MIA Laboratories: Musiqual SE Release Announcement:

[martinjuenke]

Run them through Plugin Doctor and see what they do. I got pi/phi and once I could see what it was doing it made more sense to me what it was doing sonically. Don't be afraid of mixing subjective and objective analysis. There's nothing wrong with facts. Now I use pi/phi effectively and its been on my master buss ever since. Here's an example of a track tone-shaped with pi/phi in mastering.... It was first in the chain following some dynamics and other EQs, some MS work, bottom end monoizer, and final limiter. I would say piphi have a pretty strong fingerprint on the sound of this track.

https://soundcloud.com/musicofplexus/th ... ilizations

That sounds QUITE GOOD!

[plexuss]

Thanks! Make sure to grab the MIA freebies - they are quite good.

[DavidCarlyon]

i am quite impressed so far. The ability to radically re shape my busses is really useful. I worry a little bit about the single band plugs as they apparently saturate and there is no upsampling..but they too seem like they could be quite useful.
Really like the pi/phi tho.

[Arrested Developer]

These look interesting...i am wondering why there is not more discussion too!

I bought the Musiqual SE bundle together with Pi&Phi II and really like all of them.

The EQs - blue, red and green - are quite different from each other sonically but have in common the ability to shape the sound in an extremely unique way.
The special thing is their "organic" sound which (for me) makes it perfect to mangle samples in a way that let them still sound like "real sounds" and not synthetic ones.

The only thing i'd really like to see would be some kind of a "rack" where i can put different instances of the Musiqual SEs in order to process different bands.

p.s Pi&Phi is also fantastic, but a completely different beast.
Kind of a 10 band EQ/enhancer that works perfectly on the master bus.

[plexuss]

After working with pi/phi I've come up with a workflow that seems to work well. Start with all controls to 0/default/flat. If you feel the track is more deficient in either the low or high end, start at that end of the controls. dial up eack one starting with the lowest or highest. as you dial up you will start to hear it take effect, then, dial back to just get it in the mix. go up or down 2 more controls for a total of 3 at either end (but not both, yet). If you decided that the top or bottom end wasn't a problem then start with control 6 in the sam way: dial up until you hear it then dial back to taste. The idea is to dial back just a bit before it is clearly evident. The do knobs 5 and 7. If you started with the top or bottom end, now do the opposite 3 knobs on the other end. If you started in the middle it doesn't really matter, start from either top or bottom, do 3 knobs. This is basically the flow. Now do the rest of the knobs in whatever order you think works. I usually do them in a balanced cross order alternating top to bottom. Some knobs may not give an effect - in this case I dial them back down to maybe 10-15% if anything. Continue until all bands have been adjusted. This is your rough setting.

Now you want to loudness-match: Using the ON button, toggle between on and off while turing the output down with the Master Volume. Toggle On and Off until they sound equal in loudness. If you can't do it by ear then use a loudness meter - wait for it to settle on either setting ON/OFF so that they are both at the same loudness. Now, toggle back and forth and audition. Tweek bands to taste. Re-balance loudness. Repeat until happy.

Then, what I usually do, is a render with and without pi/phi and AB those and choose which one I like the best.

I used this workflow on this track recently. The pi/phi version was superior. I've only had one master so far out of about 5 that I prefered it without pi/phi.


https://soundcloud.com/musicofplexus/cr ... of-the-sun

[DavidCarlyon]

Still liking these a lot. Very unique. Still don't understand what they are doing to the phase. Just before this I was going through a bit of an 'eq-phase...phase' no pun intended.
Was using a lot of linear phase and minimal phase eps on insanely HQ settings and getting really nice results.
But that all went out the window when I found these - as changing the phase seems to be the name of the game.

There isn't really anything else like this bundle.
I totally agree - I want a rack with all of them (including the awesome free plugins) in. that would make it even better as I basically put the whole strip on now. Great mixing tools. Creative too

[jbarish]

Thanks very much for these detailed tips, Plex. You're aces in my book!

[plexuss]

Still liking these a lot. Very unique. Still don't understand what they are doing to the phase. Just before this I was going through a bit of an 'eq-phase...phase' no pun intended.

I've examined the Musiquals and pi/phi with plugindoctor. I suppose I should make a video showing them. Ok.. I'll do that and post. But to sum up I see nothing odd going on with phase - they seem to use analogue or minimum phase. What is unusual are the EQ curves. With the Musiqual EQ when you do boost/cut you don't just get the main band gain changing - it acutally creates other bands on either side that change gain proportionally. The Colour control does not actuallly add harmonics - it adjust the extent of these other bands. the EQs seem to generate quiescent harmonics that change over time. I'll do a video....

[plexuss]

Here's the video. I run through the 3 EQs and pi/phi using plugin doctor. I go through all the relevant tests and twiddle the knobs. The music is just there for something to listen to - its not being processed. The music tracks were mastered using the MIA plugins.

Please consider subscribing!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAvX82fW3Hc

[DavidCarlyon]

Here's the video. I run through the 3 EQs and pi/phi using plugin doctor. I go through all the relevant tests and twiddle the knobs. The music is just there for something to listen to - its not being processed. The music tracks were mastered using the MIA plugins.

Please consider subscribing!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAvX82fW3Hc

Ah nice one buddy! Looking forward to watching that when I get back. That is interesting. Yeah the colour control sounded like it was doing some curve bending (reminds me of the classic pullet trick, but custom set up for each band)

Will check out the vid and write back

[plexuss]

Here is an interesting way to listen to these EQs: A synth arp through each EQ with automation sweeping the frequency from low to high to low etc over 4 bars for 1 complete sweep forward and back. In this playlist there is the dry track, and then through red, green and blue. I adjusted the gain, colour and x2 to get as much effect without getting out of control. each track has an HPF with a 30Hz -12dB/oct filter. also the same HPF on the sum and then through a limiter with a -0.8dB ceiling. they are all pretty much peak normalized without any noticable added loudness.

And then, for fun, a mix of all 3 with a stereo spread.


https://soundcloud.com/musicofplexus/se ... ng/s-wGMYj

[DavidCarlyon]

I couldn't decide on these in the end and didn't end up getting them. Kindof wish I did now as I did like them a lot. Just trying not to buy too much extra stuff at th moment and really love using equilibrium....
how is everyone else getting on with them?

[jbarish]

I couldn't decide on these in the end and didn't end up getting them. Kindof wish I did now as I did like them a lot. Just trying not to buy too much extra stuff at th moment and really love using equilibrium....
how is everyone else getting on with them?

EQuilibrium is deep. I would focus on learning all that it can do. If after that you still feel you could use them I'm pretty sure they'll have a BF deal at the end of Nov.

[DavidCarlyon]

I couldn't decide on these in the end and didn't end up getting them. Kindof wish I did now as I did like them a lot. Just trying not to buy too much extra stuff at th moment and really love using equilibrium....
how is everyone else getting on with them?

EQuilibrium is deep. I would focus on learning all that it can do. If after that you still feel you could use them I'm pretty sure they'll have a BF deal at the end of Nov.

This is my thinking thus far. Since i really dug in and got into the depths of Equilibrium, compassion and multiplicity, it is really surprising how much of the time they are the best option. Not only are they insanely flexible, they just sound amazing.

I think what i find attractive with these is the ability to just throw somehting on late in the mixing process and get a tiny boost with a bit of colour. That can be really useful. But i may well wait until the next sale.
I do like the products a lot though, interesting stuff

[Halonmusic]

I like your free stuff