Dynamic equalizer

[philbrown]

MOTU's Dynamic Equalizer is kickass.
Does exactly what it says.
I'm late to the party.
I've messed around with it some but not really mixed with it.
Much like the Masterworks EQ it's on the clean side of things
which is a great tool for the toolbox.

Share your tips here.
I'm just using it on peaky gtr tracks at the moment and it's very much the right tool.
Haven't even tried it yet on the nether regions.

Great job MOTU- sorry I overlooked ya!

[Robert Randolph]

Awesome plug-in.

I love using it on anything percussive and for de-essing and to de-plosive.

[philbrown]

Awesome plug-in.

I love using it on anything percussive and for de-essing and to de-plosive.

I have a pressing de-essing need and will try it momentarily.
Also, 'de-plosive' is a cool word.

[stubbsonic]

Per band look-ahead!! It's so nice to gently pull something down or create weird "texture" using look-ahead (combined with attack-times).

Yea, I would have bought this separately and been pretty thrilled with it.

Also, I've never noticed any problems or unexpected tone wonkiness (though I'm not sure I have the ears for that).

[philbrown]

Yea, I would have bought this separately and been pretty thrilled with it.

That perfectly expresses what I wanted to say- that it's up there with the money plugs.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

I was fortunate enough to show up at a Westlake Pro MOTU training session and be the only one there. All we talked about was the Dynamic EQ the whole time. It can be a real timesaver. No specific tips, unfortunately.

[Robert Randolph]

Yea, I would have bought this separately and been pretty thrilled with it.

Yeah. I 100% agree. I work in other DAWs frequently, and theres a few DP plug-ins that I consistently miss. The Dynamic Equalizer is one of them.

I also kinda wish Motu would update the masterworks VST pack. I'd damn near buy that too.

[Phil O]

Dynamic EQ is something you rarely need, IMHO. But, when you DO need it, DP's version certainly gets the job done. I had a bass track that needed taming and I was getting nowhere with EQ or compression or both. I decided to try dynamic EQ and that was the ticket (really worked well for targeting certain notes).

Phil

[HCMarkus]

Love dynamic eq (I've ben using Waves C4 for years) for taming harsh female vox.

[philbrown]

I just processed a nice cleany slinky guitar solo that had a few notes poking out of an otherwise great sound. EQ didn't quite take care of it without taking wanted stuff away and ditto for compression alone. DE took care of it easily.

@HCMarkus - I've used the Waves one too, but this works a little differently and seems more intuitive to use, at least for me, especially when you need more of a notch and not broad strokes.

[EMRR]

I'll keep saying' it: The Dynamic EQ and the De-esser don't work exactly the same, sometimes worth trying each on problem sources.

[mikehalloran]

Awesome plug-in.

I love using it on anything percussive and for de-essing and to de-plosive.

What settings do you use for de-plosive?

I could never get it right for that so I went with RX 5 Advanced to get their tool (works great but Deplosive is part of the stand-alone only, no plugin).

I have the test track from hell to try it on.

[Robert Randolph]

Awesome plug-in.

I love using it on anything percussive and for de-essing and to de-plosive.

What settings do you use for de-plosive?

I could never get it right for that so I went with RX 5 Advanced to get their tool (works great but Deplosive is part of the stand-alone only, no plugin).

I have the test track from hell to try it on.

I usually go with a 'seek and destroy' workflow.

• Use the EQ with a boost to find the 2 primary spaces for the plosives. They are usually around 100-150hz for the 'poof' and ~2k for the breathy part of most plosive syllables. Ideally I make the plosives as bad as possible with 2 bands as narrow as possible to still sound absolutely awful.
• Turn the EQ bands gain to 0
• Set the low-band threshold so it just barely (1db or less) operates on normal audio. Attack 1ms, Release 150ms, Ratio 5:1, Lookahead 5ms, min-gain ~-50db.
• Set the high-band threshold so it is operating frequently on sibilance. Attack 0.1ms, Release 40-60ms, Ratio 3:1, Lookahead 5ms, min-gain ~-50db. This band will also de-ess pretty well too.

Usually at this point the DynamicEQ is barely moving for normal spoken word, but any plosives will get hammered down ~-5db or more. Throw up the ratio for more hammering.

You can turn the lookahead off, but then you can get end up with some clicks sometimes.

I also find that for higher formant voices, I can substitute a pretty extreme low-shelf for the low peak band. This works much better in general, but it will get triggered too frequently on deeper voices or any one that (god help me) uses vocal fry.

I haven't tried Izotope's deplosive, but I'm pretty convinced that it is likely a better tool. For me though, 'good enough' is better than perfect because my handful of VO clients are often minutes from getting or not getting a contract.

[philbrown]

I'll keep saying' it: The Dynamic EQ and the De-esser don't work exactly the same, sometimes worth trying each on problem sources.

Thanks EMRR. I've got just the de-essing song to try that out on. I've tried 3 other de-essers on it already.
I got a high-end de-esser as part of the Slate package by Eiosis but unfortunately I don't have a 200+ IQ to figure the freaking thing out.

[labman]

I too, use RX5 adv. Tis the bomb. I have it set for my editor. It feels almost like a plug-in that does round tripping. You launch the soundbite into it, do the task, hit save and it is saved within DP. Pretty fast. And way less headache than band searching, at least for me.