EQ's have a sound of their own. Digital EQ is
very precise and in the hands of a person who really knows (hears)
frequency and dB it is an awesome tool. Analog EQ has a very
definate sound to it and it varies wildly brand-to-brand and
unit-to-unit. Here's some of my history:
Many older analog EQ's like the Fairchild EQ's had a harsh squawk to
the when you tried to boost upper midrange or lower treble. Same for
many older off-brand consoles.
The best EQ's of the 60's were the 7 band graphics developed for the
film industry by Altec and also marketed by other companies. There
were very smooth units and were the units that I used in mastering
for Motown.
In the control room we had the pultecs. These included the EQP1a
which was the first parametric EQ (Model EQP1a). These are awesome
units thast give sharp bite to guitars and super presence to the
direct pickup bass. An electric bass sounds better if you put it
through a Pultec, even with the EQ controls zereoed (they don't
really fully zero their inherient phase-shift).
The best board EQ's of the 80's and 90's were the API and the Neve
80-series consoles. These EQ's could be boosted much more in the
upper mids without making a trumpet (for instance) sound squawky.
The API was good and this was our studio console for more than a
decade. But when I did a California session on a Neve, I wanted to
sell the API to buy a noticably more noisy Neve. Neve is a genius!
The focusrite units (like the red series) have this same sound.
Most engineers consider the SSL EQ of the E & G series to be
sub-par, which it is. In big studios, we have the luxuary of
plugging in a pultec or a "API Lunchbox" into a chanel to get that
"special sound".
For me I love the sound of digital 02R EQ and almost all digital EQ
is pretty much the same. I would want this on every channel but
would patch in a pultec on the bass and maybe even use a
rack-mounted Neve. |
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