

Again, read what we said, Dave and I (and others) said that OP was possibly on to something with the curve shapes, but that vague claims that there was more to it than that, be it the convolution algorithm or whatever is neither in the frequency response or phase response (or is it in the phase response?) are nothing more than vague BS claims. We're not saying no one should buy this EQ, that only means you should know OP's claims about it are pretty dodgy. That doesn't mean the EQ is bad either.

At this point you have to wonder what we're arguing for and about. That OP made dodgy claims? I think that's been established well enough. That making dodgy claims is awwwright? Yeah, well, that's just, like, your opinion, man. Whether we should be glad there are people who know what they're talking about providing more information or whether all users should adopt the same "claims don't affect me one bit in my judgement of a product"? Personal opinion again I guess. That other devs ganging up on another dev because of his claims makes you uneasy? Yeah I understand why someone would feel that way, but it seems like there's a shortage of non-devs who are qualified to call OP out, which in my cynical view of the whole thing is something OP counted on as he aimed his message at users who presumably don't know any better.

But how does one conclude that a dev has the right to claim whatever they want about a product, that users have the freedom to either buy or not buy, but that no one should say anything?

You pop up on the internet saying mad things about EQ, and people phone me.

Before you "indirectly" call people mad (by claiming they're saying mad things), you should have a strong case. All I can see are vague claims that you've replied to with vague hypotheses, and only one side constantly attacking.

Really?? OP did say some pretty mad stuff, Dave points that he did say some mad stuff, and somehow according to you Dave is questioning OP's mental health?

the only unprofessional behaviour I see is that this whole discussion could have been done via PM and EMAIL without all those accusations. At least I would handle it that way.

You mean us, sending PMs to OP? OP just stopped speaking like a PR machine after we broke his spirits in this thread, so what would you expect from just sending PMs? You'd get one of his "EquavescentTM doesn't not use traditional mathematics" replies and then what? Nothing. So are we being criticised for essentially not just shutting up and letting OP have his way and his lies uncalled out?

Btw maybe I missed it but where do some of you guys proofed him wrong? And I am talking about "proof as in a scientific and mathematically correct way" and not as "proof as in CSI". I mean iirc most of you guys are asking for proofes but not offering them. And if he is not interested in verifying his concept then you guys should at least counterfeit his arguments in a scientific way. At least I would do it that way if I would be capable of it.

Don't take this the wrong way, but did you really understand the arguments we've been making? Like the one about OP's EQ being either linear or not, if it's linear (which apparently it is) then it can't convolve any better than the fast convolution OP has been taking dumps on, and then all that vague magic talk is BS. Even if you don't understand that it's easy to see that OP hasn't provided much in the way of explaining what's so unlike anything else in his EQ.

[Halma]

the only unprofessional behaviour I see is that this whole discussion could have been done via PM and EMAIL without all those accusations. At least I would handle it that way.

You mean us, sending PMs to OP? OP just stopped speaking like a PR machine after we broke his spirits in this thread, so what would you expect from just sending PMs? You'd get one of his "EquavescentTM doesn't not use traditional mathematics" replies and then what? Nothing. So are we being criticised for essentially not just shutting up and letting OP have his way and his lies uncalled out?

Btw maybe I missed it but where do some of you guys proofed him wrong? And I am talking about "proof as in a scientific and mathematically correct way" and not as "proof as in CSI". I mean iirc most of you guys are asking for proofes but not offering them. And if he is not interested in verifying his concept then you guys should at least counterfeit his arguments in a scientific way. At least I would do it that way if I would be capable of it.

Don't take this the wrong way, but did you really understand the arguments we've been making? Like the one about OP's EQ being either linear or not, if it's linear (which apparently it is) then it can't convolve any better than the fast convolution OP has been taking dumps on, and then all that vague magic talk is BS. Even if you don't understand that it's easy to see that OP hasn't provided much in the way of explaining what's so unlike anything else in his EQ.

Hey A_SN,

I am totally fine with your opinion. Nothing against it. It is just that in my experience your behaviour and the behaviour of some other people in this thread were more or less suboptimal.

I can´t see any benefit in this discussion for any potential EQ customer right now whether he is a PRO or not. Maybe you and some others do but I don´t. And I try to see it from a highly objective POV.

And yes, I do understand some of the tech stuff. Not everything but that does not matter because in a few days/weeks I won´t remember it anymore (the tech stuff). That´s the difference between a developer who is involved in all the math and DSP stuff and a customer who is not.

I can only speak for myself: the only thing I will remember from it is the tone of voice from this discussion and the name of the developers that were involved. And that is something I will not forget the next years.

Anyways, I wish you all a nice weekend.

Regards
Sebastian

[kvaca]

I can´t see any benefit in this discussion for any potential EQ customer right now whether he is a PRO or not. Maybe you and some others do but I don´t. And I try to see it from a highly objective POV.

for me this discussion was and still is extremely useful...with the only exception of all your marketing oriented posts, which seems to me completely off topic - maybe time to try the demo?

[Halma]

Maybe it was really my fault in trying to be objective and show some of you a different view on it. I apologize if it wasn´t helpful and appeared offtopic. That was not in my intention.

I let you people now discuss this topic alone. I hope nobody felt too offended by my posts.

I wish all of you a nice weekend. And hopefully it is way warmer where you live because in my hometown it is fuckin`cold.

Regards
Sebastian

[Agreed]

I can totally understand where A_SN and Dave are coming from, honestly, when extraordinary claims are made and then don't hold up they're doing people a favor by pointing out that it's not really what it's described as. There aren't a whole lot of people who can strongly break down exactly what's happening, and even more unfortunate than that (from a consumer awareness perspective) there aren't even that many folks who run a plugin making bold claims like this through a free analyzer even - and saying you're doing EQ, of all things, in a way that has never been done before, and that all other EQs are fundamentally flawed, that is a bold claim indeed I'm sorry to say to fans of the plugin, no offense intended, it's just... not likely.

So I think it's fine that we've got some folks who will come to the aid of everyone who wonders what precisely is going on - it only ever turns into a mud slinging thing like this when the author continues to market and, allegedly I guess, mislead? Rather than answer fair questions about aforementioned marketing claims.