Beta version of MDynamicEq available, optinions?

[MeldaProduction]

I like the advanced dynamic settings very much! Indeed, I find the level transformation curve approach more straightforward and more general than the threshold/ratio parameters. However, I have a little idea for a subtle enhancement What if I want to process the input signal so that the high level passages will be pulled down and, at the same time, the low level passages will be pushed up? I suppose that in the current version I cannot do that with one band. Therefore, I suggest that the Y-axis of the level transformation chart should go from -100% to +100%.

What do you think about this idea?

Best regards
--
Miloslav

Hi Miloslav, this can be done! In fact is very simple, just use the normal gain!

For example, let's say you want a peak filter at 1kHz, and you want -3dB in loud passages and +6dB in silent passages. Then all you need is to set normal gain to +6dB as you would with a normal equalizer, and then set dynamic gain to -9dB .

This is actually a typical example. You do something with the silent passage, work the same way as with a normal eq. And then you find that it is ok, but in loud parts it's just too much, and now you can fix it without compressors and other tools, just using the dynamic gain .

[valsolim]

For example, let's say you want a peak filter at 1kHz, and you want -3dB in loud passages and +6dB in silent passages. Then all you need is to set normal gain to +6dB as you would with a normal equalizer, and then set dynamic gain to -9dB .

Vojtech,

okay, you are right, we will see in practice - maybe this solution will serve well. I thought that the normal EQ should be adjusted for the average level passages, rather than for the silent ones...

However, if I would like to adjust only the impact (the depth) of the dynamic processing, keeping the average level passages unchanged, then I will have to adjust two parameters, instead of one. Let's say I have done it as you suggested and now I want to decrease the output dynamic range for that band symmetrically by 6dB. In that case I will have to increase the normal gain to +9dB and decrease the dynamic gain to -15dB, in order to get -6dB in loud passages, thus keeping the midrange gain unchanged. And I'm afraid that this adjustment involves too many calculations

So, my point was that sometimes it could be convenient to consider the dynamic gain as the depth of the dynamic processing where its direction could be controlled with the transformation curve.

--
Miloslav

[John-E34]

This seems to be exactly what I've been looking for, and find the way it operates rather straight forward.

My only feature request would be to have access to the "advanced settings" directly available from the main gui, maybe a button next to the "normal settings" button.

Sorry if already explained, but will this be part of an (existing) bundle, or something new.

[MeldaProduction]

Vojtech,

okay, you are right, we will see in practice - maybe this solution will serve well. I thought that the normal EQ should be adjusted for the average level passages, rather than for the silent ones...

However, if I would like to adjust only the impact (the depth) of the dynamic processing, keeping the average level passages unchanged, then I will have to adjust two parameters, instead of one. Let's say I have done it as you suggested and now I want to decrease the output dynamic range for that band symmetrically by 6dB. In that case I will have to increase the normal gain to +9dB and decrease the dynamic gain to -15dB, in order to get -6dB in loud passages, thus keeping the midrange gain unchanged. And I'm afraid that this adjustment involves too many calculations

So, my point was that sometimes it could be convenient to consider the dynamic gain as the depth of the dynamic processing where its direction could be controlled with the transformation curve.

--
Miloslav

First, I think it is not a good idea to adjust in the "average" level. First, you never know what average level actually is. And second, if you do this, then you have to check both silent and loud passages, as they both can be different. If you start with a silent passage, you can be pretty sure your ears are ok, since the degradation in ear's spectral resolution happens mostly in loud sections (that's probably why everything is so loud these days ), and you also need to check the loud passages afterwards and adjust the dynamics for them.

Now if you do this, the operation is simple - use the bands normally for silent passages and then just adjust the dynamic gain (probably negative) for the loud sections. Technically you can start the other way around - equalize the loud passages, and then adjust dynamic gain (probably positive) for silent sections.

I think this really helps the workflow, since in many cases you take part of the song, mess with the eq and when it seems right, you just go to another part and see it sucks, so you start messing with it again, so you make the previous part bad again ...
And let's say you are a real tweaker and want to be really precise. Then you may do it as described, then go to the "average" part of your song. And well, if it is not "right", it's pretty probably that it is somewhere between the silent and loud sections, right? So you just change the shape in advanced settings accrodingly.


Now to your second question - I'm afraid I don't really understand. What are you trying to accomplish? I mean why would you want to symmetrically reduce dynamic range?? In fact I'm not even sure your settings would do that. Anyway now it is definitely possible like for example add another parameter, which would "virtually" change the gain & dynamic gain, but please first explain to me on an example, what are you trying to accomplish.

[MeldaProduction]

This seems to be exactly what I've been looking for, and find the way it operates rather straight forward.

My only feature request would be to have access to the "advanced settings" directly available from the main gui, maybe a button next to the "normal settings" button.

Sorry if already explained, but will this be part of an (existing) bundle, or something new.

Great !

Hmmm, probably not another button, but Ctrl+Right click on the band could do the trick, right?

