EQ

A couple of hours later, with help from another post in the Song forum, and finally getting the Voxengo manuals out, I am finally making some headway with SPAN. I know more now about some of the changes you can make in the SPAN settings in order to change the ranges, slopes, speeds and what have you. Still a load to learn but I'm starting to get there.
 
Looking at the spectrum of the commercial songs, while listening to them and switching between each song, including two versions of my own tune, is really helping me to develop a better understanding of EQ. I wish I had done this earlier.
 
Onwards and upwards.........

Hi Dave,
 
No, I don't have Ozone... I've just had a look at it on the iZotope website. That is one awesome looking set of tools, but they come at a hefty price (because I'd probably convince myself that I need the dynamic EQ that comes with the "advance" version).
 
So I'm going to have to work with what I have.
 
I read a post of yours in the song section, where you mentioned "slope." So I finally got the SPAN manuals out and had a more thorough look around the plug-in ("and about time" I hear you say LOL).
 
I've since been checking out pro mixes of bands such as Pink Floyd, Madonna, Porcupine Tree, Slipknot, Opeth and Massive Attack. While a song is playing I look at the general slope of the graph, which I hadn't appreciated before, but now that you've mentioned it I know know what you are saying.
 
The difference between each song is surprising. I have been experimenting in SPAN by making the slope 0 (zero) and then manually adjusting it so that it looks horizontal. Obviously, this can vary somewhat as you judge what you think is horizontal, as an average over the spectrum.
 
I am also playing with the other settings like smoothing, average time and overlap (not sure what this does).
 
So at least I am getting a better understanding of the spectrum tool and also how the higher frequency sound lack the same power as the lower frequency sounds, which is why, in SPAN, if you set the slope to 0 it looks like the high frequency stuff is lacking somewhat.
 
That has raised a question about the Pro-Q spectrum analyser... Does that, then, have a built in slope to suit "general" music? Because there is no way of changing it.
 
Anyway, I've had a fun and educational day so far.
 
Thanks yet again for your time Dave
 
cheers
 
andy

bitflipper
You might find some inspiration in the article I wrote on the MSpectralDynamics plugin.

Yeah Dave, that's one great article. I've just had a quick scan over it and read selected bits, but I've bookmarked the SoundBytes website and signed up to the mailing list. There's a wealth of information there...
 
Some of my observations from yesterday's exercise are being confirmed in that article.
 
That MSpectralDynamics plugin is an amazing tool, from what I saw of their overview of it. Would I still use Pro-Q for general EQ duties? Perhaps just placed on a track bus? And then use the MSpectralDynamics plugin on the master bus only?
 
thanks again Dave, that was a great help in furthering my understanding 

bitflipper
It also describes how to determine the slopes of your reference recordings.

Yeah, Dave, I got that, thanks 
 
I'm so much wiser than I was a couple of days ago 

Thanks Rob. I've heard of Har-Bal but it was quite a while ago and I need to remind myself why I didn't invest in that tool...
 
cheers
 
andy

EQ Latest...
 
Hi Peeps (you know who you are...)
 
I've been playing more with SPAN. I am even more familiar now with how this works, including the "edit" controls. I almost understand the Correlation Meter, although I need to learn more about "phase."
 
I have also splashed out on Pro-Q 2. Because I've got a few FabFilter plug-ins now, it "only" cost me £50. And Pro-Q 2 allows you to adjust the "Tilt" (as "slope" is referred to in Pro-Q2) of the spectrum display (0, 1.5, 3.0, 4.5 and 6.0 dB/Octave).
 
Since reading through Dave's article on Spectral Dynamics I've been trying many things.
 
"White Noise" and "Pink Noise" is mentioned in that article, both of which I am familiar with through using those waveforms in sound synthesis. What I wasn't fully aware of, until now, is the frequencies that make up white noise.
 
Yes, I know it's supposed to be made up of all frequencies...
 
But I've always "perceived" white noise as a hiss, which is why it is used to emulate hi-hats and cymbals.
 
Anyway, I have a Sonar project called "EQ_Study," which contains some commercial reference tracks and I have just added a soft synth so that I can create some white and pink noise.
 
I then put that white noise through SPAN and at first I got this:-
 

 
This is because the current slope setting for SPAN is 4.5 degrees.
 
If I set the slope to zero degrees I get this:-
 

 
So, it can now be seen that the white noise signal going through SPAN has equal "energy levels" (dB) through the frequency spectrum.
 
But I still "perceive" the signal as a hiss, and yet the spectrum analyser is telling me that there are "sounds" at every frequency, from sub 10 Hz to beyond 20 kHz. I can't hear anything much below 100 Hz, and I experimented by adding in Pro-Q 2 a Low Cut band, with a steep 96 dB/octave slope and swept it along the frequency range.
 
Realisation dawns... I've been reading a lot about this over the last couple of days, but this kind of hammers it home for me... The lower the frequency, the more energy is required for it to register with our ears.
 
Amazing!
 
It's so much more fun being a noob
 

BTW, here's what I learned new today: Pro-Q2 has a tilt adjustment. I did not know that, so thanks.
 

this is why i like Har Bal so much,
it's probably the single best learning tool i have.
 
i have spent a lot of time studying pro mixes, mastered finished product, using harbal.
 
it helped me learn my monitors and room.
 
it helped me understand how friggin' different almost every song i've analyzed really is...
 
and that there are no real hard, fast rules about dialing in a good eq for an overall mix,
because it's too variable.
 
 
but i've also learned a lot from isolating certain areas of tracks, that favor, say, just acoustic guitar, or just voice, or just bass and drums, to see how they affect the curve, the freq response of the song, and lets just say that sonic fingerprints require certain frequencies to rule,
and learning how, and why, and when, and where, that's the key.

I once took a test mix over to a friend's house to audition it on his Bose hi-fi. He was proud of his setup, which mostly was just for TV. But I had to bite my lip when heard how awful it sounded. Way too bassy and the bass wasn't the least bit linear. Fine for explosions in action movies, terrible for music.
 
Three epiphanies became solidified in my mind at that moment:
1. It was physically impossible to make a mix that would sound good on such systems.
2. As much as I like bass it's better to have too little than too much.
3. The midrange is where it's at.
 
Because my car stereo has similar issues (not coincidentally, it's also Bose), I started looking at records that did sound OK there, to see what they had in common. To my surprise, the commonality was that they were all a little bass-light by modern standards. Dark Side of the Moon, Brothers in Arms, Tom Petty and anything produced by Jeff Lynne. And not just classic albums, but also the best-sounding recent recordings also tended to be less bass-heavy.
 
So if SPAN says the bass is OK, you can trust it. More so than any speakers or headphones, or even your own ears.
 
 

I agree with Dave when the release is for a broad audience, but when it is smaller, like the band and family, you can mix for their ears.

Thanks for your input Kalle 
 
I've been doing some more interwebs research... I found this particular article interesting:-
 
http://www.residentadvisor.net/feature.aspx?1895
 
And this rather old one from SOS:-
 
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/1995_articles/mar95/eq.html
 

BTW, that low-mids article explains it very succinctly. Props to the author for not once referring to that band as the "mud range".