Parametric Equalizer

Anyone who likes fiddling with parametric equalizer- how do you get the most out of it? I find it hard to get a balance between the high and low tones without having everything distinigrate into reverb madness. Usually makes such nice little bell sounds though.

I'm using a software one for some commissioned soundtrack work right now and it's frustrating as shit. Starts clipping in gay ways if you look at it funny. I keep having to turn the rest of the mix down so I can back off the gain on this one track for benefit of the precious EQ plugin.

I'm sure I'd have great fun with a hardware one, but the nice tube ones are a bit out of my range at the mo.

  Morgan said:

Anyone who likes fiddling with parametric equalizer- how do you get the most out of it? I find it hard to get a balance between the high and low tones without having everything distinigrate into reverb madness. Usually makes such nice little bell sounds though.

The reason it sounds like bell tones is that bandpass filter with too much gain will start to self resonate on some eqs. What eq is this? And reverb? How do you get reverb from an eq? I think that parametric eqs are a much more efficient way to get what you want, rather than having 10-20 fixed bands that you need to boost/cut, you can have 3-6 bands that all do something different at different frequencies and are much more exact.

  Bubba69 said:

And reverb? How do you get reverb from an eq?

You could be boosting an "air" frequency like 16khz, or you could be introducing compression, which exaggerates any existing reverb in the material.

i'd say the self resonance of the eq could be percieved as "reverb", peaks in input amplitude stimulate the self-resonance but it dies off after a while ("reverb" decay)

  Bubba69 said:

  Morgan said:

Anyone who likes fiddling with parametric equalizer- how do you get the most out of it? I find it hard to get a balance between the high and low tones without having everything distinigrate into reverb madness. Usually makes such nice little bell sounds though.

 

The reason it sounds like bell tones is that bandpass filter with too much gain will start to self resonate on some eqs. What eq is this? And reverb? How do you get reverb from an eq? I think that parametric eqs are a much more efficient way to get what you want, rather than having 10-20 fixed bands that you need to boost/cut, you can have 3-6 bands that all do something different at different frequencies and are much more exact.

I didn't know you could get that out of a bandpass filter...maybe mixing down a bandpass and a parametric would get an interesting effect

  analogue wings said:

I'm using a software one for some commissioned soundtrack work right now and it's frustrating as shit. Starts clipping in gay ways if you look at it funny. I keep having to turn the rest of the mix down so I can back off the gain on this one track for benefit of the precious EQ plugin.

 

I'm sure I'd have great fun with a hardware one, but the nice tube ones are a bit out of my range at the mo.

I'm on a software one too, maybe convert it real low and try a simple DB boost > highs softener? Then you can work with those really tiny subtle noises hiding out on the threshold, instead of turning em into earsplitting noise. sometimes works for me

  Morgan said:

  analogue wings said:

I'm using a software one for some commissioned soundtrack work right now and it's frustrating as shit. Starts clipping in gay ways if you look at it funny. I keep having to turn the rest of the mix down so I can back off the gain on this one track for benefit of the precious EQ plugin.

 

I'm sure I'd have great fun with a hardware one, but the nice tube ones are a bit out of my range at the mo.

 

I'm on a software one too, maybe convert it real low and try a simple DB boost > highs softener? Then you can work with those really tiny subtle noises hiding out on the threshold, instead of turning em into earsplitting noise. sometimes works for me

sorry, just realized that I'm talking specifically about the "resonating A's" function, if you have it