SlickEQ M Gain/Q interaction

As you know most mastering equalizers offer stepped Q control with Q value optimized for mastering applications. SlickEQ M follows this way too. But instead of copying famous mastering equalizers we developed our own Gain/Q interaction scheme and it was fine-tuned and then approved by real mastering engineers.

Check this example picture for peaking filter graphs:

As you can see it’s symmetric proportional Q behavior but besides, it’s not only Gain/Q interaction but it’s actually Gain/Freq/Q interaction. The picture is for “Normal” Q mode but don’t forget, we have 2 steeper and 2 shallower modes too.

Tip: Instead of clicking on “Normal” to open menu allowing to change the mode to “Steep” or “Shallow” just drag the value by the mouse (like gain or frequency value), mousewheel works too.

Now check shelving filters Gain/Freq/Q interaction yourself. Enjoy!

 

SlickEQ M and some tricks for it

Trick #1.

1. Go to http://www.tokyodawn.net/tdr-slickeq-m/ and download demo version of SlickEQ M.
2. Create new project, add you track and use SlickEQ M in mastering chain.
3. Render the project.
4. If you reopen the project all changes for SlickEQ M demo version will be lost (no persistence) so either forget this project and use the settings from scratch for next time or go “true analog experience” and use recall sheet like on hardware EQ.

Here’s recall sheet for SlickEQ M. But you also can find it on the last page of the [manual].

Trick #2.

As I’m not professional mastering engineer it always pretty hard for me to get starting points for mastering EQ. Neither using common points (for example 6k for clarity and so on) nor searching the frequencies by boost and sweep work for me. But in SlickEQ M its “learn” ability gives pretty nice starting points!

1. Add SlickEQ M to your track
2. Rewind to most representative part of the track (usually chorus works best)
3. Play audio
4. Press “Learn” in SlickEQ M.
5. Wait until “Learning” becomes “Action” and select “AutoEQ”.
6. You may open the display to inspect the resulting curve.
7. If the result is too much, play with “Range” control to reduce it a bit.
8. If you dislike the result, try another parts of the song and press “Re-learn”.
9. Now close the display to shift your focus on listening and use just “Gain” knobs as on simple graphical equalizer! To reduce your freedom you may even turn on stepped mode and apply stepped gain changes!
10. And finally add some of “analog” touch by randomizing “pan” controls for 0.1..0.3 dB in both sides.

Enjoy!

 

Interesting blog I found today

I had a lot of fun reading this: http://www.chrisgala.org/

With articles like these:

Mix Trick #1: Singer/Songwriter Acoustic Guitar
Mix Trick #2: Exciting Drum Room
Mix Trick #3: Bonham Drum Sound
Mix Trick #4: Snare Ghost Echo
Mix Trick #5: Vocal Double Clarity 

and so on. Check it out!

PS. Also SlickEQ M (mastering edition) plugin is almost ready. And also we’re preparing reissue of Limiter6 (with AAX support, variable modules order and few new features). Stay tuned!

Stepped controls in SlickEQ

Why do you want to use stepped controls in an equalizer? I see 2 possible reasons:

1. To quickly adjust the sound you like (something like a coarse tuning before the fine tuning)
2. To quickly match 2 instances of the plugin

Probably you didn’t know that SlickEQ supports stepped controls by right mouse drag or Ctrl + mouse drag on knobs.

This is how the snap points are defined by default:

lowBandFreqParam=”30,40,60,85,120,175,250,350,500,700,1k”
midBandFreqParam=”100,150,250,400,650,1k,1.5k,2.5k,4k,6.3k,10k”
highBandFreqParam=”500,750,1.2k,1.8k,2.8k,4.4k,7k,10k,16k,25k,40k”
hpFreqParam=”10,15,20,30,40,60,85,120,170,250,350″
lowBandGainParam=”-18,-16,-14,-12,-10,-8,-6,-4,-2,0,2,4,6,8,10,12,14,16,18″
midBandGainParam=”-18,-16,-14,-12,-10,-8,-6,-4,-2,0,2,4,6,8,10,12,14,16,18″
highBandGainParam=”-18,-16,-14,-12,-10,-8,-6,-4,-2,0,2,4,6,8,10,12,14,16,18″

And now the secret information. The snap points can be changed! Unfortunately it doesn’t work per-preset basis but only as global setting.

