Best workhorse EQ

[simon.a.billington]

F6

That's a good eq, light on the CPU, can be static or dynamic and allows mid-side operation for each band.

Neutron's EQ is also this flexible, no mid-side, but it does have a saturation and a masking meter which can be quite helpful.

[lmv]

I always use Equilibre or maybe NCL. They're both free and awesome.

[jjpscott01]

DMG Audio's EQuick has been my go to for years. Waves F6 is awesome too

[tomtom1]

Does anyone here have an opinion on Sonible’s Smart EQ 3? Considering buying it since I love AI assisted stuff, gives you a nice quick starting point.

The AI assisted stuff will eventually bite you back: if you don’t know (without an eq telling you) what to eq in a track, you wont know intimately how the final mix should sound so it will keep back your ear training and experience imho

Tbh i like the Smart Eq3 a lot. And it really boosted my mixes forward to a better sound. But i am not a professionel (if someone will ever listen to my stuff on the Café...). Of course, you shouldn't trust it blindly. But as a second opinion it is really helpful. I use it as a final check/opinion - works well on the Master Bus, too. But if it doesn't really sound better (or if it is doing crazy stuff), it gets kicked out again. (The biggest leap for my mixes, however, was in the use of reference tracks.)

[sircuit]

if it doesn't really sound better

My point exactly. You don't need it to sound better, you need it to sound the way your vision is. But you don't have a clear vision (we've all been there: we hear something is not right but we don't know exactly what's missing or what needs to be cut away) so we slap various "techniques" and hope that one of them will stick. The problem with this is that it takes time to try them all and the final outcome is dictated by the tools, not by you.

And having a smart tool on the master? if you have a frequency buildup due to only 2 instruments, the eq will dip that frequency and you will severely affect other tracks that don't have any issues there (or whatever boost tracks that don't need boosting). At best, you can use it as an indicator of what frequencies are problematic and then address the issues on the tracks themselves.

I have no doubts that some tools can make your mixes better than they were. But your mixes will not be perfect and only you can make them perfect (by perfect I mean to meet the minimum threshold to be accepted as professional-sounding mixes - radio, beatport, that kind of stuff). And by using these tools you train your ear/taste less and less. Chose wisely

[tomtom1]

At best, you can use it as an indicator of what frequencies are problematic and then address the issues on the tracks themselves.

That is what i've meant. Nothing more. A help, an opinion, some sort of second reference (added to the reference track etc). Of course this only works for beginners. And i am pretty sure that a real professionel audio engineer, does not need any AI-stuff. But they have learnt it the right way, from the groun up.

[astralprojection]

stock cubase channel eq

[ramseysounds]

+1 for F6. And cubase stock. To be honest an eq is an eq. They all cut or boost frequencies but some have more bands, fixed bands, steeper curves, etc etc

[Kalee]

I use different eq for different purposes:

ReaEQ for surgical cuts
Nova for multiband compression + high and lowpass
VoS baxterEQ for m/s
TDR slickEQ for tonal balance + another instance if side information needs cleaning

[zerocrossing]

I use Waves F6 all the time. I just know it well and it gets the job done. It’s ability to side chain each band is pretty great. I barely use side chained compressors these days, as it usually gets me the results I’m looking for.