People also completely forget how expensive studio setups were to have a full hardware situation. The transformers and natural flavor are cool but, so is stock logic when you really figure it out 😂
it is amazing. i work today same way - in most cases i need no EQ, less compression ( Tape is expensive, Gear make unwanted noise..... ) Less is often more - but all wishes a sound producer could have - Todays DAW can all these things.
Ok hold on. 1. Yes you can get away with just using one EQ if you had to…you don’t need 20 EQ’s. 2. In the video he’s playing white noise and when listen to it’s Delta, you hear a muffled hiss at a lower volume…People, that “is” the difference (this is normal). If he was playing music, you’d hear the music’s delta. If it was 100% silent using multiple EQ tweets, then those 2 EQ’s would scientifically sound exactly the same. 3. All EQ’s do NOT have the same “Q” factors and curves which makes them different from one another which also makes them unique. 4. If you own an EQ that could replicate different Q’s and curves, you could replicate any EQ (it’s saturation is another story). 5. A seasoned engineer is not going to waste his or his client’s time trying to make a stock EQ (w/no saturation) sound like a Pultec using 20 steps when he could just use a Pultec plug-in(that he bought on sale) that could do the job in 4 knob turns (with its saturation included). “These are Facts”. Bottom line: -Yes you don’t need 20 EQ’s and the best EQ is the one you got. -If you don’t know why you’d use one EQ over another, don’t worry about it if you’re only a producer, do your thing. -If you’re a Mix and/or Mastering Engineer, you’ve been doing this a while and you already know. -My advice to buying plug-ins is to only buy what you need and know why you need it.✌🏾
The only real matter is the user experience and comfort beteen different plugins. Most of the audiophilic crap a lot of sound engineers fool themselves with is illusion to tease ego.
When I started, I told myself, that I will only look for new plugins as soon as Im able to hear differences between plugins. Turns out I never had to look for a new eq, ableton stock eq does the job 90% of the time for me
nevermind the fact that Ableton eq has an amazing workflow, having your whole channel strip be visible and tweakable as soon as you click on a track is so much more efficient than opening and closing each plugin indiviually
Gullfuss, acon digital defilter, zynaptiq unfilter. While gullfus sounds the same as every iq its very adaptive but unfiter and defilter cant be replicated with any other standart eq.
Been preaching this forever. Marketing brilliance from the plugin makers. I fell for it myself for a while. I have been recording/mixing/mastering since 1976, so I have lived the changes. Y’all just don’t know!
As an EQ designer who doesn't believe in the marketing, I'm deeply familiar with all the points you raise here. I also fully endorse null testing, and you're doing it right. One thing that might help you out is the difference between parallel and serial band topologies. Things like a Sontec or Massenburg EQ have parallel bands, so when you engage them they sum differently to a series EQ. Likely the issues canceling the Curve Bender stem from that, though I confess to not having checked the schematics. I don't know if your preferred EQ offers a parallel mode, but it's not too hard to add. Regarding the issue of particular things having interesting shapes and engineers preferring them, I'd draw your attention to the "SSL knob-colour wars". Engineers moving from studio to studio would get very used to things like Q tightening as they increased gain. Then going to a different room with a different coloured knob, the channel EQ behaved differently. If you're a gigging mix engineer (not that such a job really exists any more) and you're expecting your board to work one way, and suddenly you're faced with one that works differently, you feel hamstrung and slowed down. So I do believe that for people who are very used to a piece of kit working a certain way, there's value in them being able to continue to do so. If you've learned one EQ deeply, you will likely be faster with that EQ than with one that works differently. For me this has meant needing to be able to emulate all the subtle and varying weird shapes and offering them in one place. Phase cancellation in the mids and low end is, indeed, something to take for granted. The thing that drew me to EQ as a problem was the issue of getting the high end right. I refer you back to the "cramping" "warping" wars of the 2010s. You'll definitely find phase cancel content up near nyquist between some of these EQs. This is much less of an issue nowadays than it used to be, thankfully. But the 90s and 2000s were PLAGUED with EQs that warped at the top end. Bells were unsymmetric at high frequencies. This did make life a bit miserable. Using a second band to correct for it was not unusual, and in those days when you didn't have so many bands to play with, that was bad. That's something that contributed to the notion of digital sounding "cold" or "sterile" - the top end wasn't where you expected it to be! All the best with your endeavours. It's nice to see someone doing some science :)
nice one, thanks for your comment, that was an interesting read! I honestly dont know all that much about the coding side of making a great sounding EQ. I can only code at a pretty basic level and if I wrote my own EQ plugin from scratch it would probably have all of the problems you mentioned, which is why I'm going to get lots of help when designing a plugin that I've got an idea for
cramping is still an issue for some..Nova does is but not really bad though. Some expensive EQs do it too and way worse. But OK. Many wont hear it. Unless you put such an EQ on 20-30 tracks and wonder why the top end ounds weird in some places. Again: most wont hear it and dont care AND its not way as bad as before.
I'm just a hobbyist, but this is so nice to hear. I had the same sentiment for a while: If you hear a problem, and know what tool is suitable to fix it, then it doesn't really matter which exact tool you've got, you can get the result you want.
We've all fallen into the plugin rabbit-hole. They're leading us up the primrose path. The most important aspects of a track will always be the writing and musicianship/lyrical genuis, followed by the production/arrangement.
I believe it was Dave Gamble of DMG who said something like "All EQs sound the same except for the make-up amplifiers" and advocates for Clean EQs followed by a saturation plug if you so desire.
Yes you really should know DMG Dave is a legend and equilibrium as I commented on your other video has all the curve snd Q responses of many fave eqs ready to go you should probably do a video with that as well as it’s a go to single eq to rule them all 😊
Excellent comparison. We are bombarded by companies to buy and we don’t do any tests to see what we are buying. I was buying a lot of plugins and I was doing it more because of an itch to buy and not really learning how to use my plugins
Good stuff. I was the one who commented on having the quick curves handy for Pultecs, bax, etc. As a rebuttal, I didn't say they're used randomly. They're used when needed and with purpose, so you misconstrued the comment. I do, however, know what you're saying, which is basically that you need 1 good eq to handle everything. That's true. However, that's like saying that you only need 1 good knife to cut all your food. Yes, a good chef's knife will handle pretty much everything, but if you have a variety of knives, they are built to perform specific functions. Both get the job done. That's my point. On another token, thanks for the null tests. Hopefully I'm able to resell all my other non-specific EQs now before people see this video ;)
Late to the party! So far these two are great, not only for presenting the results, but also for showing the methodology in case someone wants to criticize it, add to it, replicate it, etc. I am looking forward to binge-watching your channel so far. There is one thing to be said about the Pultec and other similar "coloring" or "unique" EQs, though. Just as "null" doesn't mean "absolutely nothing", and just as the simple curve of the 1073 was practically the same as the complex/accurate one, the ability of the Pultec to "work with everything" is more practical than literal. I do believe that the Pultec "boost and cut at the same time trick" does work with all distorted guitars, but if we are being honest, a large sample of distorted guitars is not an accurate example of the sounds one may record. It would be at least interesting to examine the EQ curve it produces, in order to use it as a starting point when crafting a sound. I've done it, and I still ended up using a Pultec plugin not only for speed, but also for not double-guessing myself when I'm modifying the Pultec curve. FYI the Maag is turning up the volume around 6dB all the time. However, once you turn up the Air Gain, that 6dB go even higher. Some of the bells (I think green and blue) also turn up the overal volume the more you move them away from zero (i.e.: the absolute value of your boost/cut determines how much volume will be added overall). That's true on Luftikus (a free emulating plugin), and it's an accurate emulation of the lunchbox unit. Saying something is better because it's louder is a known misconception.
@@APMastering in my 50s...I get my hearing checked every other year. still hear cleanly up to 18k +/- a few dBs. I was always sensitive to loud noises as a kid, and UHF sounds. had to wear custom ear plugs a lot of the time. Then once in a band, always wore them, and to this day, I wear them in the car. Blessed to be able to hear that high...now, my probably frequency is 3k, I have a dip since getting covid in 2020, of 3dB on the right side.
As an engineer from the “old studio days” with large format consoles, I can tell you that the sound of music was more about rooms, mics, production and arrangements and the sound of the musicians you simply needed to know how to record and mix. You didn’t need lots of channels. As the needs of production changed the technology adapted. I am not so sure Phil Ramone, would have traded his “small board” for a box full of modern tech just because it was new and advanced. I had the pleasure of watching him work as a producer. These days it is more about “convenience” technology. Or so it seems. I will also tell you that engineering is or was indeed creative and you didn’t choose a piece of gear because of who could or couldn’t hear the difference its about whether or not it helped you (as an engineer) do your best work. Your gear imparted a “sound” for a specific purpose. Pultec on a kick? Yes please. Why use a dbx 160x on it instead of the 160? Sometimes yes sometimes no it depended. Did what you do meet what your client wanted and represented the artist best. I remember working on the first SSL digital console (Quad Studios NYC) where every knob and switch was digital it was supposed to usher in a new era (eliminate the hassle of doing recalls) sonically it was trash. Twice as expensive as the expensive analog boards (SSL) you pictured and it was garbage. Low end wasn’t right. So while on one hand all the analysis is great the other is if the “tools” don’t inspire you to do your best work what is the point? And vice versa. I am all for “truth” in tech but some notions like “the listener won’t care or can’t hear” and therefore “it doesn’t matter” are a bit reckless and heavy handed. It’s like saying they can’t tell the difference between a strat or custom les paul or an ovation and a J200 so tell the musician they can get the same results playing a guitar from Walmart and they are crazy to spend thousands if not tens of thousands on their instruments. A guitar is a guitar and has 6 strings.
most people can clearly hear a huge difference between a walmart guitar and a high end acoustic. almost nobody can hear the difference between a pultec and a 1:1 match in pro q. that's why abx tests are so important to dispel the nonsense
also ive worked on SSL 4k, neve VR, otari and audient consoles and love recording and mixing on large format consoles, especially SSL. that says nothing about sound though
@@APMastering my point was completely about sound and not whether the tech is the mist current and further whether or not you can identify the sound of a device in the context of a mix is a valid position to take versus whether or not the device actually helps you to “create”. The idea is are you letting tech and what an audience will discern drive your creative decisions vs what you think the correct application of a tool is so you do your best work. Not because of its price tag whether cheap or expensive, why use a Pultec at all when you can get “lows” from the board eq on a Mackie 1604? Or more in context an SSL has 50hz and all kinds of frequencies no need for a pultec and yet they are not the same.
