The plugin scam exposed. Did you fall for it?

[Technostica]

I bought my first EQ recently and that was because I thought the workflow of Claro was interesting and it was heavily reduced to about twelve bucks.
I have a large number of other ones that came in bundles that I've never used. I usually reach for Melda.

It's the same with channel strips, although I've never even considered buying one of those. Not sure I have ever used one at all!
I don't record instruments, so everything is created ITB which helps.

[Starship Krupa]

3 hours ago, Carl Ewing said:

none of these EQs have the same features, nor the same bands, nor the same cut / boost features

Right, and that's true even between precision parametric types like MEqualizer and similar.

Maybe you could get pretty close, but as you say, it takes a LONG time to copy an EQ curve from one EQ to another, even with the help of Plug-In Doctor.

Also what you say about different emulations of the same hardware getting it way different: noticing that I had somehow wound up with 5 different Pulteclones, I decided to turn Plug-In Doctor loose on them. And no two of them were exactly similar. A couple of them were WAY different with the same settings. All of the differences were far off enough to be audible. Am I going to get different results depending on which one I use? Of course I will.

I wouldn't pay much mind of the guy calling himself a "mastering engineer." He could change his sparkplugs and call himself a "mechanic," too. The only thing we can be sure of is that he's a "guy with a YouTube channel."

It's just clickbait, of value only to the extent that it encourages us to think about these things.

[Carl Ewing]

13 minutes ago, pwal³ said:

but i do love a nice GUI, UX FTW

But do you understand the differences? For example, if I gave you an API 5500 emulation and a Massive Passive emulation, would you understand why they will sound radically different? And that applies to both the hardware and - if they're modelled correctly - the plugin emulation. These two EQs are built on entirely different circuitry which results in one sounding very colored (active) and the other sounding very transparent (passive). Meaning they have entirely different objectives. 

If you were sitting down to mix and master, and you had a specific tone you were trying to achieve, would you know which EQ to use? And if you were missing one of them, would you know how to get that sound by other means, or know what to buy? This is important. Like really important. 

Quote

TBF, nobody (apart from artist/mixer/producer) listening to a finished track can tell the difference ?‍♀️

I'm sure you'd definitely notice if your favorite album was mixed / mastered with different EQ hardware / software. Anyone who's mixed or mastered an album would know this.

[ralfrobert]

Just watched this out of curiosity, here is / are my 2 cents: 

1. I think people around here know that we all have more software than we need, that a little collection of good tools can take you a long way, that GAS and "new and shiny", market oversaturation and marketing buzzprases are real things. Nothing new here. 

2. Vintage emulations imply another workflow than clean digital EQs, and they are used for other things. I have Fabfilter for digital, Black Rooster for vintage (which I got dirt cheap), TDR SlickEQ GE for the in-betweens. I think having more than one EQ makes sense. 

3. Methodical mistakes aside, this guy of course has a point. Many people have pointed this out before, but he's getting a lot of clicks which he wants. I recommend Dan Worrall and his lengthy 1 hour video on testing plugins.

This all won't keep me from buying a new toy every month. Wasted money? Perhaps, but playing around with plugins can be seen as a hobby on its own, and it remains within reasonable borders for me. 

So what has been achieved? Nothing I would say, except for a discussion here and some clicks elsewhere. So ... back to making music. 

Edited May 22 by ralfrobert

[Nick Blanc]

Perhaps redundant, but it's not important that I can recreate a certain curve with ProQ of my stock EQ. Sure I can. Sometimes I like to work without a graphical EQ to just use my ears. Sometimes I like the way the curves from a certain EQ are for a certain frequency range (Maag high end, Pultec lowend, etc.). I could probably match those curves if I was proficient enough, remembered all the curves and was willing to spend the time. But I don't. So I use different EQ's.

There, lot's of money spending justified.

