Digital EQ Fact & Myth.

[Crash]

{edit}remember, the SNR for CD os somthing like 96dB - what you are showing there is well below even that, for tape it was bout -55db!

Yes, like I added, it mostly happens in inaudible dBs, but this can be problematic when doing live gigs on big PA systems when no additional hi-pass is running in the chain. You may not want no -72 dB ultra-low frequency rumble to be gainstaged to PA levels and be pushed through your subs, mister.

PS: Damn pushed away my own Page 1 post with new pics now. Make sure to check those for a comparison of Hi-Q mode and higher sample-rate.

[ethios4]

Nice work! Fascinating!

[Crash]

I should add that EQ8 does a useable job as a steep low/hi-pass filter when there's something to be filtered in audible range. It's just that it adds noise to the low-frequency floor when Hi-Q is not used. And I wish you could set lower frequencies than 30 hz.

But say you want to hi-pass a bass that play at -30 dB then EQ8 can effectively be used on it without adding Q gain boost by simply layering several EQs on the same frequency with mild to low Q (0.71 is already giving a slight boost, you might want to lower is somewhat).

[afone1977]

paperclip99 from kvr forum said :

I don't get the sense of this discussion.

It's a known fact that we can emulate eq curves and get them very close so the plugs sound almost the same. Yes, you can match curves of your UAD 1073 emulation by a good old Waves Q6 (i think at least 6 bands are needed for close matching).

BUT

Who wants to lose his precious time by analyzing the hardware (or software) eq that should be recreated?


If I want a 1073 sound i use my prefered 1073 plugin (Nebula + UAD) and don't waste my time trying to match all the things mentioned above. I just open Nebula or my UAD version and start mixing instead of analyzing.

no more to say ...

for sure you can clone any gear but :

=> you lose lot of time
=> you need the original gear to copy it
=> do you really want to lose your time in emulating a gear you already have ?

so me too, i don't get the sense of this discussion

[Crash]

I think the sense lies in that if you are tight on a budget you don't have to shovel out heaps of money on different EQs but can rather use one good EQ and save your money for other things. You just have to be creative and know how to get the best out of your tool. Yes it takes time and you'd love to just have the Neve at hand, but no money = no honey.

[Grappadura]

also, someone might come up with a rack that matches the settings of a waves or whatever product. This would be freely distributable. It would be cool if people of the community buildt those and made spectrum-comparisons of the rack and the original effect behaviour. You could stay all native but still have the power of the best products on the market (i guess because of the assymetric curves and other programming factors this is not entirely possible yet, yet you should be able to get some pretty accurate emulations).

[Grappadura]

also, someone might come up with a rack that matches the settings of a waves or whatever product. This would be freely distributable. It would be cool if people of the community buildt those and made spectrum-comparisons of the rack and the original effect behaviour. You could stay all native but still have the power of the best products on the market (i guess because of the assymetric curves and other programming factors this is not entirely possible yet, yet you should be able to get some pretty accurate emulations).

[Grappadura]

also, someone might come up with a rack that matches the settings of a waves or whatever product. This would be freely distributable. It would be cool if people of the community buildt those and made spectrum-comparisons of the rack and the original effect behaviour. You could stay all native but still have the power of the best products on the market (i guess because of the assymetric curves and other programming factors this is not entirely possible yet, yet you should be able to get some pretty accurate emulations).

[Pepehouse]

Extend that to all plug-ins, I always thought emulations of analog hardware were just a hype, how you can emulate a valve just writing code? how a software plug-in can have "warm"? Some sound better than others, thats all.

[forge]

also, someone might come up with a rack that matches the settings of a waves or whatever product. This would be freely distributable. It would be cool if people of the community buildt those and made spectrum-comparisons of the rack and the original effect behaviour. You could stay all native but still have the power of the best products on the market (i guess because of the assymetric curves and other programming factors this is not entirely possible yet, yet you should be able to get some pretty accurate emulations).

you could do it - and in fact the info in the manuals could get you most of the way there - if you read what I posted from the Waves RenEQ manual originally they emulated the behaviour of the Pultec EQ with the Q10 just by recreating the curves

but as others have said, it is a time consuming task, and uses up a lot of bands and what kind of method would you use to determine how similar it is?

also - one of the things that thes e EQs have done to recreate those they are modelled on is use the assymetric bell curves which means, for example, that when you boost it has a wider bandwidth but if you cut it is narrower, or vice versa - can you imagine having to readjust a number of different filters at once just to change the curve because you now want to cut instead of boost?