It will be part of MMasteringBundle and MTotalBundle.

[John-E34]

Great !

Hmmm, probably not another button, but Ctrl+Right click on the band could do the trick, right?

It will be part of MMasteringBundle and MTotalBundle.

At the moment, Right clicking on the Eq point brings up the settings panel, which works great.

Right clicking the settings icon (next to the band selector) currently does nothing...

A right click on the settings icon could be added, and open the advanced settings page directly - without having to touch the Ctrl key!

BTW - I have almost everything BUT the MMasteringBundle and MTotalBundles, hopefully there will be an introductory (no-brainer) price.

[MeldaProduction]

Right clicking the settings icon (next to the band selector) currently does nothing...

A right click on the settings icon could be added, and open the advanced settings page directly - without having to touch the Ctrl key!

Well, makes sense, adding to to-do list .

BTW - I have almost everything BUT the MMasteringBundle and MTotalBundles, hopefully there will be an introductory (no-brainer) price.

Yes there will .
Btw. if you have many plugins from these bundles, send me an email, maybe we can do something about it .

[valsolim]

And let's say you are a real tweaker and want to be really precise. Then you may do it as described, then go to the "average" part of your song. And well, if it is not "right", it's pretty probably that it is somewhere between the silent and loud sections, right? So you just change the shape in advanced settings accrodingly.

Yes, I understand you, this should work. But, as you say: it is a question of workflow. I'm not a professional so my workflow is likely suboptimal. But I cannot help myself - adjusting the EQ according to the "average" passages seems more logical to me, since they are more similar both to the silent passages as well as to the loud ones. And when I adjust the normal EQ gain according to the average level, then the silent passages will probably need a positive dynamic gain whereas the loud passages will need a negative dynamic gain. Which is not possible to accomplish (while keeping the normal gain untouched) unless the Y-axis in the advanced settings goes down to -100%. That's what I wanted to say with the second paragraph of my previous post, although my description was probably over-complicated

Anyway, many thanks for this long-awaited plugin! I'm sure I will use it a lot

--
Miloslav

[MeldaProduction]

Aaaaha, so you say it would be enough to let the Y axis go to -100%, right? Well, that certainly could be done, I'm just not sure if it wouldn't make it a little confusing. I'll check and see.

[valsolim]

Aaaaha, so you say it would be enough to let the Y axis go to -100%, right? Well, that certainly could be done, I'm just not sure if it wouldn't make it a little confusing. I'll check and see.

Yes! Just let the Y-axis go to -100%, that was my suggestion. I admit, it might bring a bit of confusion. On the other hand, the transformation curve is hidden in the advanced settings, so it shouldn't confuse the first-time users. And, of course, the default curve should be kept as it is now: in positive values, from 0% to 100%.

--
Miloslav

[MeldaProduction]

Ok , I didn't get it the first time . And yes, it is hidden, so it hopefully should be fine.

[IIRs]

I was still thinking about the threshold / ratio approach, but I just cannot understand it. Can you give me some examples anyway?

Ok. Here's an imaginary scenario, but nevertheless quite a typical one.

I'm mastering a stereo mix in which the sub-bass has been mixed badly: the kick drum is weak and lacks depth, while the bass guitar is overly subby, so trying to address either problem with static EQ makes the other problem worse.

I therefore set up some upward expansion for (lets say) 60Hz to try to punch up the low end of the kick without affecting the bass. In this case I need to set the threshold very precisely to catch the kicks but not the bass: the threshold becomes my "when does this happen" control, while the ratio is "how much does it happen". (Of course in this case you may end up needing quite a high ratio, so a Range control becomes very useful to limit the maximum boost applied)

The single "dynamics" parameter you offer wouldn't help me here, as once I got the expansion to the levels I wanted for the kick it would also be affecting the bass quite profoundly: I wouldn't be able to get between the two parts in the required way without launching the advanced dynamics editor. But I can't relate the position of the nodes on the graph to the levels of the audio I'm processing very easily, and making very small adjustments is fiddly.

Given that this type of processing will not be "set and forget" and will almost certainly interact with other processing I apply such as static EQ or full band compression, I will be constantly revisiting my settings and making slight tweaks to "when" (threshold) or to "how much" (ratio)... and in especially tricky situations, perhaps with a lot of dynamic variation in the song, I might even find the need to automate the threshold setting. I'm guessing the positions of the nodes in your graph can't be automated, but even if they could I think this would be quite awkward!

What I would prefer ideally would be to replace the Dynamics, Attack and Release parameters on the main panel with Threshold, Ratio and Range. This would put all the controls I need to adjust most often directly on the front panel. The right-click panel would then provide the attack and release controls, plus (indulge me for a moment) a knee hardness control, RMS detection options, and a "below threshold" mode to allow upward compression or downward expanion.

While your dynamics graph is certainly more flexible than the traditional arrangement, it provides the means to create a huge range of very complex shapes that you are never likely to need. All you actually need control over is when your processing starts to kick in (threshold), how extreme that action is (ratio) and when does it stop (range).

