What EQ Does in Music Production?
I was thinking about what’s gonna be the first digital “Gear” for this Gear Talk Category. As a producer, film scorer and songwriter, I have to master tons of digital plugins for daily use. However I believe the basic gear should be beneficial for all readers, so I picked it up from one of the EQ plugins.
Okay, let’s get into the TDR VOS Slick EQ GE (Tokyo Dawn Lab).
My great fellow mixing engineer said one day that if he can record music played in the perfect acoustics, there’ll be nothing to do for mixing. The perfect acoustics can be the results of room size, micing, balance and reflection. That’ll be more than the direct cutting which Lee Ritenour had done a lot with console mixing. Anyway, what my engineer said is that no matter how each player plays well, there would be some audio conflicts like frequency, phase, resonance, placement in the stereo. So we need to mix those audio recordings for “a better record production”.
Even if you are producing your song only on your DAW and tracks are played by virtual instruments only, and even if they sound pretty well, you still need to clear the conflicts happening when all tracks play together. Equalizer can solve some conflicts caused by volumes on frequency by boosting or attenuating.
Ear Reference Parametric EQ
What I like the Slick EQ best is its clearness. I can say its controllability too. As long as I don’t press the “EQ SAT” button on the center or stay at the “Linear” on Output Stage, All the parameters behave very stable and reliable. So I call it ear reference. For example, I can define the changes in 0.2 db boost @500Hz on my speaker with its EL (Equal Loudness) option. Wherever I visit any studios, I’m able to notice its frequency balance and characters of the speaker settings with this Slick EQ. Also I can check other EQ plugins’ behavior. By the way, every EQ has a different frequency response that creates its unique behavior. Did you know that? That means every EQ sounds different on “2 dB boost @500Hz”. Now you can have the choice for the best at every moment.
There are many parametric EQ plugins we can choose from Analog Modeling to digital precise ones. Here I suggest that you must be careful to choose. (both to buy and to apply!) You may feel many of them “sounds great!” when just plugged in. That’s because it has already “added” something or “changed” without any operations. Some of Analog Modeling EQ has already added some “real machine” behavior or frequency response. I took screenshots of some of my favorite modeling plugins when they were loaded. You see how they designed more tasty than pure moments of Slick EQ. I am interested in what the plugin is doing while operating. Sometimes its character causes replacement of EQ, no matter how much money I invested I replace it when it doesn’t sound good. So I think it’s important to have your reference EQ for any purpose. You can figure out whether you need or not while you’re in the trial period!
These two above are from Plugin Alliance. Mäag Audio EQ4 MS and Harris Doyle Natalus DSCEQ. Both have really nice characters and I love them. EQ4 has non-flat zero already, DSCEQ comes up with Hi-pass.
Next two are Soundtoys Sie-Q and Focusrite Red 2. Sie-Q has a natural analog machine-like attenuation on high end and slightly slope down on low end. Red 2 has the high and low pass filter, which is already on!
The last two are Boz Digital Labs The Hoser XT2 and PSP E27. Hoser looks pretty flat however just a bit attenuated at the very low end near 10Hz. E27 has a low end slope down at 20Hz just like Sie-Q.
Final shot is a comparison of Brainworx bx_digital V3 and Slick EQ. Both have pretty flat loading.
Easy Selecting Different Slopes
Next advantage of the Slick EQ is that I can choose different slopes and behavior quickly. It has four types of slopes on the free version, five types of slopes on GE (Gentleman Edition). This “slope selection” makes Slick EQ more interesting and useful. I can choose EQ behavior after I set each parameter. The difference they make varies like adding tightness, brightness, fatness, heaviness, especially going together with Output Stage selection. GE also has an optional Frequency Magnitude Display which is really helpful to control parameters and learn the EQ slopes when selecting. Well, I’ve been working with this EQ for a long time and in my opinion, the slope change is effective on the bus and master channel. I don’t apply parametric EQ on each instrument track much than para-graphic one.
You see five types of EQ models in the screenshot above. They are in the same parameter setting but different slopes; British, German, American, Soviet and Japanese. Actually the differences are not only just the curve line but the frequency response. For more info, please see each model in the manual.
Equal Loudness Option
From my experience both producing and teaching, the most frequent trouble with mixing audio is overloading. Both EQ and Compressors cause “too loud” tracks. The reason can be found easily that when you boost some frequency on EQ, you feel “it’s right” because you hear louder is better. Most of us think that making it brighter means high frequency boost, making it fatter means low frequency boost. We often apply EQ because we want to hear more. So we always Boost! We naturally boost. I always see my students’ homework overloading “RED” indicated on the master channel.