PART TWO For the first point, we need to answer the question if your input signal is able to probe the entire signal space relevant to audio signals and equalisers. If the system under investigation is completely linear, which also excludes any kind of quantisation errors that are always present in digital realisations, then you can correctly argue that white noise statistically probes the input space in a way that creates a complete picture of the system’s processing. But as discussed earlier, actual linear system implementations do differ in their quantisation handling, which won’t be detectable with this method. Even if you decide to ignore these effects on the signal outcome because you argue that they only make an audible difference (we’ll come to the meaning of that later) in certain pathological scenarios, your conclusion is still invalidated by the fact that you did not look at this case. But the main interest here is really the performance of modelled non-linear equalisers, so let’s focus on those. With non-linearity in place, you can no longer argue that white noise is probing your system sufficiently because the important step of decomposing into a sinusoidal basis does not commute with non-linear systems in general. In fact, there is no way to exhaustingly sample the input space of a non-linear processor and therefore any conclusion that a system is not deviating from linearity based on observation of a finite number of inputs and outputs is invalid in a strict sense. That is, unless you make certain assumptions about the kind of nonlinearity to expect, which allows you to look in the right places. So, does the white noise signal you are using look in some of the right places for the kind of non-linearity that is to be expected in EQs? Unfortunately, no. The nonlinearities of an EQ typically are in the pre or post stages or in the resonant feedback loop of the filters. Common to all these locations is that the (smooth) nonlinearity is tuned such that it shows at high amplitudes, usually at around -6 to 0 dBfs in a digital realisation. Your white noise signal peaks at around -6 dBfs and appears to follow an approximately Gaussian sample distribution, which is consistent with the rather low RMS level of -16 dBfs. The RMS level is equivalent to the expected amplitude that is driving the nonlinearity. A fairly typical memoryless distortion using a hyperbolic tangent comes with a power series expansion that has a cubic dominating non-linear term with a coefficient of 1/3 or -9.5dB. That means you would expect distortion products to appear roughly below - 3*16 - 9.5 dBfs = 57.5 dBfs. Your metering only goes to -24 dBfs and you never show the noise floor of your null-test, so your result is inconclusive, at best. Had you tested at an RMS level of -6 dB instead, we could have seen and heard the first distortion effects at -27.5 dBfs, which would have made a great difference in terms of audibility. Another way to clearly expose non-linearity is to make sure the gain loop is driven at a high level. That would require both a reasonable input gain and a filter setting that produces a significant feedback path gain. Such settings come with high Q and high band gain. You have avoided both in your tests. If you consider non-linearities with memory, which you should, then using a wide-band stationary signal like your noise signal can actually prevent the internal state of the non-linear system from ever getting into the region of significant nonlinearity. For example, a number of nonlinear circuits only reacts to transients. Others only react to strongly coherent signals like tones. You’ve eliminated both these possible results by your choice of using white noise. Let’s get to the point of perception. You asserted that small deltas are inaudible. And you’re right for your noise signal. A small difference signal does not change the perception so that both results would sound the same. The problem is that this conclusion does not generalise. To understand the significance to perception we need to look at the phenomenon of auditory masking. We can hear a quieter signal component only if it is not being masked by a louder signal component. The level difference for which the quieter signal is still audible follows from the masking relationship of the two signals, which depends on both distance in frequency and in time. Your noise signal masks everything, both in time and in frequency, such that any difference less than roughly 6dB below the noise level cannot be perceived. That is a pretty poor choice for trying to argue about a perceivable difference. A much better choice would have been using a severely band-limited signal, like for example critical band noise at different frequencies, and use that to see if there are any difference components outside of the masking volume of the test signal. Just for comparison, narrow band noise at around 1kHz allows for the perception of signal components at below 500 Hz at a level of more than 80dB below the primary stimulus level, or alternatively for the perception of components above 4 kHz at a level of more than 40dB below the primary stimulus level. That’s a lot more than what you have demonstrated. A linear EQ would only generate quantisation artefacts outside of the band, which you have also not looked at. A non-linear EQ may produce signal components that are making an audible difference and are being perceived as pleasant. You have not ruled out the existence of these components in any way using your methodology. The third and final concern regards your choice of system samples. The question here is, have you tried to maximise the difference between the EQs you have matched and thereby attempted to falsify your hypothesis? Good science must always try to falsify, otherwise you don’t proof anything apart from your confirmation bias. I’m trying to be perfectly fair here, but it doesn’t look like you didn’t really try very hard to challenge your hypothesis. Throughout your demonstration you have used single bands at moderate settings. You avoided high gains, high Qs, high center frequencies. From what I explained above, it is obvious that you have steered clear of band interactions like you have in alternative non-serial topologies, you have avoided filter warping due to poorly designed filters without compensation for response distortion or response aliasing, you have avoided non-linear effects. This is already a much too long response, so let me come to my conclusion. Your methods were only superficially scientific, despite your claims. Your strong conclusion and accusations have no foundation in what you have shown. I do not say that you conclusion is wrong, but you certainly have failed to prove it. To be fair, there are black sheep in the plugin industry, just like everywhere. However, your generalisation is false and just as unfair as suggesting you just did your video to manipulate people into buying your classes. Which of course is not true. So, if you do science, you have to go all the way. There’s no such thing as a little rigour. And if you don’t have the necessary insight, then I would suggest you do some research first and read a selection of the plentiful papers that deal with modelling of non-linear analog circuits. If you ever intend to do a follow-up video that corrects your mistakes and tries to arrive at a conclusion that is not agenda driven, then please get in touch. I’m more than willing to work out a scientific protocol that would actually try verify your hypothesis.
thanks for the detailed two part comment. For most long comments I will only read the first sentence or ignore it entirely because in my experience, the longer the comment generally the more of a waste of time it is to read, but yours was not so I stuck with it and read all of it. Your comment is the most thorough and high quality critique of my video, and actually I agree with you for the most part (with my pushbacks below), but I feel a bit like you are hitting in a picture hook with a sledge hammer. I'll first reply in a more broad sense and then I'll reply to technical point below. My video was aimed at a wide audience and the idea was pretty much "hey look, you don't need to buy all these different EQs because they sound pretty similar for the most part and why would anyone care about pultec curve or whatever anyway because each song and sound needs its own specific EQ treatment, so better to learn how to use one EQ before buying 10 different ones". When you put this concept under a microscope, you see that not only was my test fairly primitive but it also demonstrates the EQs I tested are all different to some small amount even with the limited testing methodology employed. However, my aim was never to show that they are all mathematically identical, use the same code or make false claims in their marketing about modelling X piece of hardware. The video concept is more about the practical application of EQ in sound design, mixing and mastering for a broad or even lay audience. I never expected to be having discussions with DSP professionals. The idea I'm trying to convey is, even if a company models a vintage EQ in a compelling way, so what? From a practical standpoint, if you know how to use one good EQ properly, you don't need various different simulations of hardware EQ in an attempt to get different "flavours". Before the high quality plugins we have today, engineers needed to use different gear for different purposes because those pieces of gear all had hardware limitations. When I do a mix on a neve, I love the sound of the board, and the EQs and the compression can be cool, but I often find myself reaching for outboard because of the limitations and imprecision of that tool. With plugins, such as Nova, I don't need to reach for different EQs because I can get where I need to go easily, quickly and with precision. That's the idea here. It's not a comprehensive proof that the entire plugin industry is engaging in false marketing. They do convince people to buy their plugins though with unquantifiable, untestable, subjective type claims and language about their character and use influencer to provide the illusion that a different EQ will lead to radically different results in their mixes etc. But that's a different topic to my testing methodology and the claim you are most interested in. In response to the more technical points, I don't understand what "hyperbolic tangent comes with a power series expansion that has a cubic dominating non-linear term with a coefficient of 1/3" means. Despite being a proficient python programmer, my nerd powers are less powerful than yours here, and I dip my hat. Moving on, you write a lot about white noise but overlook the fact that I offer a moderately long AB test between two plugins, in two different ABs in my video, in which I switch back and forth quite a lot of times, and there is not a huge audible difference. I'm open to people hearing differences here but I think they are similar enough that most people would fail an ABX test. And anything which most people would fail an ABX test for, is probably not not something which I will care a lot about. So although you are right, I did not play any material that would demonstrate the time domain features of these EQs in all of the tests, I did play music for two of the plugins and I'm use you agree that music, in this case a full rock pop band instrumental passage, is adequate test material for plugins aimed at music production. In terms of the interaction between bands, extreme Q settings and high gain revealing increasing divergences between the qualities of the plugins, I honestly find this practically uninteresting and I'll explain why. I come from a mastering background. When I see people use 10 bands of EQ with tight Qs and extreme gain settings, I instantly assume they dont know what they are doing. As a mastering engineer, I use as few bands as possible, reasonably often a single band, with as smooth a Q as possible, with conservative gain. In my opinion, that is the key to a good sounding EQ treatment. So I am interested in the sound of plugins given that kind of treatment. If someone is using many tight Qs at extreme gain settings, they are almost certainly destroying whatever it is they are EQing and then the more subtle differences in the band interactions is like examining the quality of the finish on a cup before a bull runs into the china shop.
@@APMastering I think you have a fair point. I agree that knowing how to use an EQ properly is much more relevant than owning a particular EQ model. However, this is not quite that point that came across in your videos. Particular in the first video, you are quite clearly speaking of an ongoing scam by plugin manufacturers and in your second video you put a lot of emphasis on the scientific methodology you employ. I think both these points cannot be upheld and if you are in fact honest to your audience, you should make that clear. Otherwise one could argue that it is you who is trying to scam people into buying your course material, which I'm not going to suggest, but it might appear a reasonable hypothesis. So may I kindly suggest you make a third follow up video where you address these issues. If not, me and other plugin developers will certainly suffer from the spread of mistrust and the customers' attitude towards innovative plugins and proper research.
Oh, and I have deliberately ignored your audio examples comparison because it is not scientific to start with. We all know that comparisons like that are extremely subjective, especially if not performed blindly. And is also did not contribute anything to my point, as you have not shown the Delta and all my other points regarding the sampling of the parameter space etc. still hold.
3:16 Dan Worral recently made a video with some Softube plugin, showing that they were using a FIR filter for oversampling. If that Curve Bender has any modeled saturation maybe they're using the same OS filter and that would explain the phase weirdness. Great video btw!
3:58 um my mother in law, who has zero experience with any music production anything and who currently has a cold and is therefore stuffy and unable to hear well and who is listening on my old iPhone, can CLEARLY hear the difference. I think you might need new speakers if you think that all of these null.
You deserve subs for speaking your opinion without fear and its also a unique take that's worth listening to. Always give every sides a fair chance in a trial lol
to be honest, I've got a very loud mouth and it might get me in trouble and damage my reputation, but if I'm going to be on social media at all, I might as well not water myself down because theres already enough watered down participation trophy style content on the internet.
@@APMastering My very loud mouth that speak honestly gives me ennemies i know that for a fact. But also more respect from the smaller precious circle around me that matter. Cheers my friend.
A lot of plugin developers won’t be happy with this, when Andrew Schepps designed a plugin for Waves they found that it didn’t match with the emulated hardware but on a 40 grand spectrum analyzer it did looked exactly the same but it sounded different. They ended up putting a high pass filter on 3 Hz and a low pass filter on 25 kHz and it matched. The filters were emulating the transformers 😉🤫🫡 Still I’m going to buy an analog equalizer for around 2 grand because I know it’s going to sound better than a plugin, maybe it’s the tube circuit and the transformers who cares.
In the back of my mind I always believed those "vintage" eq emulations were just a standard eq with those vintage eq curves dialed in but the GUI convinced me that It was real emulation that had mimicked all of the internal components. I've foolishly spent thousands chasing "that" sound when all I really needed was a stock eq & a saturation plugin.
Thanks for doing this. Several of these didn’t null nearly as well as I expected. Definitely heard substantial hiss / noise on a few after attempted null. In terms of being scientific, I would say that leaving audible noise behind means that you haven’t demonstrated that these are equivalent. Equivalent would mean: there’s no audible difference. What you’ve demonstrated is most literally an audible difference.
I think limitations are the one true difference, the “pre-chosen” curves are in a way a design choice. The artistic decisions we make while applying some EQ are influenced by this. Plugins today give us all of the options but none of the limitations, 1000 tracks sound great but I guess we thrive when our brain needs to make 4 tracks sound like a full song. Just my humble opinion 😅
I haven't bought a plugin emulation in years, with the exception of reverbs/delays. I agree Plugin compressors and EQs that are meant to be digital like TDR products I think are worth the dough. Emulations are snake oil. Analog is my preferred choice for its saturation offerings and tactile more natural experience workflow wise
good points - thats why i only use the fab filter proQ pretty much for eq and if I want something more ill use my Analog Empress Tube EQ or one of my other analong units for enhancement. Ive used digital for saturation but there is always something missing with digital and i use the tru iron ( sounds the best) but usually have to use multiple plugins - its just not the same with high quality analog units sorry if you think it is :)
The delta varied a bit there, some nulled really well, some not so much. There was def some difference in some of them. I largely agree, except I would say you talk about EQing stuff surgically, but sometimes we use it for flavour and just having nice curves at a knob is nice to have. I've got multiple desk EQ plugins, and sometimes I just get a slightly better sound from one or another on a source.
Hello!!! Amazing stuff!! Finally I've found someone that I agree completely, as an electronics engineer :) I cannot stand the myths and snake oil any more... :)
Exactly right. All plugin developers have are algorithms, not hardware. They all have access to the same ones, except for developers who use convolution and volterra vector kernels, or Neural Amp Modeller
It's not just EQ's. Even some saturators and enhancers can be made to sound like each other OR at the very least so close in quality that some insane prices that some of them go for are completely unwarranted. I recently posted a blind comparison at Gearslutz of several good saturators versus Cranesong's Phoenix II going for $500! I got maybe 3 or 4 responses but 100s upon 100s of downloads. When it comes to actually listening and putting their money where their mouth is, most of those claiming the superiority of such a ridiculously priced plugin are no where to be found. They just keep rambling empty "opinions" about it with a dash of elitist tone. And Phoenix in and of itself doesn't sound bad, but let's get real.
the feeling I get from gearslutz is that there are coordinated efforts by manufacturers or financially interested parties to dogpile anyone who doesnt lick the boots of whoever or whatever is profitable for them. This is why I'm basically just watching and waiting until my channel starts getting plagued by trolls in a coordinated discrediting campaign. I've got an extremely thick skin though so will probably just find it funny when it happens if anything
Guess you've inspired me to test out more plugins if they are worth using. I specifically only bought EQs with tasty saturation, but then again sometimes I might have made the mistake of hearing with my eyes :)
The phase shift in the Curve Bender Plug-in likely comes from an anti-aliasing filter. BUT It could also be unique to the circuit of the hardware unit. When you measure older hardware you'll see these ripples quite often. Those can come from a transformer which (in principle) acts as a low pass filter and the ripple comes from the transformers inner resistance interacting with frequency dependent changes in the impedance of the circuit.
