How does Bitwig's native eq hold up against something like Fabfilter's Pro Q?

[xbitz]

I've only bought EQWise because of the inbuilt frequency charts

quite useful with the added explanations as a learning material

[Hanz Meyzer]

I find the Bitwig EQ very good sounding and a simple, practical sound shaping tool. That said it lacks of some comfort functions, a resonance parameter for shelf, a analyzer curve compensation. Also if there were some more filters, like heavy brickwall filters, it wouldn't be wrong, too.

[antic604]

analyzer curve compensation

What's that? An auto gain makeup, so that the pre- and post-EQ signal has the same loudness? Yeah, that would be very handy!

On same topic, I found this awesome pair of plugins (EUR10.99, but they very frequently do -40 to -60% short-term sales): you put one in front of the FX chain and one at the end of it and it'll match the in and out volume, helping you to decide if the FX really make the signal sound better, or it's just louder

[Yokai]

I think antic604 is referring to Hornet CLMS, which works pretty well for quick loudness normalization testing, but I wouldn’t leave them sitting in place for too long, as they sometimes make for some annoying pops before kicking in. Be sure to run both the Send and Receive in a not-sandboxed Plugin mode.

TheNormalizer (also by Hornet) is another useful plug in the same vein.

[antic604]

I think antic604 is referring to Hornet CLMS, which works pretty well for quick loudness normalization testing, but I wouldn’t leave them sitting in place for too long, as they sometimes make for some annoying pops before kicking in. Be sure to run both the Send and Receive in a not-sandboxed Plugin mode.

TheNormalizer (also by Hornet) is another useful plug in the same vein.

Right, forgot to post the link
https://www.hornetplugins.com/plugins/hornet-clms/

And definitely - it's not something that should stay in the FX chain permanently, just as a sanity check during mixing or sound design (because louder *sounds* better) - in the end you should set up the level of the track in relation to everything else, not just make sure it wasn't changed

[Kung VU]

I also can recomment Fab ProQ. I have it since version 2 and just upgraded to version 3 without hesitating. One thing you need to take care though is that you do not rely to heavily on the Spectrum Graph (making beautiful shapes). I am using one instance of pro Q with parameters for frequencey gain, q, shape and slope mapped to the push 2 and make the gain and frequency settings always with eyes closed. Once I am happy I copy the values in another instance in the case I want to have several curves. So I do not need to remap the parameters each time. I really love the new feature that allows you the show frequency collision from audio on other tracks. That is super helpful for reducing masking and smearing. Also frequency grab, spectrum freezing, dynamic EQ and Auto Gain are welcomed features. The mouse modifier shortcuts are very useful as well… I could go on ;D
For general purpose I also use the native EQ from Bitwig a lot. It is a pretty decent EQ but lacks a lot of features compared to ProQ especially when it is about fine details. For example load two audio tracks with the same material, invert the polarity on one so they cancel each other and then load Bitwig‘s EQ without applying any EQing -> The tracks are not phase cancelling any longer. In ProQ they still do as expected (in linear phase mode). So I use ProQ in Mixing in order to avoid phasing issues that could interfere with mono compatibility.
There are tons of other EQs and I also own several other which I like but ProQ is my work horse and if I could only take one to the far away island it defintely would be it.

[Hanz Meyzer]

What's that? An auto gain makeup, so that the pre- and post-EQ signal has the same loudness? Yeah, that would be very handy!

No, I mean a "compensation" for the analyzer slope, the "slope factor". You can then better see the weight of bass, mids and highs in relation. Pretty common in most analyzers.

[anoise]

For example load two audio tracks with the same material, invert the polarity on one so they cancel each other and then load Bitwig‘s EQ without applying any EQing -> The tracks are not phase cancelling any longer.

Not true. I just tried that and the EQ-5 does not affect the phase when every band is on 0dB (when not doing anything).
I use EQ-5 a lot, it is almost on every track.

[Yokai]

What's that? An auto gain makeup, so that the pre- and post-EQ signal has the same loudness? Yeah, that would be very handy!

