EQs and difference in weight and transient

[fabaessa]

As I said, I personally did those tests and the results are always clear and consistent (again, for me).

Did you do them as blind tests?
Otherwise it doesn't count (in my book) because of such things like confirmation bias.

Always Blind HOFA tests!!!
It should be a universal rule!!!

[fabaessa]

how can a completely linear EQ affect the transients in any way, shape or form?

I guess the frequency-dependent phase response can change the character? I think people use all-pass filters for this.

Could you please tell me more about it?

[fese]

how can a completely linear EQ affect the transients in any way, shape or form?

I guess the frequency-dependent phase response can change the character? I think people use all-pass filters for this.

Could you please tell me more about it?

An allpass filter is a filter that ideally doesn’t affect the frequency response, only the phase response
This is quite a good explanation especially for audio:

https://www.uaudio.de/blog/allpass-filters/

The phase rotator tends to reduce the peak amplitude of transients by spreading out in time the frequency components that combine to produce the transients. Effectively, the phase rotator smears transients, making them less localized.

All analog-style filters have some kind of phase distortion. Linear Phase filters don’t, but they have other problems which can affect especially low frequencies (the infamous pre-ringing).
Whether and how much the phase distortion leads to audible changes depends probably a lot on how much EQ gain you apply, and the q value.

I was mostly in the “all digital EQs sound the same” until I compared TBEQ4 and CraveEQ with (hopefully) matched settings and yes, there was some difference in sound. Better? Perhaps.
Personally i don’t worry too much about it as my mixing skills or lack thereof have most likely a way bigger influence on the final result
And for me usability and workflow is at least as important as the last couple percent of sound quality.

[ozonepaul]

...Melda plugins always scared me (Interface) but I'll give their EQ a try.

Yes, Melda plugins are a bit scary first but I tested loads of EQs in DDMF PluginDoctor: Melda MautodynamicEQ is one of the few that hardly introduces any artifacts. It's capabilities are insane (from SurferEQ like pitch tracking to absolutely insane modulation options). Also it's CPU usage is surprisingly low compared to a lot of other EQs with dynamic capabilities (I tested it in Reaper and in Bitwig).
I highly suggest to watch a few tutorials (rather than read the usually not so great Melda manual) to understand what a beast MautodynamicEQ is. In the following video they use version 8 while we're now at version 14, so since the recording of this video the GUI etc improved a lot, in my opinion this 6 episode series is still the best tutorial:

I Love TDR products but, to me, sound like the free nova introduce so sort of saturation (I could be completely wrong about it).

I think you're wrong on this one: I've got the paid GE version of TDR Nova and that is another one that measures really really well.

When I say affect the transient I'm not talking about it physically, I'm talking about it's perception.
If you know why or have any inputs on this, please go ahead an write cause I really would like to know!

If I'm honest, at a setting where the cuts or boosts where not bigger than 10dB (I tried all kinds of Q settings with all kinds of band types) I couldn't hear any difference between the EQs I tested if the Phase measurements were good. I'm not saying that when let's say comparing Waves F6 with Fabfilter Pro Q3 with the exact same settings I got all the same measurements in PluginDoctor. What I'm saying is that with a bit of miniscule tweaking I could always replicate the measurement result of one of them on the other one. What I realized though while testing some well known EQ plugins is that my ears can pick up phase problems/differences earlier than actual frequency measurement problems. Based on my non scientific tests, if a plugin EQ introduces weird phase issues than that's what tricks the human ear to think it's a transient problem (but obviously phase problems can lead to transient problems so basically it's just a question of what's the cause and what's the symptom.)
In short: I think you heard phase issues.

+ I highly suggest PluginDoctor: after watching some Dan Worrall videos I decided to buy PluginDoctor to be able to test plugins easily and quickly. (Worrall is a genius, I've learnt so much from him, if you've never seen his videos, you should: here is one from him on stock EQs vs Fabfilter)


My 2 cents

[bk]

You should definitely try Crave EQ.

[sonicpowa]

edit: these quote scripts are driving me crazy lol.

[sonicpowa]

@ozonepaul: But Nova actually introduces "internal nonlinearity" with + modes as said in the manual.

[ozonepaul]

@ozonepaul: But Nova actually introduces "internal nonlinearity" with + modes as said in the manual.

I measured it in one of the - modes ( I don"t remember which one was it the precise- or the insane-).
Thanks to your comment I have to reconsider my previous post: most probably the OP set his Nova in eco or one of the + modes and ( I just quickly checked) they do introduce (especially at more extreme settings) some audible saturation.

[fabaessa]

how can a completely linear EQ affect the transients in any way, shape or form?

I guess the frequency-dependent phase response can change the character? I think people use all-pass filters for this.

Could you please tell me more about it?

An allpass filter is a filter that ideally doesn’t affect the frequency response, only the phase response
This is quite a good explanation especially for audio:

https://www.uaudio.de/blog/allpass-filters/

The phase rotator tends to reduce the peak amplitude of transients by spreading out in time the frequency components that combine to produce the transients. Effectively, the phase rotator smears transients, making them less localized.