I started recording as a teen in the 80s. Gear was expensive and rar - the first MiDi gear appears and also the Multitrack Recorders. The noise from analog gear was horrible, 8 Tracks from Tape thru a "cheap" Mixer sounds like a Day at the beach. The beautiest "analog/warm" sound i knew from the last years is "Be the one" by Dua Lipa - and there were no analog Equiment used, afaik. I took the thing which sounds good - the "warm" comes from the Midrange - which is often masked by too loud Drums, Basses, Reverbs - mix first the Midrange, and put the others later with low volume together - and: wait, give your ears the chance - the best sounding knob is often the "off" switch.
I will say that I am hearing some noise differences in the delta null results of a few of the EQs. But is that enough to mean anything at all? Who knows at this point. I’ve been mixing in Nashville for 30 years and never thought to challenge these EQ plugins with null tests. Mainly because I assumed they each had unique curves and inherent tones due to the modeled circuitry. But I have tested “True Peak limiters with null tests to see if they were truly clipped peaks without overshooting with digital distortion. I’ve been too occupied turning out mixes to put time into null-testing the massive pile of EQs I’ve been using. 😂 Thanks for your boldness to challenge the ears of even seasoned engineers along the entire plugin industry. I like challenges. That closing metaphor with you banging on the guitar made me laugh out loud. 😂 You have a new subscriber with an open mind. You’re never too old to hear fresh and new ideas, perspectives, and challenges that step outside popular narratives. Cheers!
The only reason I like using different plugins on different sources is the Q. I don’t like tweaking parametric EQ plug-ins all day I mix 150-200 songs/year so I work fast.
As an engineer who has developed audio circuits for industrial products in the past, I agree in nature that ones focus should be on most effective use of tools, not purchasing this years hot plugin. I take exception with the general assertion that passive devices and simple semiconductors would not have affect on signals passed though them. Engineers need to consider the effects of Johnson noise- thermal noise on all of the devices that you referenced as fully linear, as a matter of daily practice when designing high performance equipment.
My thoughts... 1. Pink noise is even across all frequencies. White noise is weighted towards high frequencies. 2. I was surprised at how many of the EQs had differences that I could still hear. I also agree that if you can match the curve shape between different EQs, they should null, regardless of the GUI design. I wonder if those differences that exist were because the curves didn't exactly match, or were from the plugin maker's particular added harmonic distortion. 3. I was surprised at how quiet those remaining differences actually are across all the plugins. In a full mix, those differences would be completely lost. So, if they were intentional harmonic distortions, then they exist for no other reason but for tests like this to show that there is a difference, even though those differences are so minor that they don't matter in practice. As for me, I gave up on multiple EQ plugins a while back. I use Kirchoff for surgical EQ as needed and use an SSL channel strip for 'musical' EQ changes (where I mix with my ears, not my eyes). Time is money, and if you're wasting time on finding the "perfect plugin" (which doesn't exist), then you're wasting money.
1. sorry to disagree but i just googled this to make sure i wasnt losing my mind and I can confirm that the def of white noise is all freqs in equal measure... you might be thinking relative to human perception or something 2. yep, there is definately delta remaining, the question is, how loud a delta will make any difference in a blind test ABing actual music through those settings 3. i agree, the differences would be very minor, likely inaudible
Yeah, this is incorrect. White noise is even across the spectrum. However, our ears are more sensitive to higher frequencies, so it sounds brighter and harsher than pink noise, which has more low frequency content than high frequency content.
@@APMastering Looks like you're right. The definition of each has apparently changed. In the 30+ years that I've been working with Pro Audio, we've always used pink noise to tune systems specifically because it is perfectly even across the entire frequency spectrum, as opposed to white noise that was weighted more heavily towards the high end (lower low frequency volume). Heck, the SMAART software that I've had for years still calls it 'pink noise' in the settings and I can measure it through any number of methods and verify that it registers as equal across the entire spectrum. Apparently the definition has changed in many places online, and now white noise is considered to be equal across the spectrum. Though I can still find some older websites that reference pink noise as being equal across the spectrum. I guess, like so many other things nowadays, people feel the need to redefine words, or more likely enough people have misused a term and now everyone agrees that the previously 'wrong' term is now the 'right' term. --a grumpy old sound man
You are brilliant. I use Aquatica Audio Salt and some Plugin Alliance analog models like the Amek 200, Amek 9099, and Knif Soma, among others. I also use Pro Q3. Actually, the analog models sound better than Pro Q3 when I boost. Pro Q3 is best for surgical cuts, but if you boost it above 6 dB, it introduces an artificial tone in the high frequencies. Try this: there are a few analog model EQs that you can boost even over 10 dB, and they still sound natural. Test this.
Most of the time the analog modeled EQs have a really wide Q and apply less boost or cut than the controls say. That's probably why you find them more natural.
hmmmm i dont know. i never bought pro Q 3 and have been using pro Q 2 basically since it came out and before that I was using pro Q 1. So I dont know if they messed something up with version 3. But pro Q 2 doesnt seem to exhibit this behaviour, i can boost 30db and then get another FF instance and cut 30db and it nulls with the original signal at -70db and I cant hear any difference ABing with music.
I hope you can agree that there are features that make some plugins unique in their funcionality. Two examples are Scaler EQ and Surfer EQ. I'm not debating or rejecting the results of the null tests, those are not up for debate, and I use only 3 EQs not for their sound but their functionality. However, I think that functionality or usability features matter when choosing plugins.
I am 100% selling courses, this isnt a secret. I don't apologise for putting mammoth amounts of energy into creating no bullshit high quality courses for a reasonable price and then offering them on social media for anyone who is interested. If you are not interested, you are free to watch my content completely for free anyway. But I'm not entirely sure why I'm supposed to spend a grand on camera gear and half of my week scripting, filming, editing videos and replying to comments answering questions and sharing my experience with everyone here if I'm not allowed to get anything out of it. If you only watch content from hobbyists who are on youtube for the love of talking about gear, then the quality of the content you are getting is going to be hobbyist level- Where I'm not a hobbyist, I'm hardly going to do all of this without placing a single ad. That's just bizarre to even think that. In every single video I upload there WILL be an ad for my courses. Feel free to skip/ignore it and watch the rest of the content.
I've spent thousands on plugins and came to realize very quickly that the stock plugins with Studio One give me pretty much everything I need. Wish I knew that at the beginning. All of the analog crap they sell us was considered a flaw back in the day like noise and distortion.
The delta is usually small. When you pay for that extra 5% more of sparkle, warmth, whatever, it’s coming at a premium. It’s great that free stuff gets very close
it's not nulling because i'm closely matching it but not investing huge amounts of time to get it perfect. just because there's a tiny difference it doesn't mean that difference is exclusively comprised of some kind of magic
@@APMastering its not magic, it’s a combination of subtle distortion, phasing modeled after whatever hardware the company studied. UA does a ton of research in these areas. Engineers use these tools because it got them results they could record to tape faster, meaning less time wasted when the talent was ready to roll. Sure we can recreate these curves ourselves to save money, but some us of just want a few simple knobs and get on with making albums. ✌️
I think the limitations of older stuff facilitated creativity. I’m a musician so that works for me but if you’re mixing / mastering perhaps less so. I recorded in a studio with pretty much all pre 1970s mics & pres and it sounded unbelievable - to my ear anyway. Modern gear can be really harsh sounding and that’s why I like slapping tape emulators / saturators with HF roll off on. Re: EQ I’m with you on the marketing but when I use my Pultec it’s feels more creative than ProQ3 (I use both for different jobs)
Great video, and I must admit, I have been sold a couple of times by slick marketing. I just signed up for the pre-order for your course. I feel relatively confident in my EQ ability, but I feel like there’s something that I could learn from you. Looking forward to the course launch. 👍🏻👍🏻
This is fascinating! I love how you cut through marketing nonsense. For the next one, can you compare a basic EQ plugin with a real hardware console EQ?
Fascinating video! Those null tests were really interesting. It makes me wonder about Acustica Audio's EQ plugins since they're based on sampling rather than algorithms. Do you think they would null out the same way? Curious to see the results if you have the time and energy!
Agree with everything except I think having some EQs for quick go-to "colors" can be useful. Pultec, Maag EQ4 (I use Luftikus, which is free), 1073 high end are about all I ever need. Just one/two knobs usually gets it pretty close.
Yeah! I finally know it. This explain why most of the time I only use daw stock eq instead of these famous eqs. I try to add these eqs and get confuse why they add odd "vintage/warmth" to the sound or they not did the eq curve that normal eq does, that's not what I expect them to do.They makes me work more to fix the "problem" that they create. I know most people like these famous eqs, but it just doesn't work for me.
Technically, inductors can saturate. They're half a transformer. Transformers can saturate too. If you build them too small. Look inside any vintage EQ and what do you see? Massive transformers and inductors. Valves can saturate too. Why was the Pultec so revered in its day? Because they managed to build a valve amp that didn't distort. It's exactly as you say. If you're up for a fun challenge, grab a Pultec and see what voltage you need to load it with to see the 3rd harmonic appear. It's eye-opening.
This all figures. I’ve gathered several different EQs from various plugin packages over the years, and only ever found myself using Ozone EQ for flexibility, the DAW for convenience, or one of the Overloud EQs that allows you to saturate specific bands (sometimes nice, sometimes lousy). I feel bad for the plug-in manufacturers because they covered most of the useful ground they could over a decade ago. I wonder if people like the vintage-style ones because they wouldn’t normally bother to mess with bandwidths, so just end up wider, more pleasant sounding curves, quickly achievable with a broad brush and less opportunity to over-correct?
i dont know if i feel sorry for the plugin devs any more than i feel sorry for drop shippers trying to sell lightweight shippable plastic bullshit from china to people on the internet and not making any profit after they pay their facebook ads. well... i guess its a saturated industry. find another niche.
Thanks you for this, let people know the real, IF YOU HAVE EVERYTHING STOCK USE THEM, THEY'RE GOOD ENOUGH AND IN SOME CASES MIGHT SOUND BETTER THAN THIRD PARTY PLUG-INS IF YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING.
Great vids honestly, Yes of course you can make a digital eq react like emulation gear. That being said, work flow is incredibly important and using a visualizer doesn't work for everyone. Every single person coming into this art is going to have different tastes on UI/UX which will later turn into a comfortable workflow for them... and it is arguably one of the most crucial things to figure out early on as a mix engineer. If you are comfortable using fab filter on everything and can get great results... awesome keep it up. If you are comfortable using UAD/Arturia/Softube's classic interface workflow and can get great results... awesome keep it up. It's just a tool and a workflow. I use both all the time. Also we have 15 day trials on nearly all this stuff today so if someone is going to spend money on it before even demo'ing a plugin and aimlessly spend money... that's a them problem. The injection of "courses" while kind of brand bashing feels a tad weird. I'm sure you totally have a great method to teach and you should 100% charge for it, but idk if this is the way to advertise it.
to me this sounds like: "if you're decorating a cake don't use different piping tools, just use the basic one and you can shape it." if you have to do work to make an eq sound like another then why not just save time and energy and use that eq. Also, doesn't the fact that you can make one eq sound like another mean they objectively do not sound the same? only half way thru the video tho so maybe this gets addressed. but as a producer i don't find that this is less confusing Edit: finished the whole video, while I agree with you, I don't see it as a reason not to use a analog modeled eq if it has a sound you like
Agreed. That was my point also. I got called out on one of the other EQ videos for this and being "inexperienced." Actually, it's speed. Some EQs are designed to do a very specific thing. Others, general EQing. Looking for the best and fastest tool for the job.
To be sure, you are correct. BUT... I think people who buy several EQ's etc are essentially buying the presets. Honestly. Getting the Abbey Road stuff, it's the painstakingly made presets and room impulses that match say, many Beatles recordings. Or using CLA or Schepps - it's the same. They are basically buying CLA's presets and settings. Could you make things sound the same with stock plug ins? Yes - but you may not have the experience and skill to achieve those settings. Also - to match industry standards - you have high end studios with everything going through 'old blue boxes' and then to digital, etc. Buying your favorite artists signature eq I suppose is a way to 'get there' for the most part in the home studio/hobbyist market. But yes, a digital parametric with a boost, Q, and frequency will be the same boost Q frequency across the board with out any additional flavoring.
