John T
I don't stand in opposition to anyone's feature requests or anything, but honestly, EQ presets are the primary enemy of good mixing. There is basically never a good reason to use one.

There are specific functions that people use a lot.  (rolling off bass at a certain frequency to eliminate standing waves, and bleed which the source you are recording would never have).  This can be tailored to problems of a particular room you use every day.  My time is valuable, things that give me certain settings quickly instead of manually setting it up for track after track, is meaningful.
 
We also live in a world where many people use modeling amp/effect technology going into a DAW.  If you are using the same guitar and the same patch you will get a consistent sound that means a pre-set EQ can provide benefit once the desired sound is achieved.  
 
Not every one uses different source for each recording.  Some people have a home studio set up where the drum set is mic'd, bass cab mic'd, and so forth.  If one tends to use these same instruments at the same settings on each track, presets can be valuable to get a starting point for consistency of an album sound.  
 
It isn't always about using some else's presets....many of us have legitimate reasons for using our own creation based on our own gear and mixing needs.  
 
Same can be said for getting a particular EQ on a mic that has its own signature print.  If I'm always dipping out one particular notch on a particular mic....a preset might make my workflow faster.  

tlw
To some extent the lack of eq presets for routine things like lo/hi passing guitar and bass can be handled by using a.n.other eq as the first eq the signal sees and band passing with that then the quad curve later for the rest of the eq functions.

It certainly could be handled that way.  But the QuadEQ has very nice control over that spectrum/function and therefore adding in another EQ is really just adding another step to the process (which presets are theoretically desirable to offset added steps + work).  
 
Also note that with the Pro-Channel you can hold down control and make changes across selected tracks.  This might presumably apply to presets + changes as well, thus really drawing out the efficiency possibility that might not exist with 3rd party EQ plugs.

John T
I take your point, but I'd argue that mixing isn't really about making individual instruments sound good or sound a particular way, it's about presenting the song and the performance. And that is always different, even if it's the same people on the same instruments in the same room.

I completely agree.  There are some contexts where you are trying to create consistency between tracks sonic-ally.  If the same instruments and players are in the same room, there are many scenarios where you would want to create the mix on a track and use those same settings across the album or group of tracks.
 
When I record a small jazz group - I'm going to let them interact and change the dynamics and timber on their own and not dramatically change eq and effects in the DAW between tracks.  The goal for me would be to use those tool to create  a pleasing sounding mix where the whole sounds nice and balanced and have things sit where they should.  
 
Other type of music you might be mixing more for "effect" on a song and between tracks.  Music production takes on many forms and types.  
 
Another example would be a Solo Acoustic Guitar album.  Having a consistent setup between tracks and make minor tweaks from there for a song would be common place.   

I agree relying on pre-provided presets is not a good way to learn mixing. Which holds for most processing, not just e.q. E.g. compressor plugin presets, where unless you are dealing with the audio, eq, gain staging etc. whoever created the preset was it will never sound the same for you as it does for them.

Storing settings you yourself have created and use frequently, especially for things like band passing, are a different matter.

I think the more specific the sound source, the more sense a preset makes. When I did the acoustic guitar ProChannel presets, they were designed around specific Gibson guitars whose names were included in the preset names. Now, that doesn't mean they won't work with other acoustic guitars, but the results will not be as expected.
 
I have a preset for my voice using a Shure SM58, and another for the Neat Microphones King Bee mic. My voice doesn't change and the mic doesn't change, so a preset puts me in the ballpark. However because the song changes, I always need to tweak for context. 
 
If I released those as presets for "Male Vocals," the odds of them working in your studio, with your voice, your song, and your mic are probably about the same as winning the lottery.

I don't think presets would be of much help, but a detailed write up on the Quad-curve would be great. I use hybrid and pure most of the time. If it had a mid/side feature I would use it on the master bus more.

Honestly, for me, loading up an EQ preset seems more time-consuming than just turning the knobs.

clintmartin
I don't think presets would be of much help, but a detailed write up on the Quad-curve would be great.

I get the impression from this thread it would be helpful to some people, so while I can't make any promises, I'll add it to the "possible useful things to do someday" list.

Kamikaze

John T
Honestly, for me, loading up an EQ preset seems more time-consuming than just turning the knobs.

I can't get my head round the idea either. Each instrument (of the same type) has different responses and problem resonances, each mic and room the same too. add those 3 together and how can a preset be the first thing to go for. Then every mix requires different space. 
 
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Indeed most of the time, circumstances will be different so a preset doesn't have much value. But at least for me, there are plenty of times where the circumstances are the same. For my singing voice, over the years I've developed a signal chain that works well. There's a little bit of Concrete Limiter to tame the peaks, followed by a PC2A leveler, then EQ with a steep low frequency rolloff to deal with leftover plosives, and a gentle upper mid boost. I also always use the same input for my mic. So with a track template, when tracking I have my input ready to go in under 5 seconds and giving a sound that's at least very close to what I want. It saves a lot of time. This doesn't negate tweaking during the mix, but I'm already 75-80% of the way there.
 
I also have a track template for narration. That ensures that when doing a project with multiple "chapters" over a period of time, the voice will have a consistent timbre - I won't have to spend time doing timbre-matching at the back end of the projects. Presets definitely have their uses.