Smart EQ plugins

[Wrighty]

Hi all

For those of you who like to try new or different plugins in an attempt to produce better results, I have some questions.

I have recently tried a few "auto" or "smart" eq type plugins and had some interesting results. They are not all the same type of product and do not approach things in the same way and I am interested in opinions from any of you who have tried these as to which you have found more helpful with solo acoustic guitar.

Hornet 31 - Smart EQ - this is certainly lower cost but offers a decent result to my ears when applied to the master bus.

Gulfoss by Sound theory - very clever plugin that helps detect and isolate frequencies needing lifting or taming and allows some tweaking of the balance of the two

Smart EQ by Sonible - yet to try this one

Soothe by OEK sound - this one isolates problem frequencies and then allows you to tweak them (I know Doug has used this one)

I'd love to hear from those of you who have tried these.

Peter.

[rick-slo]

Tried Gulfoss for a time. Presets change the sound in a general way but IMO not specific enough to get me very far along the way in dealing
with the issues that can come up in guitar recordings. Have better luck with other equalizers I have.

[KevWind]

Well unfortunately EQ presets have no clue what your room sounds like, it's a skill set that should be learned not purchased "NOW get off my lawn"

[Wrighty]

Originally Posted by KevWind

Well unfortunately EQ presets have no clue what your room sounds like, it's a skill set that should be learned not purchased "NOW get off my lawn"

Fair comment Kev.

My thinking was that my room sound is going to need to be dealt with (despite a reasonable amount of treatment) regardless, and so that's either me sweeping an EQ point and then subtracting or something like one of these Smart EQ's that may be quicker and more effective at identifying and dealing with the unwanted resonances?

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by Wrighty

Fair comment Kev.

My thinking was that my room sound is going to need to be dealt with (despite a reasonable amount of treatment) regardless, and so that's either me sweeping an EQ point and then subtracting or something like one of these Smart EQ's that may be quicker and more effective at identifying and dealing with the unwanted resonances?

Maybe but seems to me to be optimal, it should read the specific room resonance via a mic input on the way in and become a preset rather than after the fact ??? But I could be wrong. And honestly I was mostly just being humorous and a smart aleck

[Brent Hahn]

I don't know about the others, but with "Soothe" the designation "EQ" isn't quite it. It's really a finely-tuneable multi-band compressor that can be made to react to problem frequencies and resonances when they occur while leaving the signal alone when they don't. That's the nutshell explanation -- you should try it. Besides guitars, the main interest here, it can be very useful in damage control on a vocal recorded with a bargain condenser.

[Trent in WA]

Soothe2 is great, and works as Brent described so succinctly. My other favorite EQ is Fabfilter's Pro-Q3, which has a great, easy-to-use interface and combines both static and dynamic EQs.

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by Brent Hahn

I don't know about the others, but with "Soothe" the designation "EQ" isn't quite it.

Right, basically a multi-band-compressor. I'd say that these days I rarely use "EQ", I use tools like soothe, as well as some other "tone shaping" plugins that work differently than EQ (and usually very subtly). Mostly I "EQ" with mic placement. The Fab Filter EQ is really nice for when you do need EQ, and it combines the functions of a straight EQ and dynamic EQ. Ozone's also nice, with both (but separate) EQ and dynamic EQ, and it also has an auto-analysis function - which is almost always wrong. These things tend to assume you're mixing a full band, not solo guitar. Dynamic EQ is often useful, helps fix boomy notes (better fixed with mic placement, but when you have to, you have to). But it's also essentially multi-band compression with an "EQ-like" UI.

But you can't really solve room acoustics issues with EQ, or any of these things. You might fix a few boomy notes, but you can't remove room sound.

[alohachris]

Aloha Kev,

Kev Wind, Ha-Ha-Ha! You just "said" what I would love to have said at so many music & recording forums where newbie home player/recordists fall in love with software plug-in fixes before they have even learned the absolute basics & pre-requisities to use those pieces of fool's gold:

"Well unfortunately EQ presets have no clue what your room sounds like, it's a skill set that should be learned not purchased "NOW get off my lawn!"

Software has provided so much to humanity - most of it in terms of conveniences. But what it has done to a couple of generations now is to rob them of the pleasure of living through & developing important life skills & experiences - ex: like developing 'educated ears' for recording natural sound.

In this case, "smart" plug-in's promise so much, but rob us at this stage of the ability to hear & use, for example, EQ effectively in a space (hopefully treated!) plus the essential ability to develop our ears for home recording in general. As Doug has noted, the trick is to learn to use any plug-in sparingly, if at all. But your ears need to be developed enough to know what sparingly really means. Presets rob you of that crucial development.