8:11 - I don't agree with this view, especially when we talk about timbre and not "corrections". It was these tones of these "strange curves" that made the tones of several famous records, and going after this is an aesthetic choice, it has nothing to do with correction. It's that sound of that strange 400hz frequency that is resonant because of that strange curve. Digital only exists today because engineers suffered from what they had before. Today digital is here, but what was produced before is part of humanity's collective imagination, so going after these strange curves is more like a timbral repertoire than having an equalizer that can take any frequency without any type of phase change.
i would bet an original pultec that if dark side or the moon was recorded using another EQ instead of a pultec, it would have had no statistically significant correlation with record sales... but unfortunately we dont have time machines and parallel universes so we cant put it to the test. But do you really think that pink floyd and alan parsons would have all ground to a halt in the studio without one? they could have recorded darkside any gear you like and it would have still been great music and made every one involved rich
@@APMastering I agree, but I don't talk about the physical equipment, so much so that I'm in favor of simulations or presets. And of course, the sound they made at that time would be what we seek today. It's not about what he would do in a hypothetical situation in which he would have access to today's equipment, but rather what he did with what he had, and the result that made it. He wrote the timbre that defined the style, with what he have. And today, we use and pursue it in an aesthetic way. Why would I use a gated reverb, if it weren't to imitate the sound of Phil Collins, for example? It's the same logic with the Pultec equalization curve, or an SSL Console. Giants built what we tried to replicate digitally, And if there's a plugin that claims to simulate what they had at the time (regardless of what they would us today or with access to modern equipment in the 70s), I'll use it to get that tone they got. I don't want to have to bend over Q factor or look at the phase graph, if that makes my job easier. If I want to imitate their sound, I need to, at the very least, understand how they recorded and mixed it to replicate it. And it's not about using a 10 thousand dollar passive equalizer.
I actually agree with the premise of this video, however the delta on half of these null tests was audible on my iPhone on the other side of the kitchen while cooking my toddler breakfast as he’s smashing stuff in the next room…These subtitle differences add up.
you were listening to the drop in noise right? there is an initial noise burst which is "before" and then I engage the cancelation EQ and it nulls significantly and that is "after" which is more quiet. If you meant that, then I guess you just dont think it is good enough, thats fine
@@joelhume1I’m with you. I’m on cheap Bluetooth earbuds and I was surprised at the claim being made because I could clearly still hear noise after the phase flip on most of them. A “null” test would mean there is no difference. While there might be less difference than advertised, it isn’t scientific to say there is no difference. If I remember correctly, it was the Harrison EQ that was quietest and most likely a perfect null. The others… varying degrees of sound made it past after the polarity was flipped, so not a null.
My only argument is something I heard from Dan Worrall. Using an analog style eq forces you to use your ears, seeing weird curves on a frequency spectrum can make you doubt your ears because it "looks wrong". However, I use Pro Q 3 for everything, it's clean digital, no cramping and fully featured.
I had fun watching your video....., you're right, I noticed a long time ago that EQ plugins always sound the same, there is no magic , only mathematics and maketing :)
Well, I’m not sure how I stumbled upon your videos but this is the third one I’m commenting on. All on the same day. I rarely ever comment on youtube videos. I think you’re brave for taking this on. I’ve had conversations like this many times over the years. About many different facets of music creation, production and technologies. There are a lot of folks out there who’s egos and careers and livelihoods are tied to being the ones who CAN see the emperor’s new cloths. People tend to get defensive. As you pointed out, great music has been created under very primitive conditions in decades past. And in decades present. Botton line: It’s about the music. If your music is crap it doesn’t matter how much money you spend on recording equipment or mastering. If you’re a recordist or engineer, learn how to recognize what can be improved sonically and use what ever tools you have available. It’s a gift for some and others have to work harder at it. In the end, Content is king. I enjoy your videos. I think you’ll improve the confidence of some young artists who may be intimidated by the Emperor’s New Clothes.
Keep going! This is such valuable content. Would love to see a similar video for compressors debunking the “vintage”/“warm” marketing hype around so many offerings.
I want to do this because there is a lot of hype... the problem is, with EQs its relatively easy to do some kind of a null test but with compression its near impossible to do the same kind of test because there are too many variables. the main way I can go about this is visually showing what they are doing with long time constants, but thats not going to make for compelling content for people who believe in the snake oil.... there's people commenting here that dont believe in null tests lol, so demonstrating graphically what compressors are doing to the sound is going to be a hard sale
I have a softsynth addiction. But as far as EQ and dynmaics go: stock. All the DAWS stock plugins are amazing, specifically Cubase, Logic and Bitwig. But seriously any DAW has amazing stock plugins for dynamics and eqs
Yes, but you can clearly hear the difference in the Delta, on a Samsung flat screen TV in my case. The reality is that differences between any EQ hardware or software are objectively small, but it doesn’t mean they don’t produce a tangible different output. All your experiment really does is demonstrate the subtlety that we are working with and why it takes years to become good at processing audio. If you take any compressor and compare to any other compressor, they essentially sound the same regardless of price or circuit design, we live in a world of tiny differences the moment we have chosen a vocalist. Once a timbre, or source character is selected every process is nearly insignificant. Yet, its still a requirement to deliver the very best end result in commercial audio.
Yeah but... my bits are better than your bits. The way I make the current flow in the transistors is soooo special, so... warm! Besides, my coders use a very special IDE made by an advanced alien race in a galaxy far far away, and the compiler comes from the distilled tears of elves shed every 432 years during a full-moon night when Mars is alligned with Jupiter, and my pixels guarantee a brightness level yours can only dream of. 🥳 Only this way you can produce tracks which win 20 Grammies a year! Guaranteed!
I've got a bunch of EQ plugins that I got for free from UAD and some that were included from others like Arturia. I think I always innately knew this. I know for a fact that some like UADs pultec add harmonics, but like you said, just use a harmonics / saturation plugin. Compressors do have different characteristics that are hard to mimic / replicate - so they kinda make sense. But again, I always thought "I don't need another compressor?? i'm good - these do the job". If I could go back in time, I think I'd save a bit more of that money and just get a Neve 1073 DPX to reprint tracks through / record through and use a minimal selection of mix plugins. I might still do that, but that thing aint cheap. Also I had a hearing test yesterday and learnt that i'm slightly above average for 18-25 year olds... I'm 29 😛
It's all Joke as all music nowadays has become Fully electronic, that means in reality only microphone and good preamp you need. Everything else can be digitally mimicked.
Great video ! The main differences are generally in the way bands interact with each other. EQ that allow you to choose between serial and parallel are ideal.
In all the examples where you played music, I could always tell them apart 100% and enjoyed the emulated hardware more. And I don't even use emulated EQs, I only use FabFilter. I think now I have to do some serious blind testing. Thanks a lot, you sold me on the stupid thing you wanted me not to buy, lol. I wonder what it is though, maybe some sort of distortion in the frequency band or phase shifts? I truly don't know....
The NEVE noise sounds warmer, has more depth and is more analog than the others. Null test don’t tell the whole story, cause someone I know read it on a forum somewhere and magic fairy dust can’t be tested with a null test. Just kidding, thank you 🙏 keep bringing the facts and here’s my sub!
ha ha, I started reading that thinking you were serious. Ironically the neve one was the hardest to try to null as it has something weird going on with the phase. if i spent a long time I could maybe get it to null more but that one certainly has some kind of weird processing happening, not sure what. But interestingly if you look at the schematic of the original neve 1073, it doesnt seem like there is anything weird going on with the EQ apart from it uses inductors instead of capacitors for the mid band
I agree massively with the premise of this video, but what I don’t understand is why you used white noise? I understand that white noise is ‘unforgiving’ in these tests but surely a perfect null would prove your point more? Even in the A/B music examples, why not just invert the phase there too? Surely a perfect null on a drum loop/acoustic guitar would be more blatant for the neigh sayers rather than white noise doing it’s thing still, which it is doing on every single ‘null’ in this video; all be it very quite. Again, I agree with you here; I just think using white noise to demonstrate this was a poor idea… Nothing in this video ‘nulls’ by definition and that’s the point you’re trying to make
I appreciate this follow up video. I would love to see an SSL pushed harder too since that’s a common trick is to practically saturate the circuit a bit for a bit of crunch. If you crank the high end on a snare for instant (it’s essentially what CLA does)it adds some extra bite and grit. Curious how this would play out on a digital EQ. I may do my own tests when i get my new space setup. But the harmonic distortion is what it’s really about for me imo. It’s subtle, but adds up. And the hotter the signal the more it is noticed. No not every plugin has it either. Anyway this whole experiment feels like your way to market your EQ class which feels disingenuous to us all. I appreciate your hustle and marketing strategy, but it feels like you had everything prepared ahead of time and had your conclusions etc. makes the argument you are trying to make feel weaker. Also the slate infinite EQ (or whatever it’s called), the kirchoff and a few others are just different types of digital EQ, so they shouldn’t have even been included imo. Also that you brought in SSL clones most of the time is funny to me because they are supposedly some of the cleanest EQs out there unless you push them hard. Neve, API, and pultec in some cases are very different, but at least pultec is more predictable. Lastly doing just one band for most of this misses the point too, because each of these EQs responds differently at different levels, cut vs boost, and sometimes even different frequencies (see pultec trick). If you dive into this deeper, some automated sweeps would be really cool. Or showing a boost at x frequency. API for example will change the Q depending how much you are boosting/cutting and it has different Q responses for boosts and cuts. And it’s pleasing to the ear. I’d love to see you bring up plugin doctor with all of these and do some sine wave tests to show harmonic distortion when pushed a bit (trust me it’s there). I’ve replicated hardware with digital EQ where it nulled a bit. But there’s a reason people buy Neve hardware instead of using digital EQ. If your attitude is that it is subtle so it’s not worth your money or time, then you really don’t understand a large part of our job as engineers. If you are just starting out plugins should be pretty low on your list because of the amount of stuff in DAWs these days. And as i said, just because you can replicate what a plugin does, doesn’t mean the workflow is the same etc. also with digital AI plugins like soothe 2, gulfoss, or sonible, you really don’t need to know how to EQ these days anymore. So maybe hardware EQs are coming to an end? Oh and note: good shoutout to my buddy at kazrog for the true iron plugin, it’s a great one. But as far as transformers and stuff are concerned you are correct it’s on the input/output stages of the EQ. And each has their own flavor. If you want that flavor this is the easiest and fastest way to get it. True iron doesn’t have all of these flavors that’s for sure. You seem to be the type that wants full control over everything, which is fine, but not everyone is like that (i used to be). I now just want something that’s gonna get the sound in my head the fastest. Most of the time it’s analog emulations.
See this update video for quantified results with a more robust methodology: th-cam.com/video/h9OsUSXKiDg/w-d-xo.html
I don't think people understand just how good we have it today compared to how it used to be back then. This is a good reality check.
People also completely forget how expensive studio setups were to have a full hardware situation. The transformers and natural flavor are cool but, so is stock logic when you really figure it out 😂
When I was just a kid I had to walk 5 mi to the river and then down to the bottom of the cliffs to get the tone that I needed.
Facts!
….We have it really good.👍🏾 👍🏾
it is amazing. i work today same way - in most cases i need no EQ, less compression ( Tape is expensive, Gear make unwanted noise..... ) Less is often more - but all wishes a sound producer could have - Todays DAW can all these things.
I needed this 50 plugins ago. 🙃
Ha! Indeed.
Me too! 🤦🏼♂️
😂
🤣🤣🤣
Ok hold on.
1. Yes you can get away with just using one EQ if you had to…you don’t need 20 EQ’s.
2. In the video he’s playing white noise and when listen to it’s Delta, you hear a muffled hiss at a lower volume…People, that “is” the difference (this is normal). If he was playing music, you’d hear the music’s delta. If it was 100% silent using multiple EQ tweets, then those 2 EQ’s would scientifically sound exactly the same.
3. All EQ’s do NOT have the same “Q” factors and curves which makes them different from one another which also makes them unique.
4. If you own an EQ that could replicate different Q’s and curves, you could replicate any EQ (it’s saturation is another story).
5. A seasoned engineer is not going to waste his or his client’s time trying to make a stock EQ (w/no saturation) sound like a Pultec using 20 steps when he could just use a Pultec plug-in(that he bought on sale) that could do the job in 4 knob turns (with its saturation included). “These are Facts”.
Bottom line:
-Yes you don’t need 20 EQ’s and the best EQ is the one you got.
-If you don’t know why you’d use one EQ over another, don’t worry about it if you’re only a producer, do your thing.
-If you’re a Mix and/or Mastering Engineer, you’ve been doing this a while and you already know.
-My advice to buying plug-ins is to only buy what you need and know why you need it.✌🏾
The only real matter is the user experience and comfort beteen different plugins. Most of the audiophilic crap a lot of sound engineers fool themselves with is illusion to tease ego.
1000%
When I started, I told myself, that I will only look for new plugins as soon as Im able to hear differences between plugins. Turns out I never had to look for a new eq, ableton stock eq does the job 90% of the time for me
nevermind the fact that Ableton eq has an amazing workflow, having your whole channel strip be visible and tweakable as soon as you click on a track is so much more efficient than opening and closing each plugin indiviually
Gullfuss, acon digital defilter, zynaptiq unfilter. While gullfus sounds the same as every iq its very adaptive but unfiter and defilter cant be replicated with any other standart eq.
