Favorite dynamic EQ plugin?

[seamonster]

Hi all, Happy Solstice. Wondering what your favorite dynamic-EQ plug-ins are. E.g., Eventide SplitEQ. Things similar to multiband compressors... but it seems like there have been some new concepts in the past couple of years. Maybe something interesting is on holiday discount right now?

Best,
K

[daniel.sneed]

IMOE, Ozone multiband comp has been great here for stereo master.
In case of single track job, DP Dynamic EQ has proved to be a great tool when dealing with specific frequency taming.
As usual, those two have their learning curves, though. And, yes, YMMV.

[stubbsonic]

I really love Wave Arts MultiDynamics. I believe all their plugs on 30% off now.

You should read about it. The GUI isn't the prettiest, but it's really powerful and efficient. It is so flexible, it can be a full upward or downward, compression/expansion, on a per band basis. Great fidelity, massive flexibility. Compression, limiter, look-ahead, hard/soft knees, gating, expansion, noise-reduction, etc. etc. It is all things to all people. It's possible the demos might not even scratch the surface of all this thing can do. It's my go-to dynamics processor.

That said, I like DP's built in dynamic EQ, it's just not quite as flexible or easy to edit.

[amplidood]

FabFilter forever


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[stubbsonic]

https://wavearts.com/products/plugins/multidynamics-6/

https://youtu.be/XeQkEGwc8YI

The vid may seem a little "dry" but it will quickly show why this plug is so useful.

[seamonster]

Some nice suggestions so far, thanks.

At a glance, the Fabfilter Pro-MB ($199, or less in a bundle) and Eventide SplitEQ (on sale for $99 from $179 till Jan 3) look similar to each other (and different to typical MB's) in allowing the band ranges to overlap. So for example you could apply reduction to a broad range of the spectrum while preserving gain within a narrow peak (or vice versa, whatever). I wonder if anyone can say what are the practical differences between the two – aside from a hundred bucks right now!

The WaveArts MultiDynamics (sale $104, regularly $149) looks to be flexible and intuitive, though provides adjacent bands typical of, say, the Waves multiband comp, rather that the overlapping ranges of the two plug-ins above.

Stubbsonic, thanks for the link to the helpful WaveArts vid, and for pointing out DP's dynamic EQ. I never even noticed it there(!), as I've always reached for Ozone on the occasions that I've wanted a multiband. I see what you mean about how it's not quite as flexible to edit.

In the end, it's mostly about which ones provide the most control AND keep the signal sounding "natural" -- and for me, still on a 2010 Mac Pro, maybe which are more processor-efficient.

 -- K

[pencilina]

Waves F6 is fantastic and $29 right now.

[seamonster]

Thanks, Pencilina. Whatever the merits of other contenders, $29 for Waves' F6 is worth playing with.

So I bought it, but still don't have it working. It passes DP's examination, but the window is just blank white. I didn't install the v.13 version because it's specifically listed as requiring a "metal" graphics card, which my old Mac Pro doesn't have. I tried the v.12.7 version first (via offline installation), as my other Waves plug-ins are currently v.12.0. That gave me the white window, so then I tried the v.12.0 version, but still no joy. I'm wondering whether I need to roll back to v.11 for just the F6, but I've got other work to do without letting Waves arcane procedures (once again) mess with my workflow. Any tips are welcome, otherwise stay tuned and I'll get around to working it out eventually.

[pencilina]

ya, Waves can be a drag to setup. I'd call or write them and see what they say.

[aagnello]

I'm Eventide's resident fossil.

SplitEQ is not a dynamic EQ. It first splits the audio into two independent streams - one stream contains what we perceive to be the 'tonal' part of the audio and the other the 'transient'. There is no dynamic processing of either stream.

I don't know if those are the best terms to use but we haven't come up with anything better since we introduced Physion, (which uses the split technique) 5 years ago.

SplitEQ has a pair of 8 band parametric EQs; one for the transients and the other for the tonal. It's a different approach than that used by dynamic EQs and folks are finding that it's useful. Curious to know if anyone on this thread has had a go at it. Free 30 day demo.

[stubbsonic]

If a plugin can separate transients from sustains successfully and without noticeable artifacts, that is something of a "grail" from which we might want to drink an elixir of sonic power.

If SplitEQ is delivering this, then it is a good in-and-of itself. I'm skeptical.

[bayswater]

You should be able to separate out transients with a lot of tweaking of the settings of the right combination of expanders, compressors and gates if you want to spend the time, at least well enough to be able apply a noticeably different amount of eq to the transients.

[stubbsonic]

You should be able to separate out transients with a lot of tweaking of the settings of the right combination of expanders, compressors and gates if you want to spend the time, at least well enough to be able apply a noticeably different amount of eq to the transients.

The challenge is that dynamics processors have fixed thresholds, which can't differentiate attacks on quiet notes, (for example).

A proper transient processor is keeping track of changes in dynamics across a more full dynamic range. There are some cool recent plugins that are doing interesting things along these lines.

[bayswater]

You should be able to separate out transients with a lot of tweaking of the settings of the right combination of expanders, compressors and gates if you want to spend the time, at least well enough to be able apply a noticeably different amount of eq to the transients.

The challenge is that dynamics processors have fixed thresholds, which can't differentiate attacks on quiet notes, (for example).

A proper transient processor is keeping track of changes in dynamics across a more full dynamic range. There are some cool recent plugins that are doing interesting things along these lines.

Yes, a dynamic EQ wouldn't be the thing to use. You'd have to set up a gate to capture the transient, and use routing and cancellation to isolate the rest of the wave. Then use two instances of EQ to process the two signals, merge them, worry about phasing, etc. And then you'd have to program thresholds etc to compensate for varying levels of the signals -- something that this plugin does for you. No doubt if you have to do this, best to try out this plugin.

But I'm starting to think this would be a useful exercise for students. If not useful, then maybe cruel.

[stubbsonic]

But I'm starting to think this would be a useful exercise for students. If not useful, then maybe cruel.

Off-topic, but it would be fun to hide a message in some audio, then have kids use EQ and phase cancelation to reveal the message. Two noise tracks, cancel the noise by EQ matching and phase cancellation, then reveal a hidden spoken message inside. Hmmm.