What analog EQ for what purpose

[apaclin]

Hi, for which situations and purposes do you use Pultec, Neve and API EQs (plugins)? Asking for producing, shaping sounds.

[RichardT]

Do you have all of these already?

[resistorman]

Hi, for which situations and purposes do you use Pultec, Neve and API EQs (plugins)? Asking for producing, shaping sounds.

Exactly! Shaping sounds

[Glenn D]

I have an old Focusrite Liquidmix 32 and found an article or two on the interwebs describing the original units being modeled, with useful advice for most common application of each model. Not perfect of course but good starting points as to where vintage stuff was most used back in the day.
Sorry I can't give you URLs but I'm on a very backward connection here.

Cheers, Glenn

[apaclin]

Do you have all of these already?

Yes.

I have an old Focusrite Liquidmix 32 and found an article or two on the interwebs describing the original units being modeled, with useful advice for most common application of each model. Not perfect of course but good starting points as to where vintage stuff was most used back in the day.
Sorry I can't give you URLs but I'm on a very backward connection here.

Cheers, Glenn

What does it mean? Can you give it now?

[Wonks]

Any EQ can be used on any sound. You need to know what each EQ can do and what the sound you have needs doing to it.

For software based on specific hardware units, read up on those units as the software should be emulating them in detail. Look at the features on offer and how controllable the EQ is e.g. how big a Q value a parametric band can be set (so how narrow a band it affects).

A Pultec isn’t going to be used for precise EQ surgery, but it’s good for already fairly well balanced sounds that need some tweaking, and being a valve unit, should add harmonic warmth when fed a hot signal, which could fatten up a thin sound.

But you’d never choose use it to try and tame a peak between 1498 Hz and 1542Hz by 7dB.

That’s not to say you can’t use an EQ with say seven very adjustable parametric bands and treble and bass shelving EQs to do a similar job to a Pultec in pure EQ terms. You just need to understand what a Pultec or a Neve does.

Hardware EQ emulations are often fairly limited in adjustable parameters, and where you have non-adjustable Q values on EQ bands, they normally cover wide frequency ranges. But the classic units are ones people have found easy to use and sound good/‘musical’. But they were generally used on sound sources recorded in good sounding rooms with decent mics, so they didn’t need to be too clinical.

Pure software-only EQ plugs can be very precise indeed, but they can always be used in a more gentle way.

Note that you may find big discrepancies between cut and boost values between different EQs, especially hardware emulations, as the hardware setting indications were rarely that accurate. And EQ filters can have either variable or constant Q characteristics, which will change the feel of how the EQ sounds as you’re boosting or cutting compared to a similar EQ.

I suggest setting up your three EQs as inserts on a track and enabling each one in turn to see if you have a preference.

If you hark back to classic analogue recordings, they would have been done mainly on the console’s channel EQ, with occasional use of an external EQ where it was felt it was needed.

Record the sound well, and you shouldn’t need much EQ apart from creating space for lead instruments or vocals to cut through the mix.

But we are rarely recording in optimal environments at home, so the use of more surgical EQ is often required. But there’s nothing stopping you using two (or more) EQs on a track if you want to, a surgical one to fix problems in the recording, followed by another for more general EQ tweaks.

So just try them and don’t think that there is a correct EQ for every type of sound. It’s always down to personal choice.

Limit your EQ plug choices to say three at a time and get to know them. Don’t keep swapping between 50 EQ plugs in an effort to find the ‘magic’ one for the track. If you find you rarely use one of the three EQs, then swap it out for another and see if that gets used more.

[apaclin]

...
Limit your EQ plug choices to say three at a time and get to know them. Don’t keep swapping between 50 EQ plugs in an effort to find the ‘magic’ one for the track. If you find you rarely use one of the three EQs, then swap it out for another and see if that gets used more.

Thank you!

[RichardT]

Wonks' reply is full of good advice.

I'd just like to emphasize one point he made - as well as EQs that add colour, it's really useful to have a very clean EQ as part of your toolbox. Not just for 'surgery' but also when you need to change the frequency balance with a minimum of side effects.