No, I mean a "compensation" for the analyzer slope, the "slope factor". You can then better see the weight of bass, mids and highs in relation. Pretty common in most analyzers.

Ah. You mean a “slope” or “tilt” control for the analyzer. Yeah, I won’t use any thing that doesn’t let me set the slope to -3 dB/octave. It’s why I never use the stock Ableton or Bitwig Spectrum Analyzer. I
Like to see “flat across” matching the spectral curve of pink noise (a -3 dB/octave rolloff of energy).

[Kung VU]

For example load two audio tracks with the same material, invert the polarity on one so they cancel each other and then load Bitwig‘s EQ without applying any EQing -> The tracks are not phase cancelling any longer.

Not true. I just tried that and the EQ-5 does not affect the phase when every band is on 0dB (when not doing anything).
I use EQ-5 a lot, it is almost on every track.

Sorry my bad, if the EQ is at "zero" it will actually not affect anything. One way to test it would be to make two tracks with the identical audio, invert the polarity on one track and insert EQ-5 twice. In the first instance boost a frequency lets say 2000 Hz with 3 +dB then in the second on 2000 Hz cut with - 3dB. In effect boosting and cutting should annul each other then and the tracks should still cancel each other.
I just did that with EQ-5 and it also works . So maybe they do work in linear phase mode after all? I remember I tried that before and it did not work.
BTW this is actually a nice technique to boost and add FX to specific frequencies. You can for example put a saturator in between the two EQs and then only the boosted frequencies get affected by the saturator the rest of the audio gets cancelled. So in the end you have the audio from the original track + the boosted and saturated part of audio from the inverted second track.
I did build a device chain just for this with FabProQ and saved it because it did not work as expected when I tried it the first time with EQ-5.
Cool, so I will build it with EQ-5 and save some CPU

[Kung VU]

That would be the setup on the inverted track using saturation knob as effect. Note that in the moment you drop in Saturation know the two tracks do not cancel each other completely any longer but the biggest part of the unaffected audio is still gone.

[Yokai]

For example load two audio tracks with the same material, invert the polarity on one so they cancel each other and then load Bitwig‘s EQ without applying any EQing -> The tracks are not phase cancelling any longer.

Not true. I just tried that and the EQ-5 does not affect the phase when every band is on 0dB (when not doing anything).
I use EQ-5 a lot, it is almost on every track.

Sorry my bad, if the EQ is at "zero" it will actually not affect anything. One way to test it would be to make two tracks with the identical audio, invert the polarity on one track and insert EQ-5 twice. In the first instance boost a frequency lets say 2000 Hz with 3 +dB then in the second on 2000 Hz cut with - 3dB. In effect boosting and cutting should annul each other then and the tracks should still cancel each other.
I just did that with EQ-5 and it also works . So maybe they do work in linear phase mode after all? I remember I tried that before and it did not work.
BTW this is actually a nice technique to boost and add FX to specific frequencies. You can for example put a saturator in between the two EQs and then only the boosted frequencies get affected by the saturator the rest of the audio gets cancelled. So in the end you have the audio from the original track + the boosted and saturated part of audio from the inverted second track.
I did build a device chain just for this with FabProQ and saved it because it did not work as expected when I tried it the first time with EQ-5.
Cool, so I will build it with EQ-5 and save some CPU

Anything that applies minimum phase filters will NOT result in cancelled audio even if you set the filters in exactly mirrored ways to each other. That’s the very nature of a minimum phase filter—it causes some degree of phase shift.

Only linear phase filters would result in cancelled audio in your test. But linear phase has its drawbacks too because it causes ringing around the filter point.

All of the standard filters in Ableton and Bitwig are all minimum phase, because linear phase is too much of a cpu hit and latency hit.

[neverbeeninariot]

Interesting Dan Worrall EQ video - Emphasis and De-emphasis

[Kung VU]

Oh nice, I did not know there is a Worrall Tutorial about this technique as well. But as I said I tested it yesterday and EQ-5 does cancel upon emphasis and pre-emphesis. I am pretty sure that that was not always the case.

[brownerthanu]

With regards to eq, what is the difference between a phase change and a small delay of a frequency range?