I think the tech is interesting, but the ear is always the final word in the real world. Always.
No love for Crave EQ?
- GRRRRRRR!
- 15844 posts since 14 Jun, 2001 from Somewhere else, on principle
I mostly find the tech tedious. The simpler the better for me and I never want something like an EQ to colour the sound beyond what I expect. That's why I am perfectly happy with a bog-standard EQ with just the basic features.
NOVAkILL : Asus RoG Flow Z13, Core i9, 16GB RAM, Win11 | EVO 16 | Studio One | bx_oberhausen, GR-8, JP6K, Union, Hexeract, Olga, TRK-01, SEM, BA-1, Thorn, Prestige, Spire, Legend-HZ, ANA-2, VG Iron 2 | Uno Pro, Rocket.
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- KVRAF
- 4709 posts since 26 Nov, 2015 from Way Downunder
One thing for certain is that many EQ's indicate the Q and db/oct factor differently. I believe Fabfilter most famously did it first when they made Q of "1" = the classic "0.7. This automatically means all boosts and cuts will sound different to other EQs if you "match" Q value of "1" in those other EQs.Mind Riot wrote: ↑Thu May 13, 2021 12:11 am I tested out CraveEQ against EQuality when I heard about it. Crave has this open airiness to the high end when you boost it that even EQuality didn't have, and I was pretty surprised, because I had never encountered any EQ that beat EQuality's top end. Not even stuff that was made for it, like Maag Audio's EQ4 with the Air band.
But then I noticed that if I boosted ten db with Crave and only four or five with EQuality, they sounded virtually identical. Not sure what to make of that, but I didn't buy Crave that day and still haven't.
This accounts for a lot of difference people hear between EQs.
You really need to match them precisely in Plugin Doctor, then go back to your DAW and apply those values.
Crave's "Transparent" and Pro-Q's "Natural Phase" modes work similarly, being minimal phase i nthe low end + linear in the highs, and a crossover between. Where that crossover is and how gradual it is differs - which will again account for differences. Which is better is subjective.
But I honestly do think Fabfilter's lack of double-precision (64-bit floating point) processing makes it SLIGHTLY lower quality sounding than, say, Crave. This is probably a contentious opinion to have, and to some, objectional.
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- KVRist
- 289 posts since 3 Aug, 2014
As I said, if doing things that way helps your creative flow then rock on brother.
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- KVRist
- 289 posts since 3 Aug, 2014
I've never messed with Plugin Doctor myself, but in my own tests I tried a wide variety of Q settings to try to get plugs to null.MogwaiBoy wrote: ↑Thu May 13, 2021 5:14 am One thing for certain is that many EQ's indicate the Q and db/oct factor differently. I believe Fabfilter most famously did it first when they made Q of "1" = the classic "0.7. This automatically means all boosts and cuts will sound different to other EQs if you "match" Q value of "1" in those other EQs.
This accounts for a lot of difference people hear between EQs.
You really need to match them precisely in Plugin Doctor, then go back to your DAW and apply those values.
You're absolutely right about all that. I remember Reaper calls Q "bandwidth" and assigns it to a slider that works backwards from what most Q controls do. Takes some getting used to. I did get ReaEQ to perfectly null with other basic parametric EQs but if memory serves it always required Q/bandwidth settings that didn't match. Often a 1.0 'bandwidth' in Reaper was needed to match a 0.7 in the other two.
I really wish the devs would incorporate oversampling in ReaEQ; it's very flexible (unlimited bands!) and getting rid of the upper end cramping would make it an excellent and very powerful EQ to have included in Reaper.
Somebody on the Reaper forums put together a high quality parametric with a lot of nice features and a nice interface; called it ReEQ. It was pretty awesome last time I checked, I might have to give it another look.
Fascinating, I didn't know any of that.MogwaiBoy wrote: ↑Thu May 13, 2021 5:14 am Crave's "Transparent" and Pro-Q's "Natural Phase" modes work similarly, being minimal phase i nthe low end + linear in the highs, and a crossover between. Where that crossover is and how gradual it is differs - which will again account for differences. Which is better is subjective.
We all get attached to our toys. When I tested them all out, Pro Q sounded a little duller to me than EQuality, which is why I chose it. But I don't want to start any fights with anybody.
It's been at least a year since I tried Crave, and I just checked out the new version today and it's got some impressive upgrades. Directional EQ bands is a really cool idea, not a new one, but a very cool one. Reaching out to the center left to roll some harshness off of one crash cymbal that's misbehaving would be an impressive trick to pull off.
I love EQuality, enough to probably sound like a fanboy even though I'm not, it was just the best available when I went to invest in a more pricey EQ (except it's big brother EQuilibrium, but I wasn't investing THAT much). But I've been using it for probably close to a decade now, and sometimes I'm feeling a little cramped (HA! Didn't even do that on purpose!). Maybe I should see if I could get another Crave demo.
- GRRRRRRR!
- 15844 posts since 14 Jun, 2001 from Somewhere else, on principle
"Q" is "bandwidth", that's what it means. I imagine it got abbreviated because it was easier to label on a cramped console.