[jaminem]

I don't have long but:

Tight bass - API
Round bass - Neve
Phat bass - Pultec

Forward mids - API
Soft mids - Neve
smooth mids - Pultec
invisible mids - SSL/Plugin

Corrective - digital/plugin

Sweet top end - Neve/Harrison
Airy top end - Maag
Sizzle/smooth top end - Pultec

Low/high cut - digital/SSL

[ef37a]

I am sure Hugh will add to/critique this but, all analogue EQ can have but a few 'properties'. The turnover frequencies, usually have to be 6dB/octave or multiples thereof (you cannot easily make an analogue filter of LESS than 6dB/oct) The amounts of boost or cut allowed and in the case of peaking or dip filters, the "Q" or width of the notch/peak.

Therefore I would aver the variety of analogue filters can only differ in these parameters and most adjusted to be the same? Where differences/preferences come in it is probably in the distortions produced by valves or transformers and in later kit FETs? Called of course "warmf" "mojo" "thickening" or that most abused of terms "Saturation".

Just my One P.

Dave.

[Aled Hughes]

On top of all the good advice above, bear in mind that these 'classic' EQs were never intended with specific sources and instruments in mind (just as microphone preamps weren't). They were usually made to be as effective and transparent as possible with the given technologies. Yes, some sound different to others than others and have different strengths and weaknesses, but they were all designed to do the basic job of equalizing different frequency bands - some with broad strokes and other with surgical precision, but on a wide variety of audio sources.

The mindset that specific instruments need a specific preamp/EQ/compressor 'chain' is a fairly recent development (1990s perhaps?), and is not an indisputable truth.

[Wonks]

Do recognise that whilst a plug-in may be designed to emulate a particular hardware EQ, there's no guarantee that the plug-in writer has got it 100% right and that it provides exactly the same experience as using the hardware would give.

Plus, if the design is based on a single old hardware example (some examples of which could be 50-60 years old or more), component value changes over time will have exacerbated any sonic differences between individual units when they were new due to natural component tolerance variations. So one software Neve EQ could sound a bit different to another maker's Neve EQ and capture more of the 'magic' that makes them popular.

[ef37a]

Do recognise that whilst a plug-in may be designed to emulate a particular hardware EQ, there's no guarantee that the plug-in writer has got it 100% right and that it provides exactly the same experience as using the hardware would give.

Plus, if the design is based on a single old hardware example (some examples which could be 50-60 years old or more), component value changes over time will have exacerbated any sonic differences between individual units when they were new due to natural component tolerance variations. So one software Neve EQ could sound a bit different to another maker's Neve EQ and capture more of the 'magic' that makes them popular.

Yea verily. About two years ago I stripped out an old Marconiphone radio (B9A E series valves) and I checked a few of the resistors. Most were 20% tolerance and few 10%. I don't recall seeing better! Most of them had risen to their top value and a few were quite a bit out of the top tolerance value. Translate that to emulating a 50 year old EQ and you got trouble. I doubt much of this stuff was built with Painton's 2% carbon film resistors?

All the caps were 20% or worse but I didn't bother with those.

Dave.

[Hugh Robjohns]

Hi, for which situations and purposes do you use Pultec, Neve and API EQs (plugins)? Asking for producing, shaping sounds.

I think Jaminem's answer above probably gives you some insight into general characteristics. The technical differences between these different EQs is measurable but what matters is the way they alter the sound subjectively — and it's only your subjectivity that matters.

Different EQs are designed with different circuit topologies and have different technical characteristics as a result. The slopes of their filters bands are different, some might peak before turning over while others might not, the Q of mid-bands vary in different ways as the gain is increased/decreased, the imposed phase shifts are different with different topologies, the EQ bands interact differently, and so on and so forth.

The best advice is to become intimately familiar with the sound characteristics of just one EQ then, when you know it very well, compare it to another to find how that changes the sound differently at different settings. Only then can you decide whether one EQ is more appropriate for the specific task in hand, or whether any EQ would get that particular job done satisfactorily. Then learn the characteristics of a third EQ... and so on. Most times, the appropriate job can be one with virtually any EQ and what actually matters is the ease and speed with which you can find the appropriate settings for any given situation.

Don't get sucked into the hype that you have to use a specific kind of EQ for a specific source. Back in they heyday of record making engineers used the EQ in the desk. Outboard EQ was a rare commodity. Yes, they might have chosen to record/mix in a specific studio partly because of their specific model or brand of console — they do have innate subtle sound characters — but then everything would pass through that console's signal path. They didn't have API EQ for one source, SSL for another, Neve for a third...