[Nitrate Audio]

12 hours ago, Magic Russ said:

Shouldn't Q be the same though?

conceptually, they do the same thing. but which one is used really depends. its sort of like a drawing pen and sizes. which point size you need? hence a 10 or 20 band transparent graphic eq vs a pultec.

 

 

What the fellow is claiming is, you are being fooled by the GUI or the company logo. Well, there is lots of free eq's. And you can compare it to your paid ones and see if they do same thing really. 

https://www.voxengo.com/product/overtonegeq/

https://www.voxengo.com/product/marvelgeq/

https://www.voxengo.com/product/teq421/

 

 

Edited May 22 by Nitrate Audio

[Nitrate Audio]

1 hour ago, pwal³ said:

i have no comparison to hardware, no

i can tell the difference between originals/remasters, yes

but i stand by my statement that the audience can't tell and frankly don't care ?‍♀️ they're mostly listening on phone speakers ffs, not a treated room with wonderful speakers and a sweet spot

i managed to pickup a real  31 band graphic eq from work. (they were throwing away the old PA system). let me tell you. its a real pain in the ***** to try to use compared to a plugin. you need to find a  rack for it. you need find a power outlet for it, you need to find a cables for it. you need to figure out how and where to patch it in the signal chain. it's been sitting on  a shelf waiting for me to find free time to tinker with it. too busy working on songs ITB in a DAW.

btw.. i agree about the most people dont care and listen on buds and phone speaker. but it also depends if you have defined your audience or figured out who you are targeting. maybe you are going for  a niche market and they are people who do have stereos and a decent listening system -- the SH forums folks who buy back catalog remastered stuff. In which case, you don't want to release something which will sound like crap on their systems.

Edited May 22 by Nitrate Audio

[Fleer]

I need FabFilter ProQ4

[Heath Row]

 

[Starship Krupa]

7 hours ago, Carl Ewing said:

If you were sitting down to mix and master, and you had a specific tone you were trying to achieve, would you know which EQ to use?

I only use at the most 3 per project, so yes. Probably the Quadcurve built into the Sonar Console view, MEqualizer, and a knob EQ of some sort, maybe TRackS EQ-81.

7 hours ago, Carl Ewing said:

if you were missing one of them, would you know how to get that sound by other means

Of course. Just as back in the day, when there was nothing but hardware, a mix engineer had their choice of only what was in the console strips and in the rack of whatever studio they happened to be working in.

They couldn't go from studio to studio and get the same brand and model of board EQ or rack EQ's.

7 hours ago, Carl Ewing said:

I'm sure you'd definitely notice if your favorite album was mixed / mastered with different EQ hardware / software. Anyone who's mixed or mastered an album would know this.

You're saying that you're sure I'd notice the difference in sound between the same person mixing the same song using one company's emulation of a specific hardware EQ vs. another company's emulation and/or one company's 8 band parametric vs. another company's?

So if someone gave the same mixing engineer access to, say, Fab Filter's parametrics for one song on a record and then Kilohearts' on the next song, I'd be able to tell that they were mixed using different products?

I dunno, mate, I think you're giving me (the listener) too much credit there. And since the fact that there's a human being in the middle, using tools with 2 different-looking UI's, makes any kind of objective test invalid. A song mixed by the same person using exactly the same tools, then done again the next day will sound different each time.

I'm a fan of The Beach Boys and if a certain number of songs on an album were mixed at one studio and a number at another, I am sure I wouldn't be able to tell you which songs were mixed at the same studio and which ones were mixed at different ones. Same for any other band.

And I listen close, like "Music Bee sounds different from AIMP" close.

Do you have examples of different songs by the same artist that were mixed with different EQ's by the same engineers that I should be able to tell apart sonically?

[PavlovsCat]

13 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

Straw man fallacy: who, exactly, in "the audio industry" is saying that you "need to buy a whole bunch of different EQ plug-ins to get the different flavors because some sounds might sound better with that EQ and some sounds might sound better with this other EQ?"