Been preaching this forever. Marketing brilliance from the plugin makers. I fell for it myself for a while. I have been recording/mixing/mastering since 1976, so I have lived the changes. Y’all just don’t know!
nice one. i bought fancy power cables and all sorts over the years
As an EQ designer who doesn't believe in the marketing, I'm deeply familiar with all the points you raise here. I also fully endorse null testing, and you're doing it right. One thing that might help you out is the difference between parallel and serial band topologies. Things like a Sontec or Massenburg EQ have parallel bands, so when you engage them they sum differently to a series EQ. Likely the issues canceling the Curve Bender stem from that, though I confess to not having checked the schematics. I don't know if your preferred EQ offers a parallel mode, but it's not too hard to add.
Regarding the issue of particular things having interesting shapes and engineers preferring them, I'd draw your attention to the "SSL knob-colour wars". Engineers moving from studio to studio would get very used to things like Q tightening as they increased gain. Then going to a different room with a different coloured knob, the channel EQ behaved differently. If you're a gigging mix engineer (not that such a job really exists any more) and you're expecting your board to work one way, and suddenly you're faced with one that works differently, you feel hamstrung and slowed down. So I do believe that for people who are very used to a piece of kit working a certain way, there's value in them being able to continue to do so. If you've learned one EQ deeply, you will likely be faster with that EQ than with one that works differently. For me this has meant needing to be able to emulate all the subtle and varying weird shapes and offering them in one place.
Phase cancellation in the mids and low end is, indeed, something to take for granted. The thing that drew me to EQ as a problem was the issue of getting the high end right. I refer you back to the "cramping" "warping" wars of the 2010s. You'll definitely find phase cancel content up near nyquist between some of these EQs. This is much less of an issue nowadays than it used to be, thankfully. But the 90s and 2000s were PLAGUED with EQs that warped at the top end. Bells were unsymmetric at high frequencies. This did make life a bit miserable. Using a second band to correct for it was not unusual, and in those days when you didn't have so many bands to play with, that was bad. That's something that contributed to the notion of digital sounding "cold" or "sterile" - the top end wasn't where you expected it to be!
All the best with your endeavours. It's nice to see someone doing some science :)
nice one, thanks for your comment, that was an interesting read! I honestly dont know all that much about the coding side of making a great sounding EQ. I can only code at a pretty basic level and if I wrote my own EQ plugin from scratch it would probably have all of the problems you mentioned, which is why I'm going to get lots of help when designing a plugin that I've got an idea for
Leaving this here…. DMG Equilibrium rules 🤘🏽
(If I could have only one…. this is my “desert island” choice!)
cramping is still an issue for some..Nova does is but not really bad though. Some expensive EQs do it too and way worse. But OK. Many wont hear it. Unless you put such an EQ on 20-30 tracks and wonder why the top end ounds weird in some places. Again: most wont hear it and dont care AND its not way as bad as before.
I'm just a hobbyist, but this is so nice to hear. I had the same sentiment for a while: If you hear a problem, and know what tool is suitable to fix it, then it doesn't really matter which exact tool you've got, you can get the result you want.
a bad workman blames his tools. a good workman makes cool stuff with bad tools
I learned 2 things from this video.
1. I have “Golden Ears”.
2. Yea…I like the GUI basically. I’m aware ReaEQ can probably suffice 😅
@@antrave nice, wasn’t aware of that one 🎊🎉
ReaEq has horrible cramping issues
@@mirkomarkovic3438 I personally use Kirchoff and Signum Audio-Comp, Clipper, and Limiter
We've all fallen into the plugin rabbit-hole. They're leading us up the primrose path. The most important aspects of a track will always be the writing and musicianship/lyrical genuis, followed by the production/arrangement.
Hitting people where it hurts. Enjoying the honesty man. Thank you
I believe it was Dave Gamble of DMG who said something like "All EQs sound the same except for the make-up amplifiers" and advocates for Clean EQs followed by a saturation plug if you so desire.
YES. don't know who that is but he sounds like he knows what he's talking about
@@APMastering Hes the creator of Equilibrium, the best eq plugin on the market.
@@nem4822extremely ironic response given the video and this original comment lol
@@Woji52 never said best in term of sound, its the features and the curve options that make it the best.
Yes you really should know DMG Dave is a legend and equilibrium as I commented on your other video has all the curve snd Q responses of many fave eqs ready to go you should probably do a video with that as well as it’s a go to single eq to rule them all 😊
Excellent comparison. We are bombarded by companies to buy and we don’t do any tests to see what we are buying. I was buying a lot of plugins and I was doing it more because of an itch to buy and not really learning how to use my plugins
Very relatable. I went out to become an EDM producer and so far ended up as a plugin and preset collector 😅
Good stuff. I was the one who commented on having the quick curves handy for Pultecs, bax, etc. As a rebuttal, I didn't say they're used randomly. They're used when needed and with purpose, so you misconstrued the comment.
I do, however, know what you're saying, which is basically that you need 1 good eq to handle everything. That's true. However, that's like saying that you only need 1 good knife to cut all your food. Yes, a good chef's knife will handle pretty much everything, but if you have a variety of knives, they are built to perform specific functions. Both get the job done. That's my point.
On another token, thanks for the null tests. Hopefully I'm able to resell all my other non-specific EQs now before people see this video ;)
Late to the party! So far these two are great, not only for presenting the results, but also for showing the methodology in case someone wants to criticize it, add to it, replicate it, etc. I am looking forward to binge-watching your channel so far. There is one thing to be said about the Pultec and other similar "coloring" or "unique" EQs, though.
Just as "null" doesn't mean "absolutely nothing", and just as the simple curve of the 1073 was practically the same as the complex/accurate one, the ability of the Pultec to "work with everything" is more practical than literal. I do believe that the Pultec "boost and cut at the same time trick" does work with all distorted guitars, but if we are being honest, a large sample of distorted guitars is not an accurate example of the sounds one may record. It would be at least interesting to examine the EQ curve it produces, in order to use it as a starting point when crafting a sound. I've done it, and I still ended up using a Pultec plugin not only for speed, but also for not double-guessing myself when I'm modifying the Pultec curve.
FYI the Maag is turning up the volume around 6dB all the time. However, once you turn up the Air Gain, that 6dB go even higher. Some of the bells (I think green and blue) also turn up the overal volume the more you move them away from zero (i.e.: the absolute value of your boost/cut determines how much volume will be added overall). That's true on Luftikus (a free emulating plugin), and it's an accurate emulation of the lunchbox unit. Saying something is better because it's louder is a known misconception.
I'm glad that at 26 years old I can still hear that high frequency noise lol. Nice video too.
yeah, by 40 most people wont hear that. its quiet for me, i need to turn it up
@@APMastering in my 50s...I get my hearing checked every other year. still hear cleanly up to 18k +/- a few dBs. I was always sensitive to loud noises as a kid, and UHF sounds. had to wear custom ear plugs a lot of the time. Then once in a band, always wore them, and to this day, I wear them in the car. Blessed to be able to hear that high...now, my probably frequency is 3k, I have a dip since getting covid in 2020, of 3dB on the right side.
I'm 52 and can't hear shit above 15k and very little over 12k. Still i can hear all the hiss in this vid 😂
@@gameon2000 watch part 3
As an engineer from the “old studio days” with large format consoles, I can tell you that the sound of music was more about rooms, mics, production and arrangements and the sound of the musicians you simply needed to know how to record and mix. You didn’t need lots of channels. As the needs of production changed the technology adapted. I am not so sure Phil Ramone, would have traded his “small board” for a box full of modern tech just because it was new and advanced. I had the pleasure of watching him work as a producer. These days it is more about “convenience” technology. Or so it seems. I will also tell you that engineering is or was indeed creative and you didn’t choose a piece of gear because of who could or couldn’t hear the difference its about whether or not it helped you (as an engineer) do your best work. Your gear imparted a “sound” for a specific purpose. Pultec on a kick? Yes please. Why use a dbx 160x on it instead of the 160? Sometimes yes sometimes no it depended. Did what you do meet what your client wanted and represented the artist best. I remember working on the first SSL digital console (Quad Studios NYC) where every knob and switch was digital it was supposed to usher in a new era (eliminate the hassle of doing recalls) sonically it was trash. Twice as expensive as the expensive analog boards (SSL) you pictured and it was garbage. Low end wasn’t right. So while on one hand all the analysis is great the other is if the “tools” don’t inspire you to do your best work what is the point? And vice versa. I am all for “truth” in tech but some notions like “the listener won’t care or can’t hear” and therefore “it doesn’t matter” are a bit reckless and heavy handed. It’s like saying they can’t tell the difference between a strat or custom les paul or an ovation and a J200 so tell the musician they can get the same results playing a guitar from Walmart and they are crazy to spend thousands if not tens of thousands on their instruments. A guitar is a guitar and has 6 strings.
most people can clearly hear a huge difference between a walmart guitar and a high end acoustic. almost nobody can hear the difference between a pultec and a 1:1 match in pro q. that's why abx tests are so important to dispel the nonsense
also ive worked on SSL 4k, neve VR, otari and audient consoles and love recording and mixing on large format consoles, especially SSL. that says nothing about sound though
@@APMastering my point was completely about sound and not whether the tech is the mist current and further whether or not you can identify the sound of a device in the context of a mix is a valid position to take versus whether or not the device actually helps you to “create”. The idea is are you letting tech and what an audience will discern drive your creative decisions vs what you think the correct application of a tool is so you do your best work. Not because of its price tag whether cheap or expensive, why use a Pultec at all when you can get “lows” from the board eq on a Mackie 1604? Or more in context an SSL has 50hz and all kinds of frequencies no need for a pultec and yet they are not the same.
Science! Love it! 💛
I love how you approach non-sense comments with facts and science. Thanks for the content!
This is a big revelation, thanks for the information
PART TWO
For the first point, we need to answer the question if your input signal is able to probe the entire signal space relevant to audio signals and equalisers. If the system under investigation is completely linear, which also excludes any kind of quantisation errors that are always present in digital realisations, then you can correctly argue that white noise statistically probes the input space in a way that creates a complete picture of the system’s processing. But as discussed earlier, actual linear system implementations do differ in their quantisation handling, which won’t be detectable with this method. Even if you decide to ignore these effects on the signal outcome because you argue that they only make an audible difference (we’ll come to the meaning of that later) in certain pathological scenarios, your conclusion is still invalidated by the fact that you did not look at this case.
But the main interest here is really the performance of modelled non-linear equalisers, so let’s focus on those. With non-linearity in place, you can no longer argue that white noise is probing your system sufficiently because the important step of decomposing into a sinusoidal basis does not commute with non-linear systems in general. In fact, there is no way to exhaustingly sample the input space of a non-linear processor and therefore any conclusion that a system is not deviating from linearity based on observation of a finite number of inputs and outputs is invalid in a strict sense. That is, unless you make certain assumptions about the kind of nonlinearity to expect, which allows you to look in the right places.
So, does the white noise signal you are using look in some of the right places for the kind of non-linearity that is to be expected in EQs? Unfortunately, no. The nonlinearities of an EQ typically are in the pre or post stages or in the resonant feedback loop of the filters. Common to all these locations is that the (smooth) nonlinearity is tuned such that it shows at high amplitudes, usually at around -6 to 0 dBfs in a digital realisation.
Your white noise signal peaks at around -6 dBfs and appears to follow an approximately Gaussian sample distribution, which is consistent with the rather low RMS level of -16 dBfs. The RMS level is equivalent to the expected amplitude that is driving the nonlinearity. A fairly typical memoryless distortion using a hyperbolic tangent comes with a power series expansion that has a cubic dominating non-linear term with a coefficient of 1/3 or -9.5dB. That means you would expect distortion products to appear roughly below - 3*16 - 9.5 dBfs = 57.5 dBfs. Your metering only goes to -24 dBfs and you never show the noise floor of your null-test, so your result is inconclusive, at best. Had you tested at an RMS level of -6 dB instead, we could have seen and heard the first distortion effects at -27.5 dBfs, which would have made a great difference in terms of audibility.
Another way to clearly expose non-linearity is to make sure the gain loop is driven at a high level. That would require both a reasonable input gain and a filter setting that produces a significant feedback path gain. Such settings come with high Q and high band gain. You have avoided both in your tests.
If you consider non-linearities with memory, which you should, then using a wide-band stationary signal like your noise signal can actually prevent the internal state of the non-linear system from ever getting into the region of significant nonlinearity. For example, a number of nonlinear circuits only reacts to transients. Others only react to strongly coherent signals like tones. You’ve eliminated both these possible results by your choice of using white noise.
Let’s get to the point of perception. You asserted that small deltas are inaudible. And you’re right for your noise signal. A small difference signal does not change the perception so that both results would sound the same. The problem is that this conclusion does not generalise. To understand the significance to perception we need to look at the phenomenon of auditory masking. We can hear a quieter signal component only if it is not being masked by a louder signal component. The level difference for which the quieter signal is still audible follows from the masking relationship of the two signals, which depends on both distance in frequency and in time.
