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Originally Posted by TEMAS  How broad are the eq curves? Could this be used as a LPF + HPF? |
Program EQ implies for program material, meaning the whole mix. Unlike channel EQ, which is good for sculpting, the LILPEQr is designed for overall tone control - like the bass and treble knobs on a guitar amp or stereo receiver. It assumes that you've already adjusted the midrange character and relative balance of each instrument in the mix and now you just want to make the entire program brighter/darker and/or bigger/smaller in the most straight-forward, flattering, and texturally relaxed way possible. Of course, this is not to say that you can't use it on individual tracks!
To answer your question directly, the curves are
very broad. At full boost/cut the slopes are even gentler than a first order (6dB/octave) high or low pass filter. They start gradually deviating from unity at either side of the 800Hz to 2kHz region and never really flatten out like true shelving would - the response just keeps rising (or falling as the case may be) until the module's bandwidth runs out. ---> This will make more sense once I get my Audio Precision to print out some response graphs. You almost never see 6dB/octave filters in practice, because they;re not very useful; most units employ a 12 or 18dB/octave slope. I would say that unless your goal is to, very gently, simulate a limited bandwidth environment with some analog texture to it (e.g. early recording mediums, transmission lines, etc.), then the LILPEQr will not do you much good as a filter set. Specifically, I often find it useful on a somewhat harsh-sounding digital mix to insert a pair of vibey, analog program EQs on the mix buss, and cut some highs (above 10k) and boost some lows (e.g. near 100Hz) to yield a "tape-like" laid back response. This is not something you'd necessary use filters for, and yet typical channel equalizers would not be very good at it either.
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Originally Posted by Chris So what exactly would the "character" be? :) |
Well, it's hard to say. I've already mentioned the sonic benchmarks, namely Lang PEQ-1, but I'm not so cocky as to think the LILPEQr sounds just like one of these $5,000 tube and inductor-based monsters! The LILPEQr sounds sweet enough to serve a similar purpose, but it's no clone.
I think the best description I've come up with thus far is that the LILPEQr sounds like the high and low shelving bands of a Neve 1073 (or 1064, 3104, etc.) EQ section, but much clearer and less opaque. It has the same sort of wide richness (spreading and thickening the lows and low mids), but without the cloudiness. And because the of the short-as-possible signal path the high end and upper mids come out mostly intact, retaining their punch and immediacy. Whereas a 1073 has several more amplifier stages, 30dB of resistive losses, and a bizarre, lossy output transformer, I've found that it tends to slow down certain spectral regions - a certain type of haze that is beautiful when called for, but impossible to get rid of. The LILPEQ has far less of this. The highs are clear, but never harsh, and the lows are thick and overwhelming, but never get squishy or fall apart.
Honestly though, this is all just my own biased impressions. I have spent too much time at the test bench lately (and not enough time in the studio) trying to finish this module. I'm completely confident that it's come out sounding the way I'd wanted it to, or you wouldn't see any for sale here, but I'm waiting for sound samples and user feedback to give a truer perspective.