Fabfilter or IZotope?

[abject39]

natural phase in proQ3 if i recall corretly is minimal phase but with corrections at the top extreme where so called "cramping" occurs. Some EQs deal with that with oversampling.

I.e. if you use a shelve filter, on a non-oversampled normal digital EQ, the phase response will "cramp" and appear more "bell like" towards the nyquist. With ProQ3 it theoretically extends into infinity like with a real analog EQ.

yes that is true! but pro q doesnt have cramping even in zero latency mode either IIRC, and it is my understanding that their "natural phase" acts like linear phase on filters or extreme eq movements, and acts like "zero latency" when you are just making small moves. But it was a long time since I read a manual

Dan Worrall made a popular video on YouTube comparing this to the stock Cubase EQ. I call out how his interpretation of the test results are false. Pro-Q's inability to cramp is actually a limitation, not a benefit, albeit one that most people would prefer. Pro-Q oversamples. This behavior is locked. There is no way to adjust it. Cramping comes from a lack of oversampling, like you mentioned. The sample rate limits the EQ. Pro-Q oversamples internally, so it has no choice but to extend pass the viewable frequency. It does not have to oversample very high. It only needs to extend past the workable range of the EQ enough to account for the furthest adjustment it can make.

Edit: To clarify, regarding the YouTube video I mentioned, oversampling was a Pro-Q limitation compared to the Cubase stock EQ because the stock EQ could equalize with or without oversampling. Pro-Q had no way of matching that behavior.

interesting. But how come you interpret it as a limitation rather than a well made eq? if you say it has internal oversampling, well, i cant say, so Id have to believe you as I have not read the manual. did not realise it had hidden oversampling and it kind of peaks my interest as to why.

however, why cramping is a benefit Im not sure, and the cubase stock eq (which i use on 99% of channels; and only pro-q when mastering or when I need lin phase) is great - but well, could you clarify a bit more about your analysis?
And I dont think I mentioned that lack of cramping comes from oversampling. Thats news to me. I wasnt previously aware what and what not made cramping, but I didnt think it had to do with a hidden oversampling feature.

Ive seen his videos, I think all of them both on his own channel and the fabfilter channel.

There is no particular useable benefit. It is just an option present in Cubase, should a end-user want to use it.

[abject39]

Fabfilter plugins are workhorses. You just need to take a look at Dan Worrals tutorials and intro videos on their Youtube channel to get a sense of what they're capable of.

Izotope has lots of great tools as well, but they don't have Dan to explain stuff making things simple and quick to understand. They have quite a bit of overlap in some of their mixing products, so do your research. They're also trying to jump on the subscription bandwagon.

Fabfilter works with serials you paste in to the authorization window of the plugin. I couldn't be happier with that. The installers are tiny, fast and efficient.

Izotope has an installer application that used to be god aweful in the beginning. You can get separate installers but they're larger and clunkier to use. The best installer application I find is that of Plugin Alliance, though I'm not a huge fan of their authorization handling. PA is a bit opaque for me.

Izotopes authrization is decent but a mess. You CAN authorize a machine, store an authorization on an iLok(in some cases mandatory like the Stratus&co reverbs) or store it on a USB stick. It is not always obvious which product does which. The main install application just did machine authorization without asking the last time I used it, which I detested. Overall at the time I was using it(~1.5 years ago) it was an unprofessional shit show to my eyes. You're better off getting the single installers, but that may have changed. Check with other users.

I use RX 8 Advanced all day in my work. The Izotope stuff works great. The tools are excellent in what they do.

All the Fabfilter plugins however are way more efficient and easier to use. For a professional that's more important, and then there's the ease of getting, installing and authorizing the tools.

Test 'em. You can test them all for free. And watch those Dan Worral tutorials and intro videos. They're a good resource.

I still use the old fashion serial number method with product installer. No fancy product portal or ilok is required for iZotope products.

[abject39]

I would not advise the combination of linear phase and 192kHz sample rate for mixing and mastering, just for the sake of doing it. High sample rates can be helpful. For example, it can be beneficial for stretching audio, avoiding aliasing, and mathematically-even sample rate conversion.

Mathematically-even sample rate conversion has not been a thing since late 90s

Ozone allows end-user input up to 5 places after the decimal point (giving full access to 32-bit precision input), which it uses throughout all processing. It possibly uses 64-bit processing in areas internally. Sloppy is the last thing I would call that calculation and access level. That is well within the limits of high precision.

