What is your go to EQ?

[musikmachine]

My advice: don't get the most expensive EQ or the cheapest. Pick something middle of the road that appeals to your eye. That's right. Don't bother listening to it because it doesn't matter. Pick it because of how it looks and you'll be happy. Rinse and repeat with compressors. Whatever KVR.

lets face it, we're all music tech nerds here and love our little plugins!

My plugin is not little!

[mystran]

My advice: don't get the most expensive EQ or the cheapest. Pick something middle of the road that appeals to your eye. That's right. Don't bother listening to it because it doesn't matter. Pick it because of how it looks and you'll be happy. Rinse and repeat with compressors. Whatever KVR.

lets face it, we're all music tech nerds here and love our little plugins!

My plugin is not little!

LMAO

[zeep]

Thanks for your contribution to the thread Christian.

..You can also see the third octave analyser not showing more details then necessary. It works in time domain. This way the phase is ignored in a way, that only temporal issues are visible. Also you can see the range definition.

Can you explain the above please? I don't understand what you're saying.

What is a third octave analyser and where do i see that in the picture? Also, the phase and temporal issues remarks leave me googling. Is that also visible in the picture?

[punkfest2000]

Hey Nekromachine. Perhaps your senses are so good you can pick a certain EQ out of a line up huh. Maybe also you can smell my ass and tell everyone what I had for lunch yesterday. I would love it if someone posted a vocal hit with 3 or 4 different EQs, and had a professional like yourself tell us which one was used on which track.

Of course there are some differences in EQ, and a $10 EQ won't sound the same as a $1500 EQ. All I'm saying is for all the wannabes, nobodys, hacks, tweakers, vst collectors, and plugin groupies around here it is of minimal significance.

[Christian Budde]

..You can also see the third octave analyser not showing more details then necessary. It works in time domain. This way the phase is ignored in a way, that only temporal issues are visible. Also you can see the range definition.

Can you explain the above please? I don't understand what you're saying.[/quote]
Well you can't really see it in the picture, but the fact that a bar graph analyser is shown rather then an FFT based curve (like it is common nowadays). The problem with FFT based analysers is the fact, that you loos temporary resolution if you increase the spectral resolution. This is necessary if you want to have a good resolution in the low frequencies. For example you have an FFT based analyser with an FFT size of 4096 samples. At 44100 Hz that equals 10ms. The analyser captures every 10ms a snapshot of the spectrum. Since the FFT assumes you have a continuous signal you can't specify when exactly something happens in this 10ms raster. Of course you can overlap FFT blocks, to increase the time resolution, but this will lead to more CPU usage. Also the FFT based approach needs a window function, which affects the spectrum (kind of smoothing). The third octave style analyser uses steep (minimum phase) time domain bandpass filters to gather the energy in a given band. This makes the analyser basically very responsable while preserving equal spectral resolution (only one third of an octave, but the ear itself is not much more accurate in case of mixing).

I don't want to say this is better (or worse) the FFT approach, but different (in contrast to the quote every EQ is more or less equal).

[Dean Aka Nekro]

Hey Nekromachine. Perhaps your senses are so good you can pick a certain EQ out of a line up huh. Maybe also you can smell my ass and tell everyone what I had for lunch yesterday. I would love it if someone posted a vocal hit with 3 or 4 different EQs, and had a professional like yourself tell us which one was used on which track.

Of course there are some differences in EQ, and a $10 EQ won't sound the same as a $1500 EQ. All I'm saying is for all the wannabes, nobodys, hacks, tweakers, vst collectors, and plugin groupies around here it is of minimal significance.

Fair enough Punkfest2000 but for starters i am no audio mastering professional and nor do i claim to be. I am no 'wannabe', 'hack' or 'collector' and most of the plug-ins i use are not VST or VST Instrument Plug-Ins. I work in a studio as an audio engineer and dont show off about such and post brainless comments like yourself. I care about what microphones i use, i care about which mic pre-amp's i use, i care about every last f**king detail because if i did not them i would get whacked or we would not get any business at all. Bullshiters whom are probably in some wank band playing wank lame watered down shit and call it punk are the only pricks i cant stand your probably a f**king bum laxy ass twat who lives with mummy and daddy and they pay for all your bills and clothes and buy your f**king Y-Fronts for you as well but thats cool cause you and your band are gonna make it! the contract is waiting for you. Hell your gonna be the next big thing and i should be kissing your ass well the real world i live in aint like that and to be honest $1500 is not good enough to get me an EQ unless it was a second hand bargain but maybe i could afford a great EQ plug-in Or Two. No Young man its past your bed time so go f**k off and if you wet the bed again there will be trouble!

[Arksun]

All I'm saying is for all the wannabes, nobodys, hacks, tweakers, vst collectors, and plugin groupies around here it is of minimal significance.