A Big Thumbs Down on relying upon auto-program, "smart" plug-in software presets & solutions first - most that I've heard anyway. We need to develop & use our effing ears for playing & recording in spaces! BTW, in the studio, very little EQ is always the best EQ. As Doug & most of the vets here have stressed, EQ can't "cure" a poor room. IMO, light reverb is mostly preferred for solo acoustic, with exceptions of course (like those R&R Chuck Berry "slap back room" song's). And no compression is an acoustic guitar's friend! Most of those plug-in's are terrible - imagine using those presets?!?. Gimme an outboard UA 1176 over any compression plug-in!

Down off my soapbox now. Cracked me up, Kev!! Ha!

alohachris

PS: Hey, Don't get me wrong, I used to play (but not seriously record) with new tools, samples & plug-in's all day long. I mean I freaked out for several days & nights straight playing with Altiverb's convolution reverbs, Logic Pro's infinite samplings,& all those great Waves Silver Reverb Bundles, Ha! But there is a limit - & some homework needs to be done first when applying it to acoustic guitar recordings. Frankly, they don't need preset auto-programmed bells & whistles - the sound of an unadulterated, un-plugged-in acoustic guitar is enough for me! -alohachris-

[Doug Young]

I have no problem with presets as a starting point. Trying several give you some idea of the impact and range of the tool. It's just pretty unlikely that most will match your needs. More or less an accident if it does. But as a way to train your ears as to what they do, that's useful. However, these auto-program EQs just aren't at all likely to be right for solo acoustic guitar, even if they were right for a band.

One of my favorite articles on recording was some years ago in some recording magazine. Something like "10 sure-fire techniques for recording acoustic guitar", by some famous recording engineer. I read it, taking notes, "hmm, never thought of that before", and so on. Got to the last paragraph, where he says "these things are guaranteed to work, unless you're doing something totally crazy that no one ever, ever does, like recording solo guitar". Oops.

So similarly, you can bet that when people are making these presets or auto-tools, they're thinking about the 99% mainstream music, rock, hip-hop, rap, etc. If they get to classical or jazz they're really going for the fringe audiences. Solo acoustic guitar probably isn't even something they've heard or know exists.

[rick-slo]

Occasionally a preset on an equalizer might bring out something interesting you can use as a takeoff point but that has been pretty rare in my experiences. On the other hand reverb presets and a collection of convolution impulse responses to play with have been pretty useful in general.

[Wrighty]

Originally Posted by Doug Young

I have no problem with presets as a starting point. Trying several give you some idea of the impact and range of the tool. It's just pretty unlikely that most will match your needs. More or less an accident if it does. But as a way to train your ears as to what they do, that's useful. However, these auto-program EQs just aren't at all likely to be right for solo acoustic guitar, even if they were right for a band.

One of my favorite articles on recording was some years ago in some recording magazine. Something like "10 sure-fire techniques for recording acoustic guitar", by some famous recording engineer. I read it, taking notes, "hmm, never thought of that before", and so on. Got to the last paragraph, where he says "these things are guaranteed to work, unless you're doing something totally crazy that no one ever, ever does, like recording solo guitar". Oops.

So similarly, you can bet that when people are making these presets or auto-tools, they're thinking about the 99% mainstream music, rock, hip-hop, rap, etc. If they get to classical or jazz they're really going for the fringe audiences. Solo acoustic guitar probably isn't even something they've heard or know exists.

Whilst I can appreciate the “use your ears” that is so often bandied about by those with experience, it doesn’t help those of us with limited time trying to develop a skill for what to listen for - in this case, as you say Doug, a plugin that listens to the track and the resonances and offers up a good start point is always going to be useful to someone like me. I can listen to it and A/B it and then tweak to taste.

I do however realise that the mixing of solo acoustic guitar is not what these plug in’s are designed for and so they may not be of any real value in this case.

What I tend to hear when I listen to reference tracks of solo guitar is that there tends to be less lower mid and more high end = more clarity (and in some cases brightness) but to achieve this without some sort of subtractive eg and high shelf (by moving mics) has proved difficult for me. I have however steadily reduced the amount of EQ I will add over recent months.

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by Wrighty

What I tend to hear when I listen to reference tracks of solo guitar is that there tends to be less lower mid and more high end = more clarity (and in some cases brightness) but to achieve this without some sort of subtractive eg and high shelf (by moving mics) has proved difficult for me. I have however steadily reduced the amount of EQ I will add over recent months.

The plugins that let you try to match a a reference track rather than some built-in notion of what's right may be more useful. Ozone can do this (it also does the "auto-master" according to some pre-conceived built-in notion/analysis - tho actually later versions of Ozone will also "auto-master" to a reference track of your choice, too). I think Fabfilter does EQ matching also? Basically, show you the EQ needed to make your track match a track of your choice, so you could pick another fingerstyle piece, or if you're playing someone else's tune, even match their recording of the same tune. I've had rather mixed results with this in Ozone. Sometimes it seems to work, other times the results seem really wacky.