I don't recall a plug-in manufacturer saying that you "need" a bunch of different EQ plug-ins. They make a bunch of them, and write ad copy about how they emulate old hardware, and to pique people's curiosity, but they don't directly say that you NEED to own half a dozen of them. If anything, the "audio industry" message is "find one you like and get really good with it." They make half a dozen different ones so that you can choose your favorite.

On the contrary, when I've watched "how to EQ" this or that source videos, the person making the tutorial uses one with a straightforward UI, if not their DAW's stock one then something with the now-standard parametric UI. One that allows you to set half a dozen nodes of a variety of types, and adjust the Q and gain. I can't recall seeing such a tutorial where the instructor chose a Pultec emulation or the Lindell TE-100 or whatever.

I've always viewed the "character" EQ's, the ones with the knobs and skeuomorphic UI's and and analog circuitry emulation as something fun to use that might nudge me away from my ingrained habits. If whatever "mojo" is programmed in by the developers makes the track sound better, even if it only makes me think it sounds better, then that's great.

My favorite EQ is the one that allows me to get results the fastest. I've done some EQ "shootouts" using Plug-In Doctor to help me duplicate the EQ curves and determined that for the most part, I can't hear the difference when switching between a vintage emulation type and a precision type once I have the curve copied. But who cares? The "character" one might take me in a different, useful direction.

Even here, where having 20-50 different EQ plug-ins is probably not unusual, I don't see anyone making claims like that. We might use this or that EQ when we're in the mood to look at different graphics, but for the most part, if someone said that they couldn't mix to their full potential unless they could use Fab Filter Pro Q, I suspect that most of would think they were silly/lame.

Someone might be happiest using a certain EQ plug-in, but would any of us claim that they could get superior results using different ones on different source material? Like "bass guitar sounds so much better through TRackS EQP-1A than through Fab Filter Pro Q?" Maybe using the Pultec emulation lets you dial in a pleasing bass guitar EQ curve more quickly, but would anyone claim that it does a better job of the audio processing part?

Maybe so, but I sure wouldn't. Give me the MeldaProduction free bundle and Kilohearts Essentials and I'm ready for anything. Having the fancier ones around just makes things more fun. And if I'm having fun, then the product is likely to sound better than if I'm bored.

That is so very well said, I wish you were doing YouTube videos instead of folks like the YouTuber in question. People would actually learn something valuable -- as I often do from your posts. 

[kitekrazy]

19 hours ago, pwal³ said:

i have no comparison to hardware, no

i can tell the difference between originals/remasters, yes

but i stand by my statement that the audience can't tell and frankly don't care ?‍♀️ they're mostly listening on phone speakers ffs, not a treated room with wonderful speakers and a sweet spot

There's some producers who get that. Often it's the ones doing dance genres.  The music is often played in mono in dance halls.

 Outside of seeing an orchestra in a hall,  most rock concerts are not about the fidelity but the visual.  

That video is good for beginners who do it for fun and think spending $300 on an EQ is gonna make a difference.    

[PhonoBrainer]

 

On 5/22/2024 at 5:16 AM, Heath Row said:

 

Edited May 23 by PhonoBrainer

[bitflipper]

Nearly every YouTube advice-giver starts with the same premise: I've found a secret that nobody else knows about...

[Sergix]

[dubdisciple]

Dan Worrell made a better case.  A video showing how things almost null is a somewhat  nebulous argument. I think anything less than a total null leaves wiggle room. A pinch of salt makes a huge difference between bland , salty and just right . With that said, most of these products will knull but the time to do so may not be worth it.  I am convinced that MAutodynamic EQ can be made to null with 99% of available software EQs but the perpetual question is whether it is worthwhile.  Mturboeq under the hood is just the core melda eq broken into presets. You can literally achieve every emulation in Mturboeq in Mautodynamic, but who has the time and patience for that? I'm not saying we should all use just the stock EQ ( although that is my go to for basic tasks) , but we are all probably guilty of having too many  EQs that are not actually making our mixes better. Thanks Larry and Bapu!!