Your noise signal masks everything, both in time and in frequency, such that any difference less than roughly 6dB below the noise level cannot be perceived. That is a pretty poor choice for trying to argue about a perceivable difference. A much better choice would have been using a severely band-limited signal, like for example critical band noise at different frequencies, and use that to see if there are any difference components outside of the masking volume of the test signal. Just for comparison, narrow band noise at around 1kHz allows for the perception of signal components at below 500 Hz at a level of more than 80dB below the primary stimulus level, or alternatively for the perception of components above 4 kHz at a level of more than 40dB below the primary stimulus level. That’s a lot more than what you have demonstrated.
A linear EQ would only generate quantisation artefacts outside of the band, which you have also not looked at. A non-linear EQ may produce signal components that are making an audible difference and are being perceived as pleasant. You have not ruled out the existence of these components in any way using your methodology.
The third and final concern regards your choice of system samples. The question here is, have you tried to maximise the difference between the EQs you have matched and thereby attempted to falsify your hypothesis? Good science must always try to falsify, otherwise you don’t proof anything apart from your confirmation bias. I’m trying to be perfectly fair here, but it doesn’t look like you didn’t really try very hard to challenge your hypothesis. Throughout your demonstration you have used single bands at moderate settings. You avoided high gains, high Qs, high center frequencies. From what I explained above, it is obvious that you have steered clear of band interactions like you have in alternative non-serial topologies, you have avoided filter warping due to poorly designed filters without compensation for response distortion or response aliasing, you have avoided non-linear effects.
This is already a much too long response, so let me come to my conclusion. Your methods were only superficially scientific, despite your claims. Your strong conclusion and accusations have no foundation in what you have shown. I do not say that you conclusion is wrong, but you certainly have failed to prove it. To be fair, there are black sheep in the plugin industry, just like everywhere. However, your generalisation is false and just as unfair as suggesting you just did your video to manipulate people into buying your classes. Which of course is not true.
So, if you do science, you have to go all the way. There’s no such thing as a little rigour. And if you don’t have the necessary insight, then I would suggest you do some research first and read a selection of the plentiful papers that deal with modelling of non-linear analog circuits.
If you ever intend to do a follow-up video that corrects your mistakes and tries to arrive at a conclusion that is not agenda driven, then please get in touch. I’m more than willing to work out a scientific protocol that would actually try verify your hypothesis.
thanks for the detailed two part comment. For most long comments I will only read the first sentence or ignore it entirely because in my experience, the longer the comment generally the more of a waste of time it is to read, but yours was not so I stuck with it and read all of it.
Your comment is the most thorough and high quality critique of my video, and actually I agree with you for the most part (with my pushbacks below), but I feel a bit like you are hitting in a picture hook with a sledge hammer.
I'll first reply in a more broad sense and then I'll reply to technical point below.
My video was aimed at a wide audience and the idea was pretty much "hey look, you don't need to buy all these different EQs because they sound pretty similar for the most part and why would anyone care about pultec curve or whatever anyway because each song and sound needs its own specific EQ treatment, so better to learn how to use one EQ before buying 10 different ones". When you put this concept under a microscope, you see that not only was my test fairly primitive but it also demonstrates the EQs I tested are all different to some small amount even with the limited testing methodology employed. However, my aim was never to show that they are all mathematically identical, use the same code or make false claims in their marketing about modelling X piece of hardware. The video concept is more about the practical application of EQ in sound design, mixing and mastering for a broad or even lay audience. I never expected to be having discussions with DSP professionals. The idea I'm trying to convey is, even if a company models a vintage EQ in a compelling way, so what? From a practical standpoint, if you know how to use one good EQ properly, you don't need various different simulations of hardware EQ in an attempt to get different "flavours". Before the high quality plugins we have today, engineers needed to use different gear for different purposes because those pieces of gear all had hardware limitations. When I do a mix on a neve, I love the sound of the board, and the EQs and the compression can be cool, but I often find myself reaching for outboard because of the limitations and imprecision of that tool. With plugins, such as Nova, I don't need to reach for different EQs because I can get where I need to go easily, quickly and with precision. That's the idea here. It's not a comprehensive proof that the entire plugin industry is engaging in false marketing. They do convince people to buy their plugins though with unquantifiable, untestable, subjective type claims and language about their character and use influencer to provide the illusion that a different EQ will lead to radically different results in their mixes etc. But that's a different topic to my testing methodology and the claim you are most interested in.
In response to the more technical points, I don't understand what "hyperbolic tangent comes with a power series expansion that has a cubic dominating non-linear term with a coefficient of 1/3" means. Despite being a proficient python programmer, my nerd powers are less powerful than yours here, and I dip my hat. Moving on, you write a lot about white noise but overlook the fact that I offer a moderately long AB test between two plugins, in two different ABs in my video, in which I switch back and forth quite a lot of times, and there is not a huge audible difference. I'm open to people hearing differences here but I think they are similar enough that most people would fail an ABX test. And anything which most people would fail an ABX test for, is probably not not something which I will care a lot about.
So although you are right, I did not play any material that would demonstrate the time domain features of these EQs in all of the tests, I did play music for two of the plugins and I'm use you agree that music, in this case a full rock pop band instrumental passage, is adequate test material for plugins aimed at music production.
In terms of the interaction between bands, extreme Q settings and high gain revealing increasing divergences between the qualities of the plugins, I honestly find this practically uninteresting and I'll explain why. I come from a mastering background. When I see people use 10 bands of EQ with tight Qs and extreme gain settings, I instantly assume they dont know what they are doing. As a mastering engineer, I use as few bands as possible, reasonably often a single band, with as smooth a Q as possible, with conservative gain. In my opinion, that is the key to a good sounding EQ treatment. So I am interested in the sound of plugins given that kind of treatment. If someone is using many tight Qs at extreme gain settings, they are almost certainly destroying whatever it is they are EQing and then the more subtle differences in the band interactions is like examining the quality of the finish on a cup before a bull runs into the china shop.
@@APMastering I think you have a fair point. I agree that knowing how to use an EQ properly is much more relevant than owning a particular EQ model. However, this is not quite that point that came across in your videos. Particular in the first video, you are quite clearly speaking of an ongoing scam by plugin manufacturers and in your second video you put a lot of emphasis on the scientific methodology you employ. I think both these points cannot be upheld and if you are in fact honest to your audience, you should make that clear. Otherwise one could argue that it is you who is trying to scam people into buying your course material, which I'm not going to suggest, but it might appear a reasonable hypothesis.
So may I kindly suggest you make a third follow up video where you address these issues. If not, me and other plugin developers will certainly suffer from the spread of mistrust and the customers' attitude towards innovative plugins and proper research.
Oh, and I have deliberately ignored your audio examples comparison because it is not scientific to start with. We all know that comparisons like that are extremely subjective, especially if not performed blindly. And is also did not contribute anything to my point, as you have not shown the Delta and all my other points regarding the sampling of the parameter space etc. still hold.
3:16 Dan Worral recently made a video with some Softube plugin, showing that they were using a FIR filter for oversampling. If that Curve Bender has any modeled saturation maybe they're using the same OS filter and that would explain the phase weirdness.
Great video btw!
thanks. yeah, im sure he's dug into it more. I'm mainly interested in debunking the broader claim rather than the specific coding details
Excellent and insightful. Love your enthusiasm... Keep it up!!
3:58 um my mother in law, who has zero experience with any music production anything and who currently has a cold and is therefore stuffy and unable to hear well and who is listening on my old iPhone, can CLEARLY hear the difference.
I think you might need new speakers if you think that all of these null.
You deserve subs for speaking your opinion without fear and its also a unique take that's worth listening to. Always give every sides a fair chance in a trial lol
to be honest, I've got a very loud mouth and it might get me in trouble and damage my reputation, but if I'm going to be on social media at all, I might as well not water myself down because theres already enough watered down participation trophy style content on the internet.
@@APMastering ☝👌🙏
@@APMastering My very loud mouth that speak honestly gives me ennemies i know that for a fact. But also more respect from the smaller precious circle around me that matter. Cheers my friend.
@@APMastering Hear, hear!
This channel is brilliant. 😃 Like debunking conspiracy theories, but better. 😁
A lot of plugin developers won’t be happy with this, when Andrew Schepps designed a plugin for Waves they found that it didn’t match with the emulated hardware but on a 40 grand spectrum analyzer it did looked exactly the same but it sounded different. They ended up putting a high pass filter on 3 Hz and a low pass filter on 25 kHz and it matched. The filters were emulating the transformers 😉🤫🫡
Still I’m going to buy an analog equalizer for around 2 grand because I know it’s going to sound better than a plugin, maybe it’s the tube circuit and the transformers who cares.
In the back of my mind I always believed those "vintage" eq emulations were just a standard eq with those vintage eq curves dialed in but the GUI convinced me that It was real emulation that had mimicked all of the internal components. I've foolishly spent thousands chasing "that" sound when all I really needed was a stock eq & a saturation plugin.
Thank you so much for making this.
Snake oil in the audio industry is so normalized it drives me insane.
phew he didn't use my magic eq, so clearly i'm still safe to call it warm and detailed.
lol
Thanks for doing this. Several of these didn’t null nearly as well as I expected. Definitely heard substantial hiss / noise on a few after attempted null.
In terms of being scientific, I would say that leaving audible noise behind means that you haven’t demonstrated that these are equivalent.
Equivalent would mean: there’s no audible difference. What you’ve demonstrated is most literally an audible difference.
He addressed this in the video
I think limitations are the one true difference, the “pre-chosen” curves are in a way a design choice. The artistic decisions we make while applying some EQ are influenced by this. Plugins today give us all of the options but none of the limitations, 1000 tracks sound great but I guess we thrive when our brain needs to make 4 tracks sound like a full song. Just my humble opinion 😅
So glad to see a "no-bs" followup video!
I haven't bought a plugin emulation in years, with the exception of reverbs/delays. I agree
Plugin compressors and EQs that are meant to be digital like TDR products I think are worth the dough.
Emulations are snake oil.
Analog is my preferred choice for its saturation offerings and tactile more natural experience workflow wise
Great channel man. Really value and respect you for doing this.
Thank you for doing Gods work
I f*cking laughed my ass off. This is as entertaining as enlightening.
Well done mate!
when it comes to eqs, i always said this but people were like: nah
It’s way easier to fool someone than to convince them that they’ve been fooled.
I just tested the Iron plug in you recommended on some drums. Holy cow, what an amazing plug in.
good points - thats why i only use the fab filter proQ pretty much for eq and if I want something more ill use my Analog Empress Tube EQ or one of my other analong units for enhancement. Ive used digital for saturation but there is always something missing with digital and i use the tru iron ( sounds the best) but usually have to use multiple plugins - its just not the same with high quality analog units sorry if you think it is :)
no i think analogue does do distortion best but digital has the best control and choice. its my dream to manufacture some gear though
The delta varied a bit there, some nulled really well, some not so much. There was def some difference in some of them. I largely agree, except I would say you talk about EQing stuff surgically, but sometimes we use it for flavour and just having nice curves at a knob is nice to have. I've got multiple desk EQ plugins, and sometimes I just get a slightly better sound from one or another on a source.
Hello!!! Amazing stuff!! Finally I've found someone that I agree completely, as an electronics engineer :) I cannot stand the myths and snake oil any more... :)
Loving this type of content, nice roasting maaan. Thank you!
Exactly right. All plugin developers have are algorithms, not hardware. They all have access to the same ones, except for developers who use convolution and volterra vector kernels, or Neural Amp Modeller
Neural 6 ms. latency modeler 😂
It's not just EQ's. Even some saturators and enhancers can be made to sound like each other OR at the very least so close in quality that some insane prices that some of them go for are completely unwarranted. I recently posted a blind comparison at Gearslutz of several good saturators versus Cranesong's Phoenix II going for $500! I got maybe 3 or 4 responses but 100s upon 100s of downloads. When it comes to actually listening and putting their money where their mouth is, most of those claiming the superiority of such a ridiculously priced plugin are no where to be found. They just keep rambling empty "opinions" about it with a dash of elitist tone. And Phoenix in and of itself doesn't sound bad, but let's get real.
the feeling I get from gearslutz is that there are coordinated efforts by manufacturers or financially interested parties to dogpile anyone who doesnt lick the boots of whoever or whatever is profitable for them. This is why I'm basically just watching and waiting until my channel starts getting plagued by trolls in a coordinated discrediting campaign. I've got an extremely thick skin though so will probably just find it funny when it happens if anything
@@APMastering Thick skin is good for this kind of stance my friend. I say keep at it. Truth is the truth. And 100% agreed about Gearslutz.
Well done. Got to love your guts and the truth of cold hard scientific evidence. 👏👏
Guess you've inspired me to test out more plugins if they are worth using. I specifically only bought EQs with tasty saturation, but then again sometimes I might have made the mistake of hearing with my eyes :)
The phase shift in the Curve Bender Plug-in likely comes from an anti-aliasing filter.