I hope all that makes sense: I just ran front of house for 7 really dreadful bands, with toothache. And I've got to do East 17 tomorrow

[mljung]

Thank you .
To the compatibility - please do NOT use this in your projects yet, it may to be backward compatible. For example if we decide to add more bands, it won't be compatible, especially with automation. Though I have to say I'd rather keep the current number of bands, you can always use another instance, right?

Yes one can always run another instance that's true, the drawback is that this couldn't be saved as a preset in the plug-in, but then again it may not be that important.

But I have a suggestion for all your eq's. I really like the auto-listen function, but I would suggest an enhancement of this feature:

Click in an area in the graph will make a bandpass filter for auto-listen, so it's not just working on the different bands, but anywhere in the graph. That way you can use auto-listen, with-out hijacking a band, making the auto-listen function much more versatile - I would use it all the time

::
Mads

[MeldaProduction]

I was still thinking about the threshold / ratio approach, but I just cannot understand it. Can you give me some examples anyway?

Ok. Here's an imaginary scenario, but nevertheless quite a typical one.

I'm mastering a stereo mix in which the sub-bass has been mixed badly: the kick drum is weak and lacks depth, while the bass guitar is overly subby, so trying to address either problem with static EQ makes the other problem worse.

I therefore set up some upward expansion for (lets say) 60Hz to try to punch up the low end of the kick without affecting the bass. In this case I need to set the threshold very precisely to catch the kicks but not the bass: the threshold becomes my "when does this happen" control, while the ratio is "how much does it happen". (Of course in this case you may end up needing quite a high ratio, so a Range control becomes very useful to limit the maximum boost applied)

The single "dynamics" parameter you offer wouldn't help me here, as once I got the expansion to the levels I wanted for the kick it would also be affecting the bass quite profoundly: I wouldn't be able to get between the two parts in the required way without launching the advanced dynamics editor. But I can't relate the position of the nodes on the graph to the levels of the audio I'm processing very easily, and making very small adjustments is fiddly.

Given that this type of processing will not be "set and forget" and will almost certainly interact with other processing I apply such as static EQ or full band compression, I will be constantly revisiting my settings and making slight tweaks to "when" (threshold) or to "how much" (ratio)... and in especially tricky situations, perhaps with a lot of dynamic variation in the song, I might even find the need to automate the threshold setting. I'm guessing the positions of the nodes in your graph can't be automated, but even if they could I think this would be quite awkward!

What I would prefer ideally would be to replace the Dynamics, Attack and Release parameters on the main panel with Threshold, Ratio and Range. This would put all the controls I need to adjust most often directly on the front panel. The right-click panel would then provide the attack and release controls, plus (indulge me for a moment) a knee hardness control, RMS detection options, and a "below threshold" mode to allow upward compression or downward expanion.

While your dynamics graph is certainly more flexible than the traditional arrangement, it provides the means to create a huge range of very complex shapes that you are never likely to need. All you actually need control over is when your processing starts to kick in (threshold), how extreme that action is (ratio) and when does it stop (range).

I hope all that makes sense: I just ran front of house for 7 really dreadful bands, with toothache. And I've got to do East 17 tomorrow

Aaaaha, well, that's not gonna happen in this plugin. This one should be easy to use. Maybe there could be one more, MDynamicEqScientific . Who knows...

But there could be one solution, that could make everyone happy - you are talking about threshold and ratio. Well, I'm definitely not going to remove dynamic gain as I believe it is way way easier to use and understand. But there could still be a threshold . It could work like this:

First the input signal is filtered and passed through envelope follower, that's already covered to everyone's happiness I guess . The results of this process is a signal of magnitudes (or levels), which are converted into a dynamic gain in a simple way - say dynamic gain is +12dB, level 0 (-inf db) -> +0dB current dyn gain, 0.1 (-20dB) -> +1.2dB, ... , 1 (0dB) -> +12dB. It's slightly simplified, but that's the idea.

Now what you don't like is that for example if your bass drum reaches -20dB, bass is -6dB, then say -12dB dynamic gain would also compress the bass drum. So the only thing you need is to put a threshold to say -15dB, so that the current dynamic gain would become:
level -15dB -> -0dB, level 0dB -> -12dB

That way the ratio would be replaced by dynamic gain, but dynamic gain is easier to use even to a normal mortals and in normal situations . In most cases the threshold would be 0dB, so it would work the same way it does now.

What do you think? (I hope it was understandable)

[MeldaProduction]

But I have a suggestion for all your eq's. I really like the auto-listen function, but I would suggest an enhancement of this feature:

Click in an area in the graph will make a bandpass filter for auto-listen, so it's not just working on the different bands, but anywhere in the graph. That way you can use auto-listen, with-out hijacking a band, making the auto-listen function much more versatile - I would use it all the time

::
Mads

Hmmm, that could work I guess, I'll think about it . The trouble here is that there would be a predefined Q for the bandpass, but I guess better than nothing .