[Mark Morgon-Shaw]

Interesting.

Did any of you guys pick up the new Sound On Sound ? The article Hardware Vs Plugins of a 48 channel mix?

The guy mixed a track on his Neve console with a load of outboard

Then he set about recreating the same mix as closely as possible by using an analyser of the hardware EQ curves etc. and re-did the whole thing in the box.

TL:DR - the mixes sound very similar 

The big take away for me though is it was easier to get the mix sounding good on the analogue gear. It had a wider sweet spot and was hard to make anythign sound 'bad' per se.  The "in the box mix" took more work and required a better understanding of the plugins to get the same result but at the end of the day it was achieveable. 

I think this also applies to the argument of different EQ plugins. You can probably get them all to sound pretty close to each other if you know the plugin well and can match the curves etc. But it will likely take you longer.  So I choose to use different EQ plugins for different things.

1 - Pro Channel EQ - just to lo pass filter and get rid of rumble etc : Because it's there and low CPU

2.- ProQ 3 - This is my day to day EQ : Because it has a great interface and is like a swiss army knife

3.- API 560 - I prefer this for my drum buss : Because it's a graphic EQ  and I find it easier to get the sound I want

4 - Maag EQ4 - For mastering : Because it's got a nice air band and the fixed bands work well to subtle sculpting

Could I get the same result just using ProQ3 ? Yes probably, but on certain tasks the others are quicker and easier. 

Also - I see many posts arguing this EQ , or that compressor plugin ( across various audio/music forums ) and often when I go their profiles and take a listen to their music it's often not very well performed or mixed. i.e. They aren't even outperforming the stock plugins never mind fawning over some percieved esoteric difference provided by an expensive plugin.  

Edited May 24 by Mark Morgon-Shaw

[dubdisciple]

On 5/23/2024 at 9:39 AM, bitflipper said:

Nearly every YouTube advice-giver starts with the same premise: I've found a secret that nobody else knows about...

"The secret technique the pros don't want you to know revealed!"

[Carl Ewing]

1 hour ago, Mark Morgon-Shaw said:

The big take away for me though is it was easier to get the mix sounding good on the analogue gear. It had a wider sweet spot and was hard to make anythign sound 'bad' per se.  The "in the box mix" took more work and required a better understanding of the plugins to get the same result but at the end of the day it was achieveable. 

 

I don't think it's so much sounding good - what we think sounds good is product of 100 years of recorded music made on very specific pieces of equipment, by a relatively small group of people, who essentially hammered the sound of "good" into our brains. In a parallel universe, where entirely other engineers made entirely different pieces of gear, it's likely our idea of "good" would be entirely different. That universe may have had colder sounding 70s rock, or more washed out sounding funk, or whatever. Maybe the 32C was never made and disco never sounded the way it did.

Let's take the 32C. A console with a very unique EQ. It is unmistakable.  You'll notice that sound across all of ABBAs work, Michael Jackson's Thriller, Janet Jackson's Rhythm Nation, tons of R&B and disco. That EQ is a huge part of the sound of disco, early Chicago house, and 90s r&b. What do these all have in common? A total and complete - absolutely complete - lack of harshness. It's a gorgeous sounding EQ for music that will eventually be played in clubs - of a certain era. 

What is special about it? Why can't you just reproduce what it dose with a surgical EQ like Pro-Q 3.

Try it. 

Take a harsh sounding mix (annoying crash cymbals or ringing snare or brittle metallic bass) and try to tame it with any other EQ. Then, after a day of experimenting, switch to the 32C emulation (which is pretty good). You'll solve many of those problems in seconds. BUT. There's a tradeoff. It will have a very specific sound. I personally don't like the sound for my own music. That EQ is exceptional, but not for me personally. It might be because I recognize the sound of that EQ on bass and it reminds me of 90s r&b. 