BUT It could also be unique to the circuit of the hardware unit. When you measure older hardware you'll see these ripples quite often.
Those can come from a transformer which (in principle) acts as a low pass filter and the ripple comes from the transformers inner resistance interacting with frequency dependent changes in the impedance of the circuit.
I started recording as a teen in the 80s. Gear was expensive and rar - the first MiDi gear appears and also the Multitrack Recorders. The noise from analog gear was horrible, 8 Tracks from Tape thru a "cheap" Mixer sounds like a Day at the beach. The beautiest "analog/warm" sound i knew from the last years is "Be the one" by Dua Lipa - and there were no analog Equiment used, afaik. I took the thing which sounds good - the "warm" comes from the Midrange - which is often masked by too loud Drums, Basses, Reverbs - mix first the Midrange, and put the others later with low volume together - and: wait, give your ears the chance - the best sounding knob is often the "off" switch.
i share a less is more approach for many things
Thanks for showing what I have always suspected.
I will say that I am hearing some noise differences in the delta null results of a few of the EQs. But is that enough to mean anything at all? Who knows at this point.
I’ve been mixing in Nashville for 30 years and never thought to challenge these EQ plugins with null tests. Mainly because I assumed they each had unique curves and inherent tones due to the modeled circuitry.
But I have tested “True Peak limiters with null tests to see if they were truly clipped peaks without overshooting with digital distortion. I’ve been too occupied turning out mixes to put time into null-testing the massive pile of EQs I’ve been using. 😂
Thanks for your boldness to challenge the ears of even seasoned engineers along the entire plugin industry. I like challenges. That closing metaphor with you banging on the guitar made me laugh out loud. 😂
You have a new subscriber with an open mind. You’re never too old to hear fresh and new ideas, perspectives, and challenges that step outside popular narratives. Cheers!
The only reason I like using different plugins on different sources is the Q. I don’t like tweaking parametric EQ plug-ins all day I mix 150-200 songs/year so I work fast.
Exactly this. If you like saturation, get a saturation plugin, but don't buy every single plugin out there just to get all the possible combinations.
These videos are causing quite a stir. Nothing like shaking up the establishment.
As an engineer who has developed audio circuits for industrial products in the past, I agree in nature that ones focus should be on most effective use of tools, not purchasing this years hot plugin. I take exception with the general assertion that passive devices and simple semiconductors would not have affect on signals passed though them. Engineers need to consider the effects of Johnson noise- thermal noise on all of the devices that you referenced as fully linear, as a matter of daily practice when designing high performance equipment.
for radio or audio? i never considered this for audio but i'm not an electronics engineer despite being familiar with a soldering iron
My thoughts... 1. Pink noise is even across all frequencies. White noise is weighted towards high frequencies.
2. I was surprised at how many of the EQs had differences that I could still hear. I also agree that if you can match the curve shape between different EQs, they should null, regardless of the GUI design. I wonder if those differences that exist were because the curves didn't exactly match, or were from the plugin maker's particular added harmonic distortion.
3. I was surprised at how quiet those remaining differences actually are across all the plugins. In a full mix, those differences would be completely lost. So, if they were intentional harmonic distortions, then they exist for no other reason but for tests like this to show that there is a difference, even though those differences are so minor that they don't matter in practice.
As for me, I gave up on multiple EQ plugins a while back. I use Kirchoff for surgical EQ as needed and use an SSL channel strip for 'musical' EQ changes (where I mix with my ears, not my eyes). Time is money, and if you're wasting time on finding the "perfect plugin" (which doesn't exist), then you're wasting money.
1. sorry to disagree but i just googled this to make sure i wasnt losing my mind and I can confirm that the def of white noise is all freqs in equal measure... you might be thinking relative to human perception or something
2. yep, there is definately delta remaining, the question is, how loud a delta will make any difference in a blind test ABing actual music through those settings
3. i agree, the differences would be very minor, likely inaudible
Yeah, this is incorrect. White noise is even across the spectrum. However, our ears are more sensitive to higher frequencies, so it sounds brighter and harsher than pink noise, which has more low frequency content than high frequency content.
@@APMastering Looks like you're right. The definition of each has apparently changed. In the 30+ years that I've been working with Pro Audio, we've always used pink noise to tune systems specifically because it is perfectly even across the entire frequency spectrum, as opposed to white noise that was weighted more heavily towards the high end (lower low frequency volume). Heck, the SMAART software that I've had for years still calls it 'pink noise' in the settings and I can measure it through any number of methods and verify that it registers as equal across the entire spectrum.
Apparently the definition has changed in many places online, and now white noise is considered to be equal across the spectrum. Though I can still find some older websites that reference pink noise as being equal across the spectrum.
I guess, like so many other things nowadays, people feel the need to redefine words, or more likely enough people have misused a term and now everyone agrees that the previously 'wrong' term is now the 'right' term.
--a grumpy old sound man
You are brilliant. I use Aquatica Audio Salt and some Plugin Alliance analog models like the Amek 200, Amek 9099, and Knif Soma, among others. I also use Pro Q3. Actually, the analog models sound better than Pro Q3 when I boost. Pro Q3 is best for surgical cuts, but if you boost it above 6 dB, it introduces an artificial tone in the high frequencies. Try this: there are a few analog model EQs that you can boost even over 10 dB, and they still sound natural. Test this.
Most of the time the analog modeled EQs have a really wide Q and apply less boost or cut than the controls say. That's probably why you find them more natural.
hmmmm i dont know. i never bought pro Q 3 and have been using pro Q 2 basically since it came out and before that I was using pro Q 1. So I dont know if they messed something up with version 3. But pro Q 2 doesnt seem to exhibit this behaviour, i can boost 30db and then get another FF instance and cut 30db and it nulls with the original signal at -70db and I cant hear any difference ABing with music.
No way. Boosting and cutting is the opposite thing of the same coin
Oh this is lovely, good job!
I hope you can agree that there are features that make some plugins unique in their funcionality. Two examples are Scaler EQ and Surfer EQ. I'm not debating or rejecting the results of the null tests, those are not up for debate, and I use only 3 EQs not for their sound but their functionality. However, I think that functionality or usability features matter when choosing plugins.
100%, which is why i recommend nova
Priceless ! You got a subscriber
It was always funny to me how you'd hear someone say that one company's 0's and 1's were "warmer" or "more open" than another's lol.
At 6:45 the real reason for this video is exposed: he's just trying to sell us something. He even throws buzz-words like 'industry secrets' at us 😂
Don't spend on eq but come in buy my course.
Nothing is really free
I learned a long time ago that anyone that produces frequent content is selling you something
Yeah careful everyone.
I am 100% selling courses, this isnt a secret. I don't apologise for putting mammoth amounts of energy into creating no bullshit high quality courses for a reasonable price and then offering them on social media for anyone who is interested. If you are not interested, you are free to watch my content completely for free anyway. But I'm not entirely sure why I'm supposed to spend a grand on camera gear and half of my week scripting, filming, editing videos and replying to comments answering questions and sharing my experience with everyone here if I'm not allowed to get anything out of it. If you only watch content from hobbyists who are on youtube for the love of talking about gear, then the quality of the content you are getting is going to be hobbyist level- Where I'm not a hobbyist, I'm hardly going to do all of this without placing a single ad. That's just bizarre to even think that. In every single video I upload there WILL be an ad for my courses. Feel free to skip/ignore it and watch the rest of the content.
I've spent thousands on plugins and came to realize very quickly that the stock plugins with Studio One give me pretty much everything I need. Wish I knew that at the beginning. All of the analog crap they sell us was considered a flaw back in the day like noise and distortion.
The delta is usually small. When you pay for that extra 5% more of sparkle, warmth, whatever, it’s coming at a premium.
It’s great that free stuff gets very close
it's not nulling because i'm closely matching it but not investing huge amounts of time to get it perfect. just because there's a tiny difference it doesn't mean that difference is exclusively comprised of some kind of magic
@@APMastering its not magic, it’s a combination of subtle distortion, phasing modeled after whatever hardware the company studied. UA does a ton of research in these areas.
Engineers use these tools because it got them results they could record to tape faster, meaning less time wasted when the talent was ready to roll.
Sure we can recreate these curves ourselves to save money, but some us of just want a few simple knobs and get on with making albums.
✌️
“Sparkle, warmth, whatever”. You’re paying for snake oil and confirmation bias.
@@ABbruh sure
@@ABbruh tell that to guitarists lol
I think the limitations of older stuff facilitated creativity. I’m a musician so that works for me but if you’re mixing / mastering perhaps less so. I recorded in a studio with pretty much all pre 1970s mics & pres and it sounded unbelievable - to my ear anyway. Modern gear can be really harsh sounding and that’s why I like slapping tape emulators / saturators with HF roll off on.
Re: EQ I’m with you on the marketing but when I use my Pultec it’s feels more creative than ProQ3 (I use both for different jobs)
Great video, and I must admit, I have been sold a couple of times by slick marketing. I just signed up for the pre-order for your course. I feel relatively confident in my EQ ability, but I feel like there’s something that I could learn from you. Looking forward to the course launch. 👍🏻👍🏻
This is fascinating! I love how you cut through marketing nonsense. For the next one, can you compare a basic EQ plugin with a real hardware console EQ?
the next time im at my favourite recording studio I'll do it. they have a Neve VR. Won't be for a while though
Fascinating video! Those null tests were really interesting. It makes me wonder about Acustica Audio's EQ plugins since they're based on sampling rather than algorithms. Do you think they would null out the same way? Curious to see the results if you have the time and energy!
Agree with everything except I think having some EQs for quick go-to "colors" can be useful. Pultec, Maag EQ4 (I use Luftikus, which is free), 1073 high end are about all I ever need. Just one/two knobs usually gets it pretty close.
That Swedish producer who does the 'Snake Oil' videos would definitely approve of this.
You mean Wytse? He's from the Netherlands.
And an idiot.
The one with painted nails 💅
I think u are taking about the guy from White Sea studio
Definitely dutch
Yeah! I finally know it. This explain why most of the time I only use daw stock eq instead of these famous eqs.
I try to add these eqs and get confuse why they add odd "vintage/warmth" to the sound or they not did the eq curve that normal eq does, that's not what I expect them to do.They makes me work more to fix the "problem" that they create.
I know most people like these famous eqs, but it just doesn't work for me.
Thanks for this video.
I feel like something like this would be pretty interesting with synths, filters and effects as well.
Technically, inductors can saturate. They're half a transformer. Transformers can saturate too. If you build them too small. Look inside any vintage EQ and what do you see? Massive transformers and inductors. Valves can saturate too. Why was the Pultec so revered in its day? Because they managed to build a valve amp that didn't distort. It's exactly as you say. If you're up for a fun challenge, grab a Pultec and see what voltage you need to load it with to see the 3rd harmonic appear. It's eye-opening.
nice comment! i've never heard of inductors saturating under normal operating voltages, will look into it
@@APMastering Not under normal voltages, no. But technically it's possible.
@@davegamble1694 Your take on that whole topic? That'd be the most valuable contribution!!
This all figures. I’ve gathered several different EQs from various plugin packages over the years, and only ever found myself using Ozone EQ for flexibility, the DAW for convenience, or one of the Overloud EQs that allows you to saturate specific bands (sometimes nice, sometimes lousy). I feel bad for the plug-in manufacturers because they covered most of the useful ground they could over a decade ago. I wonder if people like the vintage-style ones because they wouldn’t normally bother to mess with bandwidths, so just end up wider, more pleasant sounding curves, quickly achievable with a broad brush and less opportunity to over-correct?
i dont know if i feel sorry for the plugin devs any more than i feel sorry for drop shippers trying to sell lightweight shippable plastic bullshit from china to people on the internet and not making any profit after they pay their facebook ads. well... i guess its a saturated industry. find another niche.
Thanks you for this, let people know the real, IF YOU HAVE EVERYTHING STOCK USE THEM, THEY'RE GOOD ENOUGH AND IN SOME CASES MIGHT SOUND BETTER THAN THIRD PARTY PLUG-INS IF YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING.
Great vids honestly,
Yes of course you can make a digital eq react like emulation gear.
That being said, work flow is incredibly important and using a visualizer doesn't work for everyone.
Every single person coming into this art is going to have different tastes on UI/UX which will later turn
into a comfortable workflow for them... and it is arguably one of the most crucial things to figure out early on as a mix engineer.
If you are comfortable using fab filter on everything and can get great results... awesome keep it up.
If you are comfortable using UAD/Arturia/Softube's classic interface workflow and can get great results... awesome keep it up.
It's just a tool and a workflow. I use both all the time. Also we have 15 day trials on nearly all this stuff today so if someone is going
to spend money on it before even demo'ing a plugin and aimlessly spend money... that's a them problem.
The injection of "courses" while kind of brand bashing feels a tad weird.
