Fabfilter or IZotope?

[MirkoVanHauten]

I regret so much that I bought fabfilter-proq3. When I tested this there was no problem. But in the version I bought when I match eq it always creates resonances and sweeps and also it distorts the bass in an awful way. I saw the tutorial and I make everything that tutorial says. I also regret because a friend of mine told me that it's not to match two songs mixed,(for example I want to make a song from vinyl to be listened with new equalizer) but only to match bass,kick,snare etc separately.

There's no difference between the paid & trial version (besides a missing license). If it worked before, it'll work now as well. Maybe you were lucky with the source material or had different matching settings (like number of bands). I use it quite often to match material recorded in different sessions as well as in mastering to match a certain sound (with very few bands of course).

[billcarroll]

Fabfilter all day long.

Love some of the iZotope stuff, but have a tough time with all of the abandoned products. Hard to trust.

[sQeetz]

I keep my FF products - I have them all except the de-esser and gate (for those I opted for DMG, just... because).

Weird... same here. Have everything except the de-esser and gate. How come?

[sQeetz]

[double]

[thebest20]

I don't understand what's wrong with fabfilter pro-q3. I sidechain in adobe audition because in reaper I can't sidechain and then I try to match the 2 files. In sidechain I put the file with the best sound!Then I have this awful result. Is there a possibility to have problem with sound card, because some friends told me this. But when I listen songs there is no problem.
I have tried ozone match eq but ozone stucks and crashes in my laptop always.

[HAL76]

Fish!

[ramseysounds]

Waves

[yellowmix]

I sidechain in adobe audition because in reaper I can't sidechain

Are you using the VST3 version? VST3 changed how multichannel plugins work, and Pro-Q3 defaults to quadro output, so in REAPER you may need to "request VST3 bus channel count": https://www.fabfilter.com/forum/topic/3 ... -in-reaper

However, this has been resolved in the latest versions of Pro-Q3 and REAPER so you don't need to do anything.

In sidechain I put the file with the best sound!Then I have this awful result. Is there a possibility to have problem with sound card, because some friends told me this. But when I listen songs there is no problem.

Are you sure the band gain is not making it clip? Use fewer bands and broader Q (< 0.7), and be reasonable with gain. Make sure the material you're applying the EQ curve to has sufficient headroom for it.

Also, have reasonable expectations of what this technique can accomplish. What a song sounds like is more than its EQ tonal balance.

[dionenoid]

DMG

[thebest20]

Are you sure the band gain is not making it clip? Use fewer bands and broader Q (< 0.7), and be reasonable with gain. Make sure the material you're applying the EQ curve to has sufficient headroom for it.

Also, have reasonable expectations of what this technique can accomplish. What a song sounds like is more than its EQ tonal balance.

Hello my friend!If you use fabfilter pro-q3 it,is it easy to send me a preset with a spectrum that you have matched two different equalizers,one with good sound and one with bad sound!If you have, with every songs you want!Matching creates me many resonances, much bass distortions and I don't know how to do. I know that every song has different equalizer from other,but I want to see if it sounds good.

[yellowmix]

Hello my friend!If you use fabfilter pro-q3 it,is it easy to send me a preset with a spectrum that you have matched two different equalizers,one with good sound and one with bad sound!If you have, with every songs you want!Matching creates me many resonances, much bass distortions and I don't know how to do. I know that every song has different equalizer from other,but I want to see if it sounds good.

EQ doesn't solve all problems if the mix is not good to begin with. You are expecting too much. What a matching EQ can do is help balance tone, in very broad strokes. You have too much gain so it is clipping and distorting. You do not want that.

The resonances you speak of are due to using too many bands. Pro-Q has so many bands it will consider individual notes in the song to be peaks. That is, if you apply the curve with all the bands to another song, it will boost frequencies in the key of the reference song. You avoid this by using fewer bands, about 3 or 4. This will give you the "broad strokes" I am talking about.

I don't know what kind of music you make. But I will give you an example. Attached to this comment is a Pro-Q reference spectrum taken from the song "All The Stars" by Kendrick Lamar and SZA. It was mastered by Mike Bozzi. If you listen to the song, pay attention to how it's an atmospheric song but the instruments are separated, and SZA's vocals are distinct and enhanced by other things moved out of the way. It's a hip-hop song, so there is significant bass and focus on drums. Yet, the bass is clearly heard but not dominating, and the kick drum punches without overpowering the song's balance, and most of all, they don't interfere with each other.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQbjS0_ZfJ0

This reference curve was taken from the input. I suggest not using sidechain. Just grab the reference curve directly on the same track as the reference material (as input) and save the reference curve. Then load an instance on your target track using the saved reference curve.

There is another song, by Kanye West, featuring Jay-Z, Rick Ross, Nicki Minaj, and Bon Iver, titled "Monster". It's an atmospheric hip-hop song like our reference track. Listen and pay attention to how the song is obviously clipping, how the bass is too hot and muddy and the kick is buried and has a hard time punching through. Vocals have a hard time cutting through the mess. In any event, it was considered one of the best tracks of the year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pS6HRKZQLFA

So I put "Monster" on a track with Pro-Q, and fed it as input, and chose the "All The Stars" reference curve I had made previously to EQ Match with it. I reduced the number of bands to 4 to give broad strokes, and I reduced the curve gain to 55% (lower right) so the biggest boost is 3 db.

Let's look at what Pro-Q did. Notice how the bass below 50 Hz is attenuated about 5 db. Pro-Q is trying to fix the mud, and there's an additional, tighter cut at 180 Hz trying to create separation. From 400 to 1900 Hz there's a 3 dB boost to fix the bass-heavy balance and put focus back on the vocals. There's slight attenuation from 7 kHz on up, likely because it detected the high-frequency distortion that is eating more headroom than it's worth.

monster-eq-match.png

If you listen to the track now, it's still garbage in terms of mastering. It continues to clip, the kick and bass are forever intertwined, Bon Iver's vocals are still unnecessarily distorted. Garbage in, garbage out.

The other lesson here is to go easy on the EQ Matching. Fewer bands, less gain.

If you're having trouble operating the EQ Match, refer to Fabfilter's documentation (https://www.fabfilter.com/help/pro-q/using/eqmatch) or try to find a YouTube video that explains it.

[Pablosaitua]

Pricewise I would say Izotope.
I got the mix and master bundle advanced & Stutter edit 2 Bundle for only 210 Euro.
Ozone 9 Advanced
Neutron 4
Nectar 3 Plus
Neoverb
Stutter Edit 2

This was not a cross grade or Upgrade offer.

Than I got Trash2 for free and I got RX elements for 9 Euro.

That is a whole lot of good Plugins for the money.
Maybe this was a mistake at Pluginboutique. I don't know.
I would be on the lookout for good offers, as they do exist.

I know the FF plugins are also sometimes on offer, I just wonder if the offers are that good.

Many things the Neutron EQ can not do the Ozone EQ can.
So in the end with a package like this you will not come short.

[Ploki]

Featurewise izotope is more encompassing and cheaper.
With fabfilter you buy robustness and support - tools that don't break and are pretty much programming perfection.

I.e., M1 in the month after release of first M1 macbook. Bugs that are fixed before you can even report them. Major updates that are overhauls with gajillion new features and cost 30€.

With iZotope, it's a mixed bag of weird paid updates that are sometimes not really updates and not-so-timely fixes and updates aren't usually cheap.

[Adinoff]

Honestly both a great, but i prefer Fabfilter because its very simple to use, with instructions and a great interface

[ed_anger]

fyi July 11-Aug 1 Fabfilter bundles are 25% off