Some news

The news are:

1. About SlickEQ GE and WYSIWYG curve and frequency analyzer
2. About SlickEQ and new “Funky” output saturation mode
3. About Limiter6 and the skin
4. About oversampled EQs
5. About Nova67P

Now let’s go into the details.

BPB Top 40 Freeware VST Plugins Of 2014!

BPB’s Top 40 Freeware VST Plugins Of 2014!

http://bedroomproducersblog.com/2014/12/29/free-vst-plugins-2014/

A couple of words about top 3 effects.

#1. Nova-67P

I had pretty interesting concept of a mixture of parallel equalization and splitband compression in one plugin but the approach was just of pure interest without any realistic vision of final plugin. The plugin was created for KVR Audio Developer Challenge 2014 in a great hurry and under very stressful conditions. Some parts were created in less than a hour and the most complex part of this project was to bring all components together and quickly create some kind of acceptable GUI. So we have what we have. The sound of the plugin is good, the plugin is really helpful in many complex mixing/mastering situations but GUI usability is far from ideal. That’s why we’re going to re-release this plugin with enhanced workflow and with some new features under Tokyo Dawn Labs. Also I’m very happy with my 2nd place on KVR DC14 too! And also thanks to Lesha for the current skin.

#2. TDR Kotelnikov

I can’t say, I did a lot for this plugin. In my opinion the most remarkable contribution from me was complete removal of feedback path (lol) and maybe a little help to RMS part (which led to high CPU usage we finally have). But in GE version I had a great pleasure to implement FDR, variable slope HPF and equal loudness stuff. Also our conversation with Fabien about the name of this plugin was very fun!

#3. SlickEQ

It was really joyful experience to collaborate with Herbert on this project and to program DSP code for it and also to add such nice things as EQ saturation, Soviet mode and auto gain stuff. For GE version I’m still not 100% sure (about 75% actually) for the decision to add tilt filter instead of the 4th band but finally we have unique linear shape tilt, great workflow I’m happy with and also with such small additions as Japanese mode, a couple more saturation types and new HPF/LPF stuff! I like standard freeware version due its extreme simplicity and I use it a lot (although I have GE version too). The CPU usage is higher than desired but we tried to reduce it in recent 1.1.0 update.

See you next year!

 

Mixing Vocals with SlickEQ video by Jerry Mateo

In this video I am showing how you can use SlickEQ to help you identify and remove problem frequencies as well as help train your ear.

Watch in 1080p!

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGYPWeY0ze8%5D

 

Introduction to SlickEQ and SlickEQ GE by Dan Worrall

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-z8v6hO9wBE%5D

SlickEQ more tips & tricks

Check also tips & tricks by Herbert <http://varietyofsound.wordpress.com/2014/07/07/tipstricks-with-slickeq/>

Part 1. SlickEQ free version

1.1. Listen to your favorite music through SlickEQ

SlickEQ is good enough to be used as hi-fi equalizer. On Windows you can use <George Yohng’s VST Wrapper for Foobar2000 player> to listen to your favorite music through it!

Hints:

1. Set output level to -3 dB to prevent clipping
2. Set “calibrate” to 0 dB to leave harmonics added at the edge of hearing threshold
3. Don’t over-EQ the music. Keep gain values below 3 dB.

 

1.2. Save your CPU cycles when mixing!

SlickEQ is a bit CPU heavy. We performed optimizations for Sandy Bridge architecture but for modern energy saver simplified CPUs in thin notebooks or for old CPUs the CPU load may be too high.

Hints:

1. Turn EQ Sat off and set Out Stage to Linear. If non-linear processing is not used, SlickEQ may consume 3 times less CPU cycles! If you already have some saturation on a track you may choose to turn off the saturation in SlickEQ.
2. Turn stereo mode to “Mono” if you’re processing a mono audio signal. In this case SlickEQ will consume 2 times less CPU cycles! NOTE: some DAWs report that they have a mono track and in this case stereo mode button is grayed and SlickEQ operates in mono mode automatically.

Upcoming SlickEQ GE feature review

Herbert did very good post about it:

http://varietyofsound.wordpress.com/2014/06/03/announcing-slickeq-gentlemans-edition/

And nice animation from me showing EQ Japanese mode (very extreme), tilt filter and HPF/LPF modes.

[view animation]