I'm sure you totally have a great method to teach and you should 100% charge for it, but idk if this is the way to advertise it.
to me this sounds like: "if you're decorating a cake don't use different piping tools, just use the basic one and you can shape it." if you have to do work to make an eq sound like another then why not just save time and energy and use that eq. Also, doesn't the fact that you can make one eq sound like another mean they objectively do not sound the same?
only half way thru the video tho so maybe this gets addressed. but as a producer i don't find that this is less confusing
Edit: finished the whole video, while I agree with you, I don't see it as a reason not to use a analog modeled eq if it has a sound you like
Agreed. That was my point also. I got called out on one of the other EQ videos for this and being "inexperienced." Actually, it's speed. Some EQs are designed to do a very specific thing. Others, general EQing. Looking for the best and fastest tool for the job.
To be sure, you are correct.
BUT... I think people who buy several EQ's etc are essentially buying the presets. Honestly. Getting the Abbey Road stuff, it's the painstakingly made presets and room impulses that match say, many Beatles recordings. Or using CLA or Schepps - it's the same. They are basically buying CLA's presets and settings. Could you make things sound the same with stock plug ins? Yes - but you may not have the experience and skill to achieve those settings.
Also - to match industry standards - you have high end studios with everything going through 'old blue boxes' and then to digital, etc. Buying your favorite artists signature eq I suppose is a way to 'get there' for the most part in the home studio/hobbyist market.
But yes, a digital parametric with a boost, Q, and frequency will be the same boost Q frequency across the board with out any additional flavoring.
sure. however, i dont like presets. i just use EQ in the way i need
Have to agree on the ST Bender , can never use that on Master Bus , but their Limiter lives on the Master and does what no other Limiter Comp can do.
8:11 - I don't agree with this view, especially when we talk about timbre and not "corrections".
It was these tones of these "strange curves" that made the tones of several famous records, and going after this is an aesthetic choice, it has nothing to do with correction. It's that sound of that strange 400hz frequency that is resonant because of that strange curve.
Digital only exists today because engineers suffered from what they had before. Today digital is here, but what was produced before is part of humanity's collective imagination, so going after these strange curves is more like a timbral repertoire than having an equalizer that can take any frequency without any type of phase change.
i would bet an original pultec that if dark side or the moon was recorded using another EQ instead of a pultec, it would have had no statistically significant correlation with record sales... but unfortunately we dont have time machines and parallel universes so we cant put it to the test. But do you really think that pink floyd and alan parsons would have all ground to a halt in the studio without one? they could have recorded darkside any gear you like and it would have still been great music and made every one involved rich
@@APMastering I agree, but I don't talk about the physical equipment, so much so that I'm in favor of simulations or presets.
And of course, the sound they made at that time would be what we seek today. It's not about what he would do in a hypothetical situation in which he would have access to today's equipment, but rather what he did with what he had, and the result that made it. He wrote the timbre that defined the style, with what he have. And today, we use and pursue it in an aesthetic way. Why would I use a gated reverb, if it weren't to imitate the sound of Phil Collins, for example? It's the same logic with the Pultec equalization curve, or an SSL Console. Giants built what we tried to replicate digitally, And if there's a plugin that claims to simulate what they had at the time (regardless of what they would us today or with access to modern equipment in the 70s), I'll use it to get that tone they got. I don't want to have to bend over Q factor or look at the phase graph, if that makes my job easier.
If I want to imitate their sound, I need to, at the very least, understand how they recorded and mixed it to replicate it. And it's not about using a 10 thousand dollar passive equalizer.
Well done, very well done
I actually agree with the premise of this video, however the delta on half of these null tests was audible on my iPhone on the other side of the kitchen while cooking my toddler breakfast as he’s smashing stuff in the next room…These subtitle differences add up.
you were listening to the drop in noise right? there is an initial noise burst which is "before" and then I engage the cancelation EQ and it nulls significantly and that is "after" which is more quiet. If you meant that, then I guess you just dont think it is good enough, thats fine
@@APMastering yeah, I understand the test. I just don’t think the delta was all that quiet when it’s still pretty audible from my phone.
@@joelhume1I’m with you. I’m on cheap Bluetooth earbuds and I was surprised at the claim being made because I could clearly still hear noise after the phase flip on most of them. A “null” test would mean there is no difference. While there might be less difference than advertised, it isn’t scientific to say there is no difference. If I remember correctly, it was the Harrison EQ that was quietest and most likely a perfect null. The others… varying degrees of sound made it past after the polarity was flipped, so not a null.
My only argument is something I heard from Dan Worrall. Using an analog style eq forces you to use your ears, seeing weird curves on a frequency spectrum can make you doubt your ears because it "looks wrong". However, I use Pro Q 3 for everything, it's clean digital, no cramping and fully featured.
I had fun watching your video....., you're right, I noticed a long time ago that EQ plugins always sound the same, there is no magic , only mathematics and maketing :)
Would absolutely love more content on transformers and amplifiers! nice one.
Well, I’m not sure how I stumbled upon your videos but this is the third one I’m commenting on. All on the same day. I rarely ever comment on youtube videos.
I think you’re brave for taking this on. I’ve had conversations like this many times over the years. About many different facets of music creation, production and technologies. There are a lot of folks out there who’s egos and careers and livelihoods are tied to being the ones who CAN see the emperor’s new cloths. People tend to get defensive.
As you pointed out, great music has been created under very primitive conditions in decades past. And in decades present.
Botton line: It’s about the music. If your music is crap it doesn’t matter how much money you spend on recording equipment or mastering. If you’re a recordist or engineer, learn how to recognize what can be improved sonically and use what ever tools you have available. It’s a gift for some and others have to work harder at it.
In the end, Content is king.
I enjoy your videos. I think you’ll improve the confidence of some young artists who may be intimidated by the Emperor’s New Clothes.
Keep going! This is such valuable content.
Would love to see a similar video for compressors debunking the “vintage”/“warm” marketing hype around so many offerings.
I want to do this because there is a lot of hype... the problem is, with EQs its relatively easy to do some kind of a null test but with compression its near impossible to do the same kind of test because there are too many variables. the main way I can go about this is visually showing what they are doing with long time constants, but thats not going to make for compelling content for people who believe in the snake oil.... there's people commenting here that dont believe in null tests lol, so demonstrating graphically what compressors are doing to the sound is going to be a hard sale
I have a softsynth addiction. But as far as EQ and dynmaics go: stock. All the DAWS stock plugins are amazing, specifically Cubase, Logic and Bitwig. But seriously any DAW has amazing stock plugins for dynamics and eqs
Yes, but you can clearly hear the difference in the Delta, on a Samsung flat screen TV in my case.
The reality is that differences between any EQ hardware or software are objectively small, but it doesn’t mean they don’t produce a tangible different output.
All your experiment really does is demonstrate the subtlety that we are working with and why it takes years to become good at processing audio.
If you take any compressor and compare to any other compressor, they essentially sound the same regardless of price or circuit design, we live in a world of tiny differences the moment we have chosen a vocalist. Once a timbre, or source character is selected every process is nearly insignificant. Yet, its still a requirement to deliver the very best end result in commercial audio.
Yeah but... my bits are better than your bits. The way I make the current flow in the transistors is soooo special, so... warm! Besides, my coders use a very special IDE made by an advanced alien race in a galaxy far far away, and the compiler comes from the distilled tears of elves shed every 432 years during a full-moon night when Mars is alligned with Jupiter, and my pixels guarantee a brightness level yours can only dream of. 🥳 Only this way you can produce tracks which win 20 Grammies a year! Guaranteed!
I've got a bunch of EQ plugins that I got for free from UAD and some that were included from others like Arturia.
I think I always innately knew this. I know for a fact that some like UADs pultec add harmonics, but like you said, just use a harmonics / saturation plugin.
Compressors do have different characteristics that are hard to mimic / replicate - so they kinda make sense. But again, I always thought "I don't need another compressor?? i'm good - these do the job".
If I could go back in time, I think I'd save a bit more of that money and just get a Neve 1073 DPX to reprint tracks through / record through and use a minimal selection of mix plugins. I might still do that, but that thing aint cheap.
Also I had a hearing test yesterday and learnt that i'm slightly above average for 18-25 year olds... I'm 29 😛
It's all Joke as all music nowadays has become Fully electronic, that means in reality only microphone and good preamp you need. Everything else can be digitally mimicked.
Great video ! The main differences are generally in the way bands interact with each other. EQ that allow you to choose between serial and parallel are ideal.
Totally right good job …..who,want to understand. Is welcome
In all the examples where you played music, I could always tell them apart 100% and enjoyed the emulated hardware more. And I don't even use emulated EQs, I only use FabFilter. I think now I have to do some serious blind testing. Thanks a lot, you sold me on the stupid thing you wanted me not to buy, lol. I wonder what it is though, maybe some sort of distortion in the frequency band or phase shifts? I truly don't know....
That's great. As long as you're taking the time to make an informed decision, you get to decide where the diminishing returns threshold is.
Man..thank u so gawd damn much!!! You are a hero now, no mistaking it
thanks for watching!
The NEVE noise sounds warmer, has more depth and is more analog than the others. Null test don’t tell the whole story, cause someone I know read it on a forum somewhere and magic fairy dust can’t be tested with a null test. Just kidding, thank you 🙏 keep bringing the facts and here’s my sub!
ha ha, I started reading that thinking you were serious. Ironically the neve one was the hardest to try to null as it has something weird going on with the phase. if i spent a long time I could maybe get it to null more but that one certainly has some kind of weird processing happening, not sure what. But interestingly if you look at the schematic of the original neve 1073, it doesnt seem like there is anything weird going on with the EQ apart from it uses inductors instead of capacitors for the mid band
Just proves, outside of the Work Flow..all digital EQ are going to "Sound the Same" thats why I use Nebula's GML for mastering
I agree massively with the premise of this video, but what I don’t understand is why you used white noise? I understand that white noise is ‘unforgiving’ in these tests but surely a perfect null would prove your point more? Even in the A/B music examples, why not just invert the phase there too? Surely a perfect null on a drum loop/acoustic guitar would be more blatant for the neigh sayers rather than white noise doing it’s thing still, which it is doing on every single ‘null’ in this video; all be it very quite.
Again, I agree with you here; I just think using white noise to demonstrate this was a poor idea… Nothing in this video ‘nulls’ by definition and that’s the point you’re trying to make
I appreciate this follow up video. I would love to see an SSL pushed harder too since that’s a common trick is to practically saturate the circuit a bit for a bit of crunch. If you crank the high end on a snare for instant (it’s essentially what CLA does)it adds some extra bite and grit. Curious how this would play out on a digital EQ. I may do my own tests when i get my new space setup. But the harmonic distortion is what it’s really about for me imo. It’s subtle, but adds up. And the hotter the signal the more it is noticed. No not every plugin has it either.
Anyway this whole experiment feels like your way to market your EQ class which feels disingenuous to us all. I appreciate your hustle and marketing strategy, but it feels like you had everything prepared ahead of time and had your conclusions etc. makes the argument you are trying to make feel weaker.
Also the slate infinite EQ (or whatever it’s called), the kirchoff and a few others are just different types of digital EQ, so they shouldn’t have even been included imo. Also that you brought in SSL clones most of the time is funny to me because they are supposedly some of the cleanest EQs out there unless you push them hard. Neve, API, and pultec in some cases are very different, but at least pultec is more predictable. Lastly doing just one band for most of this misses the point too, because each of these EQs responds differently at different levels, cut vs boost, and sometimes even different frequencies (see pultec trick). If you dive into this deeper, some automated sweeps would be really cool. Or showing a boost at x frequency. API for example will change the Q depending how much you are boosting/cutting and it has different Q responses for boosts and cuts. And it’s pleasing to the ear. I’d love to see you bring up plugin doctor with all of these and do some sine wave tests to show harmonic distortion when pushed a bit (trust me it’s there). I’ve replicated hardware with digital EQ where it nulled a bit. But there’s a reason people buy Neve hardware instead of using digital EQ. If your attitude is that it is subtle so it’s not worth your money or time, then you really don’t understand a large part of our job as engineers. If you are just starting out plugins should be pretty low on your list because of the amount of stuff in DAWs these days. And as i said, just because you can replicate what a plugin does, doesn’t mean the workflow is the same etc. also with digital AI plugins like soothe 2, gulfoss, or sonible, you really don’t need to know how to EQ these days anymore. So maybe hardware EQs are coming to an end?
Oh and note: good shoutout to my buddy at kazrog for the true iron plugin, it’s a great one. But as far as transformers and stuff are concerned you are correct it’s on the input/output stages of the EQ. And each has their own flavor. If you want that flavor this is the easiest and fastest way to get it. True iron doesn’t have all of these flavors that’s for sure. You seem to be the type that wants full control over everything, which is fine, but not everyone is like that (i used to be). I now just want something that’s gonna get the sound in my head the fastest. Most of the time it’s analog emulations.