I guess you could have 'cut' and 'boost' presets, but then you have many different types of these curves according to the different hardware EQs, and as the Sonnox manual says, Sonnox actually provided 4 different EQ types or modes to do this for different EQs

all this is before you even look at the types of saturation etc

at the end of the day, you can probably do anything at all with a DAW (Robert from Ableton has been on these forums saying as much) but the reality of doing it, how long it takes and having the knowledge and experience necessary to do it properly, that's a different story

that doesn't mean it's not a good area to explore, in fact it could be well worth looking into because you'll learn a lot, but it will take a lot of time

begs the question, do you want to be a musician, engineer, or developer?

[Crash]

having said that, the vast portion of the time I'm prefectly happy with Live's EQ8, and I use REQ mainly for when I want to be really surgical with hi/low pass filters as the Q has no gain boost, but occasionally I do use it for it's character

Forge, can you tell me which hi/lo-pass filter/EQ allows me to set the filter characteristics (Butterworth, Chebyshev ,Bessel) and filter order?

I'm quite fine with layering several low Q points in EQ8 for more or less steep filters. But something like the following would be more convinient and allow better fine-control.

[dj superflat]

the point stands: the emulations are shortcuts, you may not be able to get there with your own ears/gear, but you likely could. how long it takes might be an issue, but this is why people who are truly competent (pro, whatever you want to call it) can take what people think is crap gear and make it shine.

or, put another way, stop reading the forum and just go make music, the tools you have are more than sufficient.

[forge]

having said that, the vast portion of the time I'm prefectly happy with Live's EQ8, and I use REQ mainly for when I want to be really surgical with hi/low pass filters as the Q has no gain boost, but occasionally I do use it for it's character

Forge, can you tell me which hi/lo-pass filter/EQ allows me to set the filter characteristics (Butterworth, Chebyshev ,Bessel) and filter order?

I'm quite fine with layering several low Q points in EQ8 for more or less steep filters. But something like the following would be more convinient and allow better fine-control.

sorry no, it's not something I've looked into

what is that one you've linked? Have you tried sound forge?

this is actually something I was going to say about your earlier images - remember EQ8 also provides a gain boost as the Q increases - like a resonant filter on a synth, so it's possible that is why you are seeing the boost in the noise floor on the Spectrum - you may need to pull the gain down more to make up for it or use a 2nd filter as well

If the EQ8 had a way to disable this boost and make it so that Q just adjusted the steepness of the slope then I may not even bother loading RenEQ at all - as I said those surgical cuts are the main reason I use anything other than EQ8, and a lot of the time the new notch mode keeps me happy

[Grappadura]

thx for the info forge! yes it sure is a timeconsuming thing, but it would only have to be done by one experienced member of the community (not me ), the rest could enjoy the fruits. Maybe it could even be done by a program. A program that helps you copy the behaviour of other plugins... it would almost be the end of any commercial plugin.

[Olga]

(This is a cross post but i feel it's become almost public service. Most is common sense but take what you will from this. Hopefully someone will learn something new or maybe it will save someone some $ ) & yes there is always exceptions to the rule but in general what i show here will hold true

No, will not hold true. So you got a hi hat or kick to match visually, wow. Post a 47 channel mix summed through your theory of shit plugs vs one with 47 top of the line algorithms. I'd love to hear it cancel. It won't 99.9% of the time. And anyone with an inkling of C++ or mixing knowledge would know this and if not, hear it a mile away. With this asinine theory, we should all buy Yamaha O2R's because everything sounds the same on any digital platform. Think again. You can't take Lives eq8 and mix down NIN and expect to get the same sound as a million dollar console. Neat pics and everything but, wrong.