You're entitled to that opinion, but for those of us that do produce music, when we can notice a significant difference (a difference in a good way) then it's welcome.

I remember when I first demoed the Eiosis AirEQ, it was distinctly different to the eq's I'd tried/used previously, especially in regards to the soundstage when equing stereo sounds like pads. This wasn't really subtle scratching head ooooh can I hear any difference stuff, but very obvious. At least to my ears (and I'm imagine a lot of other producers). By using the AirEQ for certain sounds and say for eg the Voxengo Gliss for other sounds, it helps define each sounds space in the overall mix.

There is no doubt however that there are a lot of very similar (or identicle) sounding eq's out there. But that doesn't mean EVERY eq plugin out there is the same, even in similar price brackets. Price is irrelivant anyway, its how it sounds AND its interface that are important.

Some producers switch to using a different eq just because they get along with its interface better!, it helps them to achieve the desired sound with less hassle.

We all have our different ways of working and our different ideas of what is a good sound, thats why we have this wonderful thing called choice.

At the end of the day, if a new eq allows a producer to achieve his goals more quickly with less hassle than previous ones he/she's tried, then its achieved its aim and that can only be a good thing

[zeep]

..I work in a studio as an audio engineer and dont show off about such and post brainless comments like yourself. I care about what microphones i use, i care about which mic pre-amp's i use, i care about every last f**king detail ..

An emotional audio engineer at that!

Come on guys, no need for this sort of talk. Try to respond to posts with intelligence rather than emotions.

[Dean Aka Nekro]

Im done (got it off my (virtual) chest so to speak)

if you want to continue punkfeast2008 then pm or e-mail me (take it outside)
and sorry if i offended anybody

Nekro

[mystran]

Some producers switch to using a different eq just because they get along with its interface better!, it helps them to achieve the desired sound with less hassle.

I'm not a producer (and just a poor developer), but this reminds me of the days when I thought EQs are practically impossible to use by a mere human; and turns out that as soon as got my hands on one with an interface that fits my mental model, I've suddenly had no problem whatsoever.

I still find myself totally helpless with certain plugins, while I have no problems with others. And this is within the sub-class of EQ plugins that should be actually sound identical if you manage to match the transfer function.

In other words, I'm the first to admit I don't know how to use EQ, but there happens to be this certain set of EQ plugins that manages to give me the settings I want anyway.

[Zaphod (giancarlo)]

Hey Nekromachine. Perhaps your senses are so good you can pick a certain EQ out of a line up huh. Maybe also you can smell my ass and tell everyone what I had for lunch yesterday. I would love it if someone posted a vocal hit with 3 or 4 different EQs, and had a professional like yourself tell us which one was used on which track.

Of course there are some differences in EQ, and a $10 EQ won't sound the same as a $1500 EQ. All I'm saying is for all the wannabes, nobodys, hacks, tweakers, vst collectors, and plugin groupies around here it is of minimal significance.

Well.
A lot of musician can't hear the difference between a wav or a mp3 with a bitrate grater than 192k. That's fine. Other ones are not able to distinguish the reverb coming from a pricey lexicon by the pantheon emulation. That's fine too. Equalisers are even more subtle. You can't beat a good engineer with a bad tool, but if you use a bad tool the situation is even worse.
Btw I admit, a lot of equalisers (especially in the past) were the same algorithm with a different photo on the top. It seems like the best photo was the winner. Things changed a bit in the past 2 years.
The difference between an expensive eq and a poor one is in the speed required for getting a pleasant result. It doesn't mean one sounds better, but that the engineer is faster. Take a vocal and an avalon. Be sure that pretty every boost in the high region will give to you a pleasant result, immediatly, without adding anything else (compressor, eq or reverb). Now try the same using some bad plug. It will be "almost" good, but you'll need a bit of compression. Than you'll need an other bit of eq. Than a reverb. Than a delay. Than an exciter. Than a limiter. Than again an eq. Again a multiband compressor. You could waste the whole day, and the vocal will not be good enough.

[mandt]

Hey Nekromachine. Perhaps your senses are so good you can pick a certain EQ out of a line up huh. Maybe also you can smell my ass and tell everyone what I had for lunch yesterday. I would love it if someone posted a vocal hit with 3 or 4 different EQs, and had a professional like yourself tell us which one was used on which track.

Of course there are some differences in EQ, and a $10 EQ won't sound the same as a $1500 EQ. All I'm saying is for all the wannabes, nobodys, hacks, tweakers, vst collectors, and plugin groupies around here it is of minimal significance.