All analog-style filters have some kind of phase distortion. Linear Phase filters don’t, but they have other problems which can affect especially low frequencies (the infamous pre-ringing).
Whether and how much the phase distortion leads to audible changes depends probably a lot on how much EQ gain you apply, and the q value.

I was mostly in the “all digital EQs sound the same” until I compared TBEQ4 and CraveEQ with (hopefully) matched settings and yes, there was some difference in sound. Better? Perhaps.
Personally i don’t worry too much about it as my mixing skills or lack thereof have most likely a way bigger influence on the final result
And for me usability and workflow is at least as important as the last couple percent of sound quality.

Thanks for the explanation and yes...they DO NOT sound the same.

[fabaessa]

...Melda plugins always scared me (Interface) but I'll give their EQ a try.

Yes, Melda plugins are a bit scary first but I tested loads of EQs in DDMF PluginDoctor: Melda MautodynamicEQ is one of the few that hardly introduces any artifacts. It's capabilities are insane (from SurferEQ like pitch tracking to absolutely insane modulation options). Also it's CPU usage is surprisingly low compared to a lot of other EQs with dynamic capabilities (I tested it in Reaper and in Bitwig).
I highly suggest to watch a few tutorials (rather than read the usually not so great Melda manual) to understand what a beast MautodynamicEQ is. In the following video they use version 8 while we're now at version 14, so since the recording of this video the GUI etc improved a lot, in my opinion this 6 episode series is still the best tutorial:

I Love TDR products but, to me, sound like the free nova introduce so sort of saturation (I could be completely wrong about it).

I think you're wrong on this one: I've got the paid GE version of TDR Nova and that is another one that measures really really well.

When I say affect the transient I'm not talking about it physically, I'm talking about it's perception.
If you know why or have any inputs on this, please go ahead an write cause I really would like to know!

If I'm honest, at a setting where the cuts or boosts where not bigger than 10dB (I tried all kinds of Q settings with all kinds of band types) I couldn't hear any difference between the EQs I tested if the Phase measurements were good. I'm not saying that when let's say comparing Waves F6 with Fabfilter Pro Q3 with the exact same settings I got all the same measurements in PluginDoctor. What I'm saying is that with a bit of miniscule tweaking I could always replicate the measurement result of one of them on the other one. What I realized though while testing some well known EQ plugins is that my ears can pick up phase problems/differences earlier than actual frequency measurement problems. Based on my non scientific tests, if a plugin EQ introduces weird phase issues than that's what tricks the human ear to think it's a transient problem (but obviously phase problems can lead to transient problems so basically it's just a question of what's the cause and what's the symptom.)
In short: I think you heard phase issues.

+ I highly suggest PluginDoctor: after watching some Dan Worrall videos I decided to buy PluginDoctor to be able to test plugins easily and quickly. (Worrall is a genius, I've learnt so much from him, if you've never seen his videos, you should: here is one from him on stock EQs vs Fabfilter)


My 2 cents

Thanks for all your time to awnser this.

[ozonepaul]

--

[fabaessa]

Hi BK,
I'll try CRAVE for the next week with some other ones (WEISS, NOVA GE and also the Melda)

[dionenoid]

DMG EQuilibrium - Perfect transients and weight. Horrible interface but I love the zoom capacity to remove whistles and resonances (just my opinion). Everything is a sub menu and it's very difficult to proper use without engineering knowledge

Maat Blue - Nice transients (second place) and good weight (also second place). Loved the graph to show the frequencies (I would love to know the name and if we have more EQs like that).

You mean a spectrogram like shown in Equilibrium here ? : https://www.dmgaudio.com/images/product ... ibrium.png

[markmann]

I've been shooting out clean EQs for the past week - Equilibrium, Toneboosters EQ4, FabFilter, UAD AMS Neve, Crave, Melda MAutogain, etc. The new Weiss EQ MP from Softube is the best-sounding for my purposes. It seems to be in a league of its own for clarity.

Of course, you can get great results from the others. I will continue to use Toneboosters EQ4, MAutogain, and UAD AMS Neve on some individual tracks. But don't make a decision until you've tried Weiss EQ MP.

[adl]

I've been shooting out clean EQs for the past week - Equilibrium, Toneboosters EQ4, FabFilter, UAD AMS Neve, Crave, Melda MAutogain, etc. The new Weiss EQ MP from Softube is the best-sounding for my purposes. It seems to be in a league of its own for clarity.

Of course, you can get great results from the others. I will continue to use Toneboosters EQ4, MAutogain, and UAD AMS Neve on some individual tracks. But don't make a decision until you've tried Weiss EQ MP.

Thanks for sharing your results. The Weiss is supposed to be very good (clean) sounding, so you're definitely making the right decision to get that one. I personally couldn't get around dmg Equilibrium workflow wise, didn't feel intuitive (to me!). Fabfilter really stepped up the game regarding that. It's a shame that the transient smearing is so obvious with that one (as mentioned I use mAutoDynamic EQ from melda on transient material).
How did you feel about Crave EQ? Gets praised a lot for being very transparent (haven't tried myself). Also, how was workflow on the Weiss for you? (haven't tried that one either so far).