A truly transparent EQ would have no EQ effect. All are colored by frequency response variations, which is not transparent. Nearly all are colored by phase variations that are related to the frequency variations. Most have some kind of distortion as well, or other nonlinearities.
It is possible to completely remove the phase shift from a digital equalizer, but this doesn't correspond with anything we experience in reality, and so doesn't sound transparent. In particular, it sounds like time reversal.
An EQ is a lens, not a window. And sometimes you use a lens to magnify detail, sometimes you use one to attractively blur detail, and sometimes you use one like a fisheye to grossly distort something.
Why have "tonal character" in an equalizer?
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- KVRist
- 411 posts since 12 May, 2005
Compressors and limiters are no more designed to add color to a sound than an EQ. Actually, color usually refers to a tool designed to alter or shape the spectral content of a sound (like EQ), while compressors/limiters are designed to affect the dynamics of the sound, "ideally" leaving the frequency domain untouched.rcat wrote:Why are there all the ongoing discussions about the "tonal character" of an equalizer? Shouldn't an equalizer be totally transparent, and once the eq is right, then add "color" with another effect such as a compressor/limiter or enhancer, similar to Vintage Warmer or CamelPhat? It seems it would be much simpler than demoing every eq in the universe to get "just the right sound". Your thoughts please. Thanks.