Well.
A lot of musician can't hear the difference between a wav or a mp3 with a bitrate grater than 192k. That's fine. Other ones are not able to distinguish the reverb coming from a pricey lexicon by the pantheon emulation. That's fine too. Equalisers are even more subtle. You can't beat a good engineer with a bad tool, but if you use a bad tool the situation is even worse.
Btw I admit, a lot of equalisers (especially in the past) were the same algorithm with a different photo on the top. It seems like the best photo was the winner. Things changed a bit in the past 2 years.
The difference between an expensive eq and a poor one is in the speed required for getting a pleasant result. It doesn't mean one sounds better, but that the engineer is faster. Take a vocal and an avalon. Be sure that pretty every boost in the high region will give to you a pleasant result, immediatly, without adding anything else (compressor, eq or reverb). Now try the same using some bad plug. It will be "almost" good, but you'll need a bit of compression. Than you'll need an other bit of eq. Than a reverb. Than a delay. Than an exciter. Than a limiter. Than again an eq. Again a multiband compressor. You could waste the whole day, and the vocal will not be good enough.

Nice points all. But I do like Punkfest2000's idea of not getting too bogged down with tools at the expense of the creative process. That point should not be lost in the silly engineeer dick-wagging around here.

[frz]

Even though different EQs MAY sound alike at +/-2 or 3 db gain, working with more extreme settings will give some evident differences.

edit: IMO best bang for the buck IIeqPro, best overall UAD Cambridge

[punkfest2000]

NekroMachine - well obviously you take your EQ seriously, and in your role you may well have many different EQs that have different qualities and sounds. Fair enough, but every week there is some post about what is the "best" whether it be EQ, compression, reverb. Not to knock the original poster who was looking for advice, but I feel his efforts could be spent better elsewhere. Chances are he's relatively new at the game so why tell him he needs Sonnox or Waves.

I believe there is a science behind it, and sure there are different algorithms producing different alterations of sound, but I also believe in the scientific objectivity of a blind test.

I recall seeing some of these tests and the results are usually embarrassing. Just a few weeks ago on a guitar amp modelling forum a fellow put up a track and ran it through different amp sim programs, as well as some line 6 stuff and some real amps. The results were all over the map - guys basically had no clue what they were listening to.

Many people had similar experiences with the whole 16 bit vs 24 bit comparisons also. I did my own reverb comparison, and my conclusions were quite different from what others heard. What some thought was good, I thought was horrid, and vice versa. We all have different ears, aural processing, taste, etc.

I still feel that a middle of the road general purpose EQ which looks "pretty" enough for you to use is a good enough option here. Once you've mastered that them maybe explore some specialty or niche EQs for megabucks.

Also you presume much from a forum name. I don't actually listen to Punk music. And no I don't live with my parents.

[Nokenoku]

I would love to hear his summary on how all compressor topologies are left sounding the same or perish the thought 'Dynamic Equalization'

Compressors are a whole different story than EQs.

There are more variables, which form the behaviour of a compressor than for an EQ. For a non-linear-phase-EQ, the only variable is the curve. And the curves of even very different EQs can be matched nearly exactly. And the small difference, which remains has nothing to do with quality.

It's really just a matter of handling of an EQ, if it's good for you or not.

Some producers switch to using a different eq just because they get along with its interface better!, it helps them to achieve the desired sound with less hassle.

That's it. It all belongs on the handling and how you adapt to it.

Btw I admit, a lot of equalisers (especially in the past) were the same algorithm with a different photo on the top. It seems like the best photo was the winner. Things changed a bit in the past 2 years.

Can you give an example?
I personally think it totally not changed the past 2 years.

Take a vocal and an avalon. Be sure that pretty every boost in the high region will give to you a pleasant result, immediatly, without adding anything else (compressor, eq or reverb). Now try the same using some bad plug. It will be "almost" good, but you'll need a bit of compression. Than you'll need an other bit of eq. Than a reverb. Than a delay. Than an exciter. Than a limiter. Than again an eq. Again a multiband compressor. You could waste the whole day, and the vocal will not be good enough.

The Avalon AD 2055 is an analogue EQ, isn't it?
So it does add by itself effects like slight saturation/compression/whatever.
But this has nothing to do with digital EQing. Digital EQs don't have such "features" (beneath exceptions like the Electri-Q .. or Bootsies HF/LF-EQs ... but normally digital EQs just do one thing: EQing).

Btw.:
If you need a chain like you just described to get your vocal-sound right, you should consider a new Mic/Preamp.

Even though different EQs MAY sound alike at +/-2 or 3 db gain, working with more extreme settings will give some evident differences.

Yes, but only because of the different behaviours. One EQ has the same curve with a Q of 1 like the next EQ with a Q of 5 etc. It's all about the handling with digital EQs.

Again:
It's a whole different thing with Compressors and Reverbs! There it's really important to have the right tools (BESIDES the know-how of course).
But for EQ-Plugins just take the one you like from the feeling/GUI/handling and then just stay with it and don't buy into that newer/better/analoguer/cleaner/transparenter hype.