The big eq question thread

[Rokket]

I finally got around to messing with eq settings, and while I still don't understand everything, I am slowing getting it.

So I came up with a couple questions. Could someone point me to a good web site to answer these, or give it your best shot?

Thanks.

1. What is a parametric eq? I understand some of it's function, but what makes it work? Why would I use this over a basic 4,5,10 or 12 band eq?

2. What is a band splitter/joiner? What situations would I use something like that?

3. What is the big deal with an 'exciter'? I've seen bad and good comments on it. Again, I've messed with it, and I know what it does, but why would I want something like that? Doesn't it boost whichever freq it's assigned an astronomical amount, and couldn't a standard eq do this?

Pardon my long-winded post. Thanks for any help.

 

[Vulconizer]

I can only say that I use a parametric EQ over a dedicated band EQ for the ability to get much more flexibility over what frequency I am manipulating.

Say if your EQ only has 4 bands, then those frequencies ( and to a certain extent which is governed by a pre-set 'Q', the frequencies adjoining ) are the only ones you can manipulate.

With a decent parametric EQ, you have access to a wide range of frequencies. You sweep around to find the freq you need to adjust and then you can choose how narrow or wide the range of freqs on either side will be adjusted when you manipulate the one you choose to work with.

Gives you much more control.

Not sure if this will help with the question about the exciter, but...

http://www.recordinginstitute.com/R2KREQ/excomp.htm

It's a link to an article about a technique called the " exciting compressor ".

 

[Rokket]

I can only say that I use a parametric EQ over a dedicated band EQ for the ability to get much more flexibility over what frequency I am manipulating.

Say if your EQ only has 4 bands, then those frequencies ( and to a certain extent which is governed by a pre-set 'Q', the frequencies adjoining ) are the only ones you can manipulate.

With a decent parametric EQ, you have access to a wide range of frequencies. You sweep around to find the freq you need to adjust and then you can choose how narrow or wide the range of freqs on either side will be adjusted when you manipulate the one you choose to work with.

Gives you much more control.

Not sure if this will help with the question about the exciter, but...

http://www.recordinginstitute.com/R2KREQ/excomp.htm

It's a link to an article about a technique called the " exciting compressor ".

Yeah, that link gave me a clue. It also told me that I was on the right track, because I do similar things with my vocals. I always have the lead vocals doubled and I tweek the main track.

But usually I don't put reverb on both tracks. I may see how this works.

Thanks for the link.

 

[Vulconizer]

Cool man. Hope it helps.

 

[Rokket]

Cool man. Hope it helps.

I think it will....




Anyone else?

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

1. What is a parametric eq? I understand some of it's function, but what makes it work? Why would I use this over a basic 4,5,10 or 12 band eq?

The best websites for looking up what terms mean are www.dictionary.com, www.encyclopedia.com, and/or www.reference.com. The Internet has only changed the medium, not the method .

http://www.reference.com/search?q=parametric eq&r=d&db=web

The main thing with parametric is that you can get far more surgical in your EQing because you can pick a specific frequency and frequency range to cut or boost. On a graphic EQ (the actual name of what you refer to as a "basic EQ") you're limited to only those frequency bands given and only to the predetermined frequency width of each band.

2. What is a band splitter/joiner? What situations would I use something like that?

You wouldn't use one...unless you were also a technician for a telephone or cable network or something like that. Band splitters are kind of similar in a very basic way to equalizers in that they split a signal up into multiple frequency bands, but they are used for entirely different purposes that have nothing to do with recording or mixing music.

3. What is the big deal with an 'exciter'? I've seen bad and good comments on it. Again, I've messed with it, and I know what it does, but why would I want something like that? Doesn't it boost whichever freq it's assigned an astronomical amount, and couldn't a standard eq do this?

It's a problem of resolution. An exciter may adjust the EQ of a signal, but it does it in a much more complex way - it applies a much more complex equalization curve - than any simple EQ curve than could be manually dialed in on a regular EQ. Even a parametric EQ won't have enough flexibility to do exactly what an exciter does.

G.

 

[Rokket]

Thanks, G!

I know I could have looked those up that way, but I was hoping for some sites (I don't have a lot of time to search, and you wouldn't believe how slow this server is, since we are in the middle of the Pacific Ocean...) that would gear their answers more toward what we do in our home 'studios' than a broad, general term.

 

[Rokket]

You wouldn't use one...unless you were also a technician for a telephone or cable network or something like that. Band splitters are kind of similar in a very basic way to equalizers in that they split a signal up into multiple frequency bands, but they are used for entirely different purposes that have nothing to do with recording or mixing music.

Reaper has a couple plugins called 'band splitter' and 'joiner'. I tried them, but my untrained ears didn't pick out any real differences in the mix, so I took them out of the chain.

 

[Rokket]

Wow, 9 posts. And mostly me.

Not such a big thread afterall....

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Reaper has a couple plugins called 'band splitter' and 'joiner'. I tried them, but my untrained ears didn't pick out any real differences in the mix, so I took them out of the chain.

I'm not sure just what those plugs do; those are not names of any commonly-used process I'm familiar with that's commonly related to audio engineering. I'm used to hearing about band splitters in the context of multiplexing information over things like telephone lines and satellite transmissions and the like.

(Of course there's that most famous band splitter of all, Yoko Ono! But that's another story...)

But then again, Reaper is like the Edsel of DAW software; they try to include a plug for *everything* with it. I wouldn't be surprised if they had a plug called "Zero Gravity Toilet" .

If I had to guess, I'd think that maybe they might be referring to a band-pass filter. What's that, you ask? If you have a 5-band graphic EQ, that EQ has 5 different band pass filters in it - each slider is for a single band pass filter. Perhaps Reaper's band-splitter is a way of splitting a signal into x number of frequency bands, each of which might get it's own plug downstream, or something like that.

You might want to head over to the Reaper forum in this BBS, and/or track down pipelineaudio, who's the resident rep for Reaper around here; that's the way to find out for sure, I think.

G.

 

[Rokket]

I'm not sure just what those plugs do; those are not names of any commonly-used process I'm familiar with that's commonly related to audio engineering. I'm used to hearing about band splitters in the context of multiplexing information over things like telephone lines and satellite transmissions and the like.

(Of course there's that most famous band splitter of all, Yoko Ono! But that's another story...)

But then again, Reaper is like the Edsel of DAW software; they try to include a plug for *everything* with it. I wouldn't be surprised if they had a plug called "Zero Gravity Toilet" .

If I had to guess, I'd think that maybe they might be referring to a band-pass filter. What's that, you ask? If you have a 5-band graphic EQ, that EQ has 5 different band pass filters in it - each slider is for a single band pass filter. Perhaps Reaper's band-splitter is a way of splitting a signal into x number of frequency bands, each of which might get it's own plug downstream, or something like that.

You might want to head over to the Reaper forum in this BBS, and/or track down pipelineaudio, who's the resident rep for Reaper around here; that's the way to find out for sure, I think.

G.

Yeah, I could go through the trouble, but so far I've been really lucky on the tracking end, and I haven't had to do too much to my tracks to get them to sound good.


That said, I usually don't get into mix contests either. Mostly because I can't download a 10kb file, much less a 400MB one!