Dumb EQ Question I'm Sure, But...

[chessrock]

Hey Ronan, maybe that's true of some digital mixers. But honestly, I know at least a few fairly reputable mixing and mastering engineers in Chicago who do a fair amount of boosting and cutting with plugin EQ's. Sonalksis and Sony Oxford are becoming sort of the EQ plugin Du Jor for the moment these days.

It would be tough making an argument for not using something like the Sony if you needed to boost something. Admittedly, it's a few bills pricier than a Mackie, though.

 

[mshilarious]

(I hate shows that are way too loud cause the sound guy wants everything in the mix so his board tape comes out good).

Can't the soundguy save a pair of prefader sends for the tape, or use the main mix for the tape but postfader sends for the mains? A bit odd but it works. I bring bass & kick into the board all the time for the tape, but I never put them in the mains.

 

[boingoman]

Can't the soundguy save a pair of prefader sends for the tape, or use the main mix for the tape but postfader sends for the mains? A bit odd but it works. I bring bass & kick into the board all the time for the tape, but I never put them in the mains.

I was just griping about too loud shows in general, and the tape thing was a reason I've heard some inexperienced guys give for screaming loud mixes in a 100 seat club. I went to see Gov't Mule at a local club. They are loud, but it's a 600 seat club and I had to leave because the PA was so painfully loud. It's dangerous to people's hearing to make it so loud, and unpleasant to listen to. I thought it was a fluke, but went to the same place to see Ani DiFranco, and it was the same. It's supposed to be sound reinforcement, not sound enforcement. The guy in the back row doesn't need to hear the stick noise on the hihat at 110db .

I do the same as you. I've got a (semi) regular gig at a local club with a Behringer 8-bus. It has a separate mix for tape returns that I set up a tape mix on, sometimes I even set up a mic for crowd noise. I mix pretty quiet, for the most part, unless the music calls for it, trying for good sound as opposed to volume, so a lot of times my 2-track right from the main outs sounds pretty good. The vox are usually a bit loud, but they usually need the most reinforcement.

sometimes I bring an 8-track and record from the sub outs, two tracks each for drums, instruments, vox, and fx so later I have at least a little wiggle room.

Whoah! Way off thread, but cool. Hearing protection is really important. Could be a thread all it's own. Hmmmm.........

 

[masteringhouse]

Well there are a wide range of opinions about EQ, Myself and many others feel that Analog EQ still sounds much better than digital EQ (I am sure some one will chime in a rebuke). Analog EQ sounds much better for sculpting a sound, and not being an electrical engineer I can only pitch in that its sounds better in the mix. The one thing that digital EQ can do really well is cut very narrow specific bands, so if you have a problem frequency it can often be easier to dial in and fix. When I am mixing off of pro tools (using an analog mixer of course). I use analog EQ for everything except fixing a few narrow trouble spots on individual tracks.

The mastering engineers I use usually work the same. Get the sound with analog EQ and fix a few trouble spots by dipping with digital EQ.

Digital EQs are starting to get better every year, but many on the market are just awful. I was doing a record in Europe and had to mix on a Mackie dB8. The EQ was so bad I could not believe it. I remember trying to boost a little 4k on the kick drum to help it cut throught the mix and the EQ actually made it disapear. I was stunned.

The sound of EQ is very subjective. I think that what you are saying is that you like the character of the phase distortion produced by an analog EQ v.s. the transparency of a properly designed digital EQ. Phase distortion isn't necessarily a bad thing if that's the sound you're going for.

I think that one has to be careful when saying digital is worse than analog and you're comparing a high-end analog console with a Mackie digital board however. There are very few mastering engineers (including myself) that wouldn't be without a Weiss EQ1, an extremely transparent EQ.

Check out the following article, in particular the following statement:

Since phase distortion produces artifacts that people can be sensitive to, attention must be paid to the phase response f (f ) when creating filters. Using analog design, it is impossible to do any filtering without producing phase distortion (many analog designs produce so-called minimum phase systems), but in the discrete-time domain, it is possible to make a filter which has linear phase.

http://www.uaudio.com/webzine/2003/december/text/content2.html

 

[SEDstar]

oh christ.....

i dont exactly blanch at the sight of an exponent, but that was just a ridiculous article for me to try to digest. It brought back memories of abstract algebraic proofs (shiver). so basically, cutting instead of boosting is better on analog systems? and on digital eq we can boost a little here and there safer?

 

[masteringhouse]

i dont exactly blanch at the sight of an exponent, but that was just a ridiculous article for me to try to digest. It brought back memories of abstract algebraic proofs (shiver). so basically, cutting instead of boosting is better on analog systems? and on digital eq we can boost a little here and there safer?

The comments are more important to the understanding of it than understanding the equations.

Essentially says that

1. You can produce a digital EQ that does not have phase distortion, but it is not possible to do this in the analog domain.

2. Using a linear phase digital EQ will be the most transparent, however it will also produce the most latency (delay) in a signal. Therefore it may not be the best application where a DAW does not have latency compensation since the track will be out of synch. In other words, linear phase are better for mastering applications, whereas minimum phase may be better for mixing.

 

[Ronan]

I think that one has to be careful when saying digital is worse than analog and you're comparing a high-end analog console with a Mackie digital board however. There are very few mastering engineers (including myself) that wouldn't be without a Weiss EQ1, an extremely transparent EQ.
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Actually I made my comments about the digital mackie versus say something like an old mackie 24x4 analog console.

The Weiss EQ1 is with out a doubt the best digital EQ I have ever used. It is a great tool. That being said that I think it is very good at cutting and not very exciting for boosting. It does not really screw up the sound but its not very exciting and has not really proved capable of getting the effects I often like with EQ boosting. Maybe I just love phase distortion?!?!

I have not mixed a record on a Sony Oxford yet. I know a lot of guys I respect that seem to like them so I will give it a shot one of these days.

 

[tollbooth]

cutting it up

hey there

have to agree with everything here though i know i'm a bit late. when i first got recording with plug parametrics (and before that with the old Roland VSs) i was merrily boosting al over the place - i'd think nothing of boosting something by 8 or 9dB like a loon, and was then surprised when mixing became a distortion-hunt nightmare.

but over the last few years i've forced myself - really really forced myself to try and only apply a couple of db at the most if i need to, but for the most part, big dB changes i forced myself only to cut. i was amazed and still am seriously amazed at how well things al sit together in my mixes now and how smooth things can sound.

take a project that's not too critical and sit and force yourself to go back to strip off all EQ on a mix and start again - it's amazing the difference it can make.

now my parametrics look a little less like the Alps and a bit more like gentle rolling farmland.

it's all about having the time to learn and experiment.

best regs

paul d
tollboothmusic