Fabfilter not possibly but confirmed uses 64-bit processing internally (and 32bit FP on outputs)
Fabfilter also allows full decimal places, it just doesn't display them because it's stupid and unecessary.
If you type in "-0.55dB" or "-0.554593845" the output of two Pro-Q3 instances will not null anymore.
So you have both calculation and access level AND low CPU usage.

I'm not saying that iZotope isn't accurate, but the CPU hit is because it's not coded as well as efficiently.
Fabfilter is a robust tool that's quick to work with. Not for the price of accuracy, but for the price of money, because it costs twice-three times as much as iZotope.
That's why you don't have bugs, ever, and why you get M1 support after a month after it's released, while iZotope is still chugging behind with some of their stuff.

What do you mean mathematically-even sample rate conversion hasn't been a thing since the 90s? 44.1 never stopped evenly dividing into 88.2. 192kHz has never lost its ability to divide by 48kHz four times evenly. Do you disagree just for the sake of disagreement?

Floating-point INPUT makes a big difference in the case of precision. Internal calculations of user data can use higher precision, but it would not yield any difference if the input data is truncated. It is possible that FF may present integers to users while using floating numbers under the hood, but that goes back to having less precision because setting the same value twice would technically yield different results. This has been my experience as a programmer.

Update status is not an indication of code "sloppiness." A number of reasons could delay updates, ranging from refactoring code and other priorities, all the way to reduced staffing and system mergers (with Native Instrument). What I'm saying is that correlation does not equal causation.

I don't know any algorithm that would yield different results when going even integers conversions vs interpolation. The problem isn't interpolation, it's antialiasing filtering. Speed isn't different and quality isn't different, it's irrelevant for SRC.

Fabfilter has floating point input... 32bit FP I/O and 64bit FP internal processing.
What's displayed vs what's internally doesn't meant different results, just the display is truncated to two decimal places.
your assumption about fabfilter has been wrong since the beginning on just about everything.
It has great CPU usage because it's coded well and optimised well, not because it compromises accuracy and quality.

iZotope had long standing bugs where display would lag on macOS terribly and be unresponsive. It's accurate and great, but it's not MORE accurate than fab by any means and it's certainly not as efficient.

However for less money you get more tools and its probably the most encompassing FX suite you can buy.

It really doesn't matter why iZotope takes forever to update, i'm just saying fabfilter doesn't because it has their codebase in check, and it speaks about hygiene of the developer if they need forever to update.

I'm not referring to audio input and output. I'm referring to user parameter unit.

[abject39]

i'm aware of that page. It's for comparing SRC algorithms. I didn't say all algorithms are the same, i said that today it's mostly about filtering and anti-alising when you downsample and that interpolation quantisation noise is too low to be relevant.
there's also nothing about even number divisions on the page you linked to
https://imgur.com/a/XXBalPr

The information you are looking for is described in the algorithm and testing area.

[abject39]

Fabfilter plugins are workhorses. You just need to take a look at Dan Worrals tutorials and intro videos on their Youtube channel to get a sense of what they're capable of.

Izotope has lots of great tools as well, but they don't have Dan to explain stuff making things simple and quick to understand. They have quite a bit of overlap in some of their mixing products, so do your research.

If you are satisfied with FF plugins then I would highly advise to continue to use what makes you happy. I think we all have enough maturity to agree that there's plenty room in the market for both companies to continue their development philosophies to please their customers.

[Ploki]

I'm not referring to audio input and output. I'm referring to user parameter unit.

Yes and i told fabfilter allows for more decimals than two?

[astralprojection]

There is no particular useable benefit. It is just an option present in Cubase, should a end-user want to use it.

Aha. So you're saying you can disable the cramping that occurs in Cubase? Or did I misunderstand. Or do you mean cubase's top shelf filter goes all the way to Nyqvist, and on proq3 its band limited (oversampled and filtered) while cubase is not?

I think both algorithms has their pros and cons depending on what you're trying to achieve.
Just trying to get this down accurately. But either way, I don't think there's an option to uncramp cubase eq? Either way the native channel eq in Cubase is awesome and so easy to access you have it right there and to me it "sounds" amazing just as any other eq pretty much.. But, it's limited to the bands which often mean you have to use another eq.
Cubase's proq3 is the.. Forgot its name, but it offers per band lin phase should you want it however I've found some bugs in it that causes significant amplitude changes when high pass filtering so I don't really use it.. Where no such thing happens with proq3.