A tool I've found more useful is Har-Bal. it gets a bad rap in some circles because it also claims to be a sort of automated mastering tool, but all I use it for is to compare two spectrums. It basically averages out the frequency content over time of whatever you give it, and shows you the two super-imposed curves. There are lots of tools that do this, but for some reason I just find HarBal's display to be especially clear and easy to use. You can use it to EQ the file to try to manually, or automatically match, but all I do is use it to verify "oh, the reference is 3db up at 1Khz than my track" and so on. Then I go back to my DAW and start tweaking accordingly (but still using ears to be sure it's really desirable).

[Wrighty]

Originally Posted by Doug Young

The plugins that let you try to match a a reference track rather than some built-in notion of what's right may be more useful. Ozone can do this (it also does the "auto-master" according to some pre-conceived built-in notion/analysis - tho actually later versions of Ozone will also "auto-master" to a reference track of your choice, too). I think Fabfilter does EQ matching also? Basically, show you the EQ needed to make your track match a track of your choice, so you could pick another fingerstyle piece, or if you're playing someone else's tune, even match their recording of the same tune. I've had rather mixed results with this in Ozone. Sometimes it seems to work, other times the results seem really wacky.

A tool I've found more useful is Har-Bal. it gets a bad rap in some circles because it also claims to be a sort of automated mastering tool, but all I use it for is to compare two spectrums. It basically averages out the frequency content over time of whatever you give it, and shows you the two super-imposed curves. There are lots of tools that do this, but for some reason I just find HarBal's display to be especially clear and easy to use. You can use it to EQ the file to try to manually, or automatically match, but all I do is use it to verify "oh, the reference is 3db up at 1Khz than my track" and so on. Then I go back to my DAW and start tweaking accordingly (but still using ears to be sure it's really desirable).

I routinely use the Ozone reference feature to load up the version of the tune I am working on and run the capture - strangely it always wants to hike the whole spectrum from about 1k up - by a fair bit. It sounds terrible so I never use it. I am not sure why it reads things so wrongly or if it may be user error but it certainly doesn’t match with my ears.

Instead I use the reference track to A/B between mine and pick out the overall tonality - in some cases it’s tougher where the player (like Simpson) is using a guitar like a Sobell with a different tonal spectrum than mine.

People seem to hate Har-bal and I have also seen one called Voxengo curve that seems to offer a similar thing.

Do you ever use any simpler EQ plugins with a more analogue tone - Sonible Sweetone for example? (Which is also a tilt EQ)

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by Wrighty

Whilst I can appreciate the “use your ears” that is so often bandied about by those with experience, it doesn’t help those of us with limited time trying to develop a skill for what to listen for - in this case, as you say Doug, a plugin that listens to the track and the resonances and offers up a good start point is always going to be useful to someone like me. I can listen to it and A/B it and then tweak to taste.

I do however realise that the mixing of solo acoustic guitar is not what these plug in’s are designed for and so they may not be of any real value in this case.

What I tend to hear when I listen to reference tracks of solo guitar is that there tends to be less lower mid and more high end = more clarity (and in some cases brightness) but to achieve this without some sort of subtractive eg and high shelf (by moving mics) has proved difficult for me. I have however steadily reduced the amount of EQ I will add over recent months.

Actually all kidding aside, that idea ("use your ears" ) is exactly the point,, AND it very definitely does help, and is (Arguably) the only consistent, reliable path to actually learning "Critical Listening" (which is by the way is 90% +,,an intentional learned skill, and result of experience and time spent and maybe 10% natural hearing ability)
The notion that some algorithm can circumvent the required time (and intention) that it takes to learn that skill, is a false hope, and was part what Aloha Chris was referring too, with the "generation robbed " comment .

Now make no mistake I often start with a preset and go from there, as Doug mentioned.

And no doubt auditioning presets is also valuable and viable time spent.

But that does not change the fact that taking the time to practice and learn to listen critically,, will be the single most valuable endeavor and accomplishment you will undertake to record and mix better.
In other words try to "enjoy the journey" as per my sig, rather than the just the result .

I know in our fast food, instant gratification, world many people do not want to hear it BUT,,,,, as far as "limited time" consider what an old horse "whisperer" / trainer once said to me , when I complained about finding the time.

"We can almost always find the time for things that are "really" important to us, and usually can't when they "really", are not that important" .....
And in all honesty when I pulled back and took a good hard, "objective" look in the mirror ,,,he was right.