NOVAkILL : Asus RoG Flow Z13, Core i9, 16GB RAM, Win11 | EVO 16 | Studio One | bx_oberhausen, GR-8, JP6K, Union, Hexeract, Olga, TRK-01, SEM, BA-1, Thorn, Prestige, Spire, Legend-HZ, ANA-2, VG Iron 2 | Uno Pro, Rocket.
- KVRian
- 630 posts since 12 May, 2004
Bones wrote:
Technically Q or Quality Factor and Bandwidth are two different things… however they are closely related as Q Factor determines Bandwidth in any given filter circuit design. Over time, these two concepts have become interchangeable, nomenclature-wise.
The concept of Q, Quality Factor was first envisaged by an engineer named K. S. Johnson from the Engineering Department of the Western Electric Company in the US. He was evaluating the performance and quality of different coils. Over the course of his investigations he developed the concept of Q. Interestingly his choice of the letter Q was made because all other letters of the alphabet were taken and not because of the term quality factor, although with hindsight the choice of the letter Q for quality factor could not have been any better."Q" is "bandwidth", that's what it means. I imagine it got abbreviated because it was easier to label on a cramped console.
Technically Q or Quality Factor and Bandwidth are two different things… however they are closely related as Q Factor determines Bandwidth in any given filter circuit design. Over time, these two concepts have become interchangeable, nomenclature-wise.
On a number of Macs
- KVRAF
- 2517 posts since 20 Apr, 2005
Crave is a really good EQ, very efficient, very transparent, very flexible and really good value.
I picked it up on a recommendation as a good EQ to map a headphone correction curve, which needed about 8 points of varying amounts and bandwidths. It works really well, and was a big step up in clarity from using Sonarworks.
It hasn't replaced bx_digital as my primary clean bus EQ, as the bx_digital has a really nice workflow - but it's a great swiss army knife of an EQ. Everything from using as a surgical EQ to remove things, clean broad band boosts are great. Equally at home cleaning up samples, as for mastering.
I picked it up on a recommendation as a good EQ to map a headphone correction curve, which needed about 8 points of varying amounts and bandwidths. It works really well, and was a big step up in clarity from using Sonarworks.
It hasn't replaced bx_digital as my primary clean bus EQ, as the bx_digital has a really nice workflow - but it's a great swiss army knife of an EQ. Everything from using as a surgical EQ to remove things, clean broad band boosts are great. Equally at home cleaning up samples, as for mastering.
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- KVRist
- 203 posts since 24 Sep, 2019
I can not understand how people can even talk about electronic goods (not least - a virtual one) in terms of "love".
It is a product. a commodity. here to help you carry on with some things that needs to be done.
Within the 1 light-year worth of tools they throw at us each and every day, the hyped ones (ie. @ magazines ; @ forums ; @ audio production web sites) get noticed - and as a result : used more, by more users.
It has nothing to do with "love".
FWIW, I substituted EQuilibrium with CraveEQ as my main EQ - merely due to the fact that the former imparts massive amounts of FOMO upon the user (this is the ONLY field Dave fails - IMO) whereas CraveEQ is a "deploy and enjoy" affair. it just encapsulates the best of what you actually NEED MOST OF THE TIME (ie. the bare minimum for achieving the absolute maximum within the realm of our field).
It is a product. a commodity. here to help you carry on with some things that needs to be done.
Within the 1 light-year worth of tools they throw at us each and every day, the hyped ones (ie. @ magazines ; @ forums ; @ audio production web sites) get noticed - and as a result : used more, by more users.
It has nothing to do with "love".
FWIW, I substituted EQuilibrium with CraveEQ as my main EQ - merely due to the fact that the former imparts massive amounts of FOMO upon the user (this is the ONLY field Dave fails - IMO) whereas CraveEQ is a "deploy and enjoy" affair. it just encapsulates the best of what you actually NEED MOST OF THE TIME (ie. the bare minimum for achieving the absolute maximum within the realm of our field).
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- KVRist
- 289 posts since 3 Aug, 2014
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- KVRist
- 275 posts since 31 May, 2017
don't make yourself dumb in the name of literalist dogma - this is reductive to the the point of idiocy. if you have autism though, i can explain the context for you in a more diplomatic manner.
- KVRAF
- 2517 posts since 20 Apr, 2005
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- KVRist
- 55 posts since 9 Jul, 2011
Hey. I love Crave EQ2 it contain almost everything i ever wanted. Last thing.
Please add ability to zoom into selcted freq range.
For example instead of show at screen full spectrum from 0-20khz
add ability to left and right drag freq to zoom on specific area.
for example from 20-250hz at full window or 1000-2000hz at full window.
with one button near to hear only trough that freq window would be perfect. thx
Please add ability to zoom into selcted freq range.
For example instead of show at screen full spectrum from 0-20khz
add ability to left and right drag freq to zoom on specific area.
for example from 20-250hz at full window or 1000-2000hz at full window.
with one button near to hear only trough that freq window would be perfect. thx
- KVRist
- 457 posts since 2 Jun, 2015 from Belgrade, Serbia