[fainak33]

I find FF Plugins EQ's,Comp etc... great for mixing and iZotope Ozone for mastering.
iZotope products are great But their business model a bit disappointing

[abject39]

There is no particular useable benefit. It is just an option present in Cubase, should a end-user want to use it.

Aha. So you're saying you can disable the cramping that occurs in Cubase? Or did I misunderstand. Or do you mean cubase's top shelf filter goes all the way to Nyqvist, and on proq3 its band limited (oversampled and filtered) while cubase is not?

I think both algorithms has their pros and cons depending on what you're trying to achieve.
Just trying to get this down accurately. But either way, I don't think there's an option to uncramp cubase eq? Either way the native channel eq in Cubase is awesome and so easy to access you have it right there and to me it "sounds" amazing just as any other eq pretty much.. But, it's limited to the bands which often mean you have to use another eq.
Cubase's proq3 is the.. Forgot its name, but it offers per band lin phase should you want it however I've found some bugs in it that causes significant amplitude changes when high pass filtering so I don't really use it.. Where no such thing happens with proq3.

Cubase can do both cramping and non-cramping. Pro-Q cannot do cramping. There's no particular benefit to the cramping. It's just an band shape option that exists in one product but not the other.

[astralprojection]

There is no particular useable benefit. It is just an option present in Cubase, should a end-user want to use it.

Aha. So you're saying you can disable the cramping that occurs in Cubase? Or did I misunderstand. Or do you mean cubase's top shelf filter goes all the way to Nyqvist, and on proq3 its band limited (oversampled and filtered) while cubase is not?

I think both algorithms has their pros and cons depending on what you're trying to achieve.
Just trying to get this down accurately. But either way, I don't think there's an option to uncramp cubase eq? Either way the native channel eq in Cubase is awesome and so easy to access you have it right there and to me it "sounds" amazing just as any other eq pretty much.. But, it's limited to the bands which often mean you have to use another eq.
Cubase's proq3 is the.. Forgot its name, but it offers per band lin phase should you want it however I've found some bugs in it that causes significant amplitude changes when high pass filtering so I don't really use it.. Where no such thing happens with proq3.

Cubase can do both cramping and non-cramping. Pro-Q cannot do cramping. There's no particular benefit to the cramping. It's just an band shape option that exists in one product but not the other.

I see. Well I do not have any complaints on cubase eq, and use it like 90% of the time, proq only 10% (for specific mastering duties)

[bilrobins]

I have both iZotope and Fabfilter.

The Fabfilter plugins are very enjoyable to use and efficient + fast to work with. They are easy to learn but have loads of depth. I love the single installer, small file size and very fast load time. They look lovely in HiDPI and are silky smooth.

iZotope have some good stuff but they generally feel less enjoyable to use + I find getting results slower than FF. They don't support HiDPI, so look slightly blurred in 4K. The installation process feels bloated and they generally feel less efficient to use than FF. CPU use isn't too bad but not as efficient as FF.

Once you get fairly comfortable with mixing (and mastering) at a basic level, the iZotope assistant modes are not really that useful - as you'll generally get better results yourself.

If I was starting out with no plugins I would get the Fabfilter stuff (save for it, if needed). I certainly spent on cheaper alternatives that have become redundant since I got the Fabfilter plugins (they have replaced a lot). iZotope...I probably wouldn't buy again. Use DAW stock, free ... and maybe TDR stuff until you can afford Fabfilter.

To be clear, you don't need Fabfilter plugins to get great mixes (there is great stock and free stuff that will get you there) but FF plugins are lovely to use.

CHEERS

[Katie22]

Personally it's very hard for any EQ to beat the Fabfilter ProQ3 the workflow of it is perfect for me and I love how it works!

[HOTF]

Fab filter

[gondii]

Kirchoff-EQ is on sale currently... I'd say at least worth if you're in the market for an EQ right now.

Other than that, I would also go with FabFilter over iZotope. But both have good products.

[airon]

I couldn't agree more.

Fabfilter plugins are workhorses. You just need to take a look at Dan Worrals tutorials and intro videos on their Youtube channel to get a sense of what they're capable of.

Izotope has lots of great tools as well, but they don't have Dan to explain stuff making things simple and quick to understand. They have quite a bit of overlap in some of their mixing products, so do your research.

If you are satisfied with FF plugins then I would highly advise to continue to use what makes you happy. I think we all have enough maturity to agree that there's plenty room in the market for both companies to continue their development philosophies to please their customers.