Most beginners (or intermediate) don’t know much about loudness, or how it is heard. It’s crucial to understand the loudness of speakers that you’re working with. If you don’t care about the loudness, technically you can’t mix your audio. Human ears respond differently to the volume of the sound. For more about loudness, Please watch this well explained video from Tokyo Dawn Lab.
Slick EQ has the Equal Loudness Option on the Output like most of other TDR plugins. This is really helpful to avoid overloading. It literally adjusts output loudness equally. I know many other plugins have the same option like “auto gain” or “input output equal volume”. But I would have to say that TDR Equal Loudness is different, pretty good, not like any others. Just because it controls the loudness curve, not the total volume of each frequency. So I can control the sound more sensitively focusing the sound without worrying overloading.
You can see above how the EL (Equal Loudness) option controls the whole EQ slope. When the EL is on, one particular bandwidth boosting or attenuating affects others controlled by the loudness curve. The adjustments are so tender and natural that you almost don’t recognize it.
By the way, this EL option gives us really different behavior from other EQ plugins so that you may be confused in action. you just turn off this option and listen to it and you’ll figure out each band’s behavior and how it affects the total amount of the sound property.
Optional Saturation
The word “saturation” has been talked about a lot for a couple of years. To be honest, a few plugins have good sounds and reliable controllability, many others are just noisy, and could be destructive. They may be confusing saturation with distortion. I always teach that saturation never be distorted in my class. Because the hardware is designed originally “not distort”. Who the hell makes a bad tone mixer or tape recorder intentionally?
Okay, back to the Slick EQ. It has already had saturation in the output stage long before other plugins are in boom. However, it’s true that people underestimate this function. Maybe because it’s too natural, hard to find on the UI, most users never read manuals carefully, or their names are not understandable, what do you think?
Let’s talk about Slick EQ’s saturation! I tested with Sine wave oscillator (1kHz) and analyzer TDR Prism which I set the view option max -30dB, range 160dB.
You operate the saturation function with two switches, which are the center “EQ SAT” and “OUT STAGE” As the manual says, it doesn’t saturate anything whether “EQ SAT off” or no boosting with “EQ SAT on” in the default position “Linear”. As soon as you boost, it adds the octave overtone harmonics. I have checked that it will start adding one even harmonics with 0.3dB boost and one odd harmonics with 10dB boost. It’s super gentle and you may not recognize the change. With EL on, it’s getting more subtle.
With other options for OUT STAGE, it will automatically add harmonics, no matter whether “EQSAT” is on or off. That means you can use Slick EQ as an Output Coloration without boosting or attenuation. You don’t need to pay extra money for the saturation plugin.
There are great options; the amounts and types of harmonics, the behavior when boosting, along with EQ SAT on or off. I shooted some screenshots however, the sounds change slightly less than its view. You should determine the difference of the coloration by ear.
Here’s the OUT STAGE “Silky”.
Here’s the OUT STAGE “Mellow”.
Here’s the OUT STAGE “Seven”. A little adjusted sine wave oscillator so that you may find what’s going on in low ends.
Both “Funky” and “Seven” look like they have a much more complex harmonic structure, and they sound really “saturated” just like adding another saturation plugin. We can find the same results in a real studio analog recording environment using many equipment, hardwares, cables, and so on. That sounds much more natural to me. Sometimes I need to deal with some noise on my gear chain!
More than just a Tilt Filer
I have a couple of Tilt EQ or Tilt Filter plugins like Boz Digital Labs T-Bon, AudioThings Flip-EQ, etc. They have their unique features and are very useful especially clear frequency conflicts in mixing. However, I probably use Slick EQ the most when I need “Tilt Filters” for a couple reasons.
First of all, it’s easy to operate with the EL. I can change the frequency balance clearly and exactly what I want. Second, I can choose the slope type, straight or V shape. This is beyond a tilt filter. I can handle specific frequencies more quickly. Third, I can use Tilt with both High and Low Pass Filters. I can clean up channels so fast.
Recommend for Beginners and Mixing Learners
For those reasons above, I have used Slick EQ GE for a long time and now I can clear almost everything with it. I also teach EQ in the mixing basic class with the Slick EQ free version. It’s way better to learn and master than any other Logic Pro stock plugins. When my students get used to operating it, I always recommend purchasing the GE. You can train your ear, have a strong reference, develop your technique and gain your creativity.
Now it’s getting much more convenient to buy plugins compared to the past, they have many bargains in a whole year. Try the free version and wait for the sale if you like.