And yet they still managed to make a lot of seriously good sounding records!

The fetish for specific models of EQ, or preamp, or compressor has really only developed with the move away from big studios with big consoles into home studios with small racks of disparate gear, and the availability of plugins... many of which sell on their eye-pleasing graphics rather than their engineering accuracy!

[RichardT]

Also bear in mind that if you use this type of EQ on individual channels, then on group channels or the master bus you can easily have too much of a good thing.

If you’re using multiple levels of EQ then some of them are better being clean.

My personal approach (similar to other posters) would be to select one of the EQs you’ve got as your main EQ, get to know how to use it very well, and use the other ones only when you can’t get the result you want.

[Airfix]

Materials and techniques come into play - Turner would rub whitewash over his paintings - a subtle beauty

[apaclin]

The fetish for specific models of EQ, or preamp, or compressor has really only developed with the move away from big studios with big consoles into home studios with small racks of disparate gear, and the availability of plugins... many of which sell on their eye-pleasing graphics rather than their engineering accuracy!

Nice insight!

Also bear in mind that if you use this type of EQ on individual channels, then on group channels or the master bus you can easily have too much of a good thing.

If you’re using multiple levels of EQ then some of them are better being clean.

My personal approach (similar to other posters) would be to select one of the EQs you’ve got as your main EQ, get to know how to use it very well, and use the other ones only when you can’t get the result you want.

Thanks!

[sonics]

I believe the linking of certain tools to specific tasks came about partly because a few decades ago only engineers used this stuff. Engineers who knew how the EQs worked, and would choose appropriately, that is if they were lucky enough to have a choice! As Hugh said, sometimes the desk EQ was all you had.
With the advent of home studios (and now computers and plugins) the non-engineers wanted to know how they should use all the shiny stuff they've purchased "like the pros do". A myriad of hardware and software companies were happy to step up to tell them, and then sell them more stuff so they could have all the tools in their toolbox, ready for any scenario. The rise of YouTube has made it much, much worse.

Learn your basics first (possibly just using Cubase's plugins), then worry about the subtle differences between EQs. You might also learn by using a single plugin with selectable EQ types, of which there are many. It may just be all you ever need!

[Urthlupe]

‘fetish’ is a good description in my view of this type of discussion.

When I started out in the seventies an engineer had access pretty much only to the desk EQ and a couple of outboard units. And tbh, although I'm lucky enough to have most of the main suspects in my racks I’ve always tended towards the unit that’s closest to hand or already patched….. sort of the same way I mostly drink coffee from coffee bags rather than perc…

I struggle to believe that choosing the ‘right’ label EQ for the ‘right’ job is going to lead anywhere, in fact you could describe this kind of discussion as one born of successful marketing rather than artistic or engineering considerations. Find a well specified flexible EQ and learn to use it to achieve the creative outcomes you’re after - there are tons of amazing plugins and hardware units to choose from .

Loopy

[tea for two]

In Logic I use the bundled Channel EQ which is multi band to sculpt shape sound, take our certain frequencies on each channel track as and when required.
Once I'm fine with the mix I sometimes put on the Stereo Out a Pultec emulation Vintage EQ bundled with Logic.

That's it.
There's no point going overboard with multiple EQs I feel.
Although for me it's nice to have the look of some classic EQs in emulated form which I've only seen in hardware in famouse studios.

[Drew Stephenson]

I have a plugin alliance channel strip set up on my default channel and linked up to a hardware controller. This is my default EQ and compressor for everything. I'll only reach for something different if there's a specific job I want it to do (typically dynamic EQ or sound-mangling compression).

[Urthlupe]

Aren’t we a conservative lot……..

Loopy xx

[Drew Stephenson]

Half of it's just a speed thing. If I know Tool A will probably do the job I'll start with that rather than hunting through however many different compressors I have for one that might, might just do a slightly better job if I spend half an hour auditioning them.
Especially since half the time I probably wouldn't hear the difference anyway.

[sonics]

If I know Tool A will probably do the job I'll start with that rather than hunting through however many different compressors I have for one that might, might just do a slightly better job if I spend half an hour auditioning them.

That's far too sensible an approach. You sound like you're mixing music for a living! How are plugin companies meant to make money out of folk like you?

Now off you go and pare down your plugin folder a little more...