But this goes back to my first point - why do I think it's "removing harshness". It's likely because it's removing things that were also removed in 1000 other albums in the past, and I've learned to consider these harsh. It's also why so many emulations are made of literally every EQ ever built - because many people like the sound of certain EQs, and don't want any other options. It's not that the sound couldn't be replicated with a complex EQ like Pro-Q 3, it's that people want that sound. They want those bands, and that HP / LP filter slope, because it simply / easily replicates a sound we've all grown to love.

To go on a tangent. For me personally - I was using the Amek 9099 emulation for about a year almost exclusively. I started to get a lot of comments about a change in the tone of my tracks. Something about the mids / mid-highs. "I like your old mixes better."  What is going on? I love the sound of that EQ. And I'm using essentially the same bands and Qs as on other EQs before? At least I think? And I particularly like the high end air (more than the Clariphonic, Abbey Road stuff and Maag 4), and I love it for taming midrange harshness. It became essentially my only EQ for 12 months. 

But with all these comments I threw it into plugin doctor. It's the "Sheen" button on the high frequency band. I thought I loved it. But what it was actually doing is smearing the high end. It does a beautiful thing with the stereo imaging of stuff above 10K, and I got so used to it I didn't notice that it was totally *****ing with the higher midrange and giving it a kind of phasey sound.  But...although it's not a big deal on a single track / group bus, when that phasey smearing sound is across all tracks the final mix sounds "off". I didn't realize how off till I started checking older mixes in other studios. It was clear as day - I just got used to it on my monitors and thought it sounded great.

That's one button, on one EQ that can have an enormous impact on the final mix. So imagine how using a Pultec emulation vs. a Harrison 32C emulation will alter a sound. There are features very specific to the Pultec (and passive EQs in general...other than the tonal difference), but for the Pultec that's the ability to boost and cut the same band at the same time. This results in a fairly complex frequency curve that cannot be replicated with something like a 32C or a parametric EQ. However, something like the Plugin Alliance Kirchoff EQ has an option to replicate this behavior in parametric form. However - many people won't use this because they specifically want the limitations of the Pultec, again...going back to history...it's the unmistakable sound of so many classic mixes...precisely because it has so few options with very unique-to-that-device curves.

Anyway - all this to say. There are many ways to draw an EQ curve. Almost every EQ approaches this differently. It would be absurd to "null test", say, a Pultec vs a 32C vs. a Api 5500, because they have totally different features. Sure, you might match a certain frequency boost curve on one band, but you're likely also pulling out a 32C for additional band control or its incredible LP / HP filter, or pulling out a Pultec for the attenuation curves to get a specific kick sound. Neither of these EQs can do what the other one does - it's literally impossible. A more fair test would be to compare 2 EQs with the same features - say multiple 4 band parametric EQs with no additional unique features. For example, even the Harrison 32C LP / HP filter isn't available on other EQs of the same type, so it's never going to "null" with comparable EQs without that feature, when that feature is being used. (duh). And as has been said 100 times, you can probably replicate it with Pro-Q, but why would you do that if you want the 32C sound and the plugin is sitting right in front of you?

I have 7 default EQs installed. Pro-Q 3 gets used most of the time. But I use the rest for different reasons. 4 of them are hardware emulations (Pultec, Amek 200, API 5500 emulation,  and Massive Passive), each used for different purposes, and the remaining 2 are specialized (eg. Soothe 2). If it was back in the day and everything was still hardware, I would own hardware units of each of these. And 7+ EQ types in a studio has been common for decades - it's not unique to the digital age or "hoarding" or "we have it so good".  It's fairly standard to have a lot of options (comps, reverbs, delays, EQs, etc.) in any studio since the beginning of recorded music. Literally nothing has changed, except poorer people have access to more options today. Which is a good thing if you can control the GAS and learn what it is you're using or actually need vs. think you need.

 

[kitekrazy]

Imagine if there was one similar on softsynths.   Many of us have way too many of those.