EQ shootout

[AHawley]

In my mastering class, my teacher conducted a blind EQ shootout. On a scale of 1-5. With a randomly selected setting applied the exact same across all EQs. EQ was applied across multiple unmastered stereo mixes. Votes were tallied from 35 audio students sitting in various parts of the room. There may be some surprises here….

1. (3.9) Focusrite d2
2. (3.7) Waves Renaissance EQ
3. (3.4) Ozone 4-Analog Mode
4. (3.3) Digidesign EQ3 7
5. (3.1) McDSP Channel G-Music Mode
6. (3.0) McDSP P4
6. (3.0) Ozone 4-Digital Mode
7. (2.7) Digidesign Channelstrip
8. (2.6) McDSP P606
9. (2.1) Waves Q10

Discuss.

[mojobone]

Where's the Manley Massive Passive?

The knock on digital EQs among mastering folk of my acquaintance is that they all pretty much sound alike and do the same things, and in the broad strokes, I think that's basically true, but if you look at popular analog EQ choices, you start to see a few patterns emerge, in that some EQs let you get your work done faster. That being the case, what I look for in a digital EQ is mainly a good interface, and then, if it maybe brings something a bit unique to the table.

[Russell Landwehr]

Seems like without knowing the full scope of the experiment and the criteria for rating, those numbers aren't useful.

Russell

[cassmcentee]

Hawley,
What kind of room was the class sitting in?
Is this at MI ?
Or LA Recording?
Cass

[andygabrys]

ok so I am interested too.

what were you hoping to hear? or not hear? phase issues? Pleasant sound?

why weren't other common full range multi-featured eqs like the Sonnox (or as mojo says the Manley unit) not used?

I assume the boosts / cuts applied over a typically small mastering range (lets say <10 dB for sure). Since the eqs were applied with random settings, was there an attempt to do the normal things that would make musical sense? like cut 400hz. or cut 200-300hz, or boost 50hz or 100hz or 1k or 5k or whatever?

did you apply a null test to the eq'd files to try and see whether the "numbers" marked on the eqs controls actually did the same thing? Like d2 vs Q10 with same settings - invert polarity on one.

does it make sense to you that all these eq's are really just "digital"? If the d2 is actually a good model of the hardware, wouldn't you expect to hear some harmonic distortion on it more so than the pure digital Q10 which has no hardware equivalent? would this influence the test? Is that why Ozone 4 - analog mode scored higher than Ozone 4 - digital mode?

what were you hoping to discover? what was the professor trying to illustrate, or was hoping that the class would discern?

and from your perspective - what is actually surprising about the result?

[Len911]

I agree with everything already said.

I would go a step further, do the same thing he did everyday for a couple of weeks, only changing the order of the eq's. Then see how the results compare to chance or randomness.

I don't give much credence to shootouts, it's when you work with something over time that you are more likely to notice the shortcomings in certain gear, at least it's that way for myself.

[AHawley]

Yes…obviously these are extremely unscientific results. My teacher just posted them and I thought it'd be interesting to share here. This was conducted in our classroom, a room designed for post production.

Boosts/cuts were not extreme, but not made tastefully either. Just enough of a boost or cut to hear the sound or coloration that any given EQ may have.

Andy, all the EQs we tested were digital in this case because we did this shootout after going over the different types of IIR and FIR filters. This was just a quick and dirty, non-scientific test. I agree, to get more accurate results this could be done several times, with a number of genres and parameters being adjusted.

I guess I was mostly surprised that the Q10 sounded so poorly. I have never used it, but I know it has been around for a long time. I was happy to see the REQ stand against the bunch of them, as that is my go-to EQ.




Would this be a poor time to also share the results from our blind digital limiter shootout??

Song Style: Hard Rock
All Default Settings, except the indicated Threshold. Limiters were judged on sound quality, lack of distortion, and clarity.

-4dB:
(All of the limiters sounded the same with no discernible difference.)

-7 dB:
1. iZotope Ozone 4 (3.6)
2. Massey L2007 (3.5)
3. Waves L2 (3.4)
3. McDSP ML1 (3.4)
3. Digidesign Maxim (3.4)
4. Waves L3 (3.1)

-12 dB:
1. Massey L2007 (3.7)
2. Waves L2 (3.1)
2. Digidesign Maxim (3.1)
3. McDSP ML1 (2.9)
4. Waves L3 (2.2)
5. iZotope Ozone 4 (2.1)

I was surprised that the -7dB scores are all pretty close. Also, how Ozone plunges from the top spot to the bottom spot with 5dB of additional limiting, while the L2007 hangs on strong. One of the best limiters for the price, IMO

[andygabrys]

Interesting results. I understood that all the eqs were digital. I was wondering about the Sonnox and manley cause they are available in digital form.

re: limiters - I guess that confirms that I am not totally deaf - I have found the Maxim Limiter in protools to be one of the dirtiest sounding ones out there. Gain reduction of more than a few dB is instant trouble. Works great as a drum buss compressor / limiter though if you want.

[AHawley]

Ohhh I apologize…it was very late last night when I read your initial post.

I think it could have definitely influenced the results having some of the EQs being modeled after hardware components. The natural harmonic distortion and phase shift may have a certain authentic quality that we like hearing, rather than the completely digital EQs like the Q10 as you mentioned. That is one thing that could be taken away from the results. Further testing with the sonnox and manley digital EQs would be worth the investigation…

The Maxim was an interesting example on the limiters….of course the -4 dB change was so minor that there was hardly an audible difference between the plugins. It really bombed on the -7 dB, but I was surprised that it actually sounded workable when being used to really squeeze the track with a -12 thresh. (Although at that point, it's hard to say that anything actually sounds 'good') But it was at least comparable to the L2 which is saying a lot.

[Russell Landwehr]

Very interesting about the limiters. I regularly use the L2 or occasionally L3 on the master buss, usually no more than -4db. (which could be actually more since sometimes I send it some overs) But for some reason, I keep going to the L2. I couldn't tell you why. Nothing I can put my finger on, just some sort of subconscious thing.

Now I wonder if I should start using different limiters and EQs just to see if I find some more pleasing than others... it never occurred to me that there could be a difference, on EQs I figured boost and cut were just boost and cut.

Russell