EQ - Filters, or shelves?

[bassmac]

When cutting the unwanted hi's and low's off your tracks, how do decide between a H/LPF, or a shelving EQ?

I've always used H/LPF's, but I'm wondering if there's a reason I should consider shelving EQ instead.

[subspace]

Filters are usually pretty flat right to the knee frequency and then drop off sharply.
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Shelves are usually flat to the beginning of the knee, where they drop or rise by the chosen level until reaching the selected frequency and then flatten out again, like a shelf.
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I use low shelf cuts often, but only really use low shelf boosts in tandem with a HPF, which actually makes it more of a peaking curve anyway.
I like low shelf cuts on guitars and vocals where I may be dialing in a low-mid peak higher up. High pass filters sound a bit dramatic to me above 80Hz or so.
HTH

[bassmac]

Thanks, I need to look into using shelves more.

I’ve been messing around with the Filterbank shelves.

Does anybody know if that British Low Shelf preset is suppose to be the same slope (1.6) as a Neve EQ?

[faeflora]

you gotta listen.

different eq's hpfs and shelves sound very different.

often hpfs wll be unuseably resonant. sometimes they're neccesary to clear out mud crud during mixing. be careful though when using them on kick or anything bassy as you can easily chop off entire notes.

shelves are often good for a "lift" or "bump" to make mixes more balanced. if you already have the needed tones, you can often achieve the target overall tonal curve for the song by a shelving boost or occasionally cut with all the other tracks bumped up on the fader.

i strongly doubt that the filterbank preset sounds anything like any neve eq does.

[jazzius]

They sound different and do different things.....i just got the UAD Cambridge eq and i gotta say the hi/lo filters on it are amazing.....the best i've seen in plugin-land......really versatile and powerful....where's my bloomin' Ibis?