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Renaissance Equalizer User Manual

1. We borrowed these cut curves from nature and are steadily paying her royalties When sound reflects off a surface it bounces back and interacts with the original sound and creates a harmonic series of boosts and cuts The dips are caused by the two sounds being out of phase and canceling at some frequencies Actually they rarely totally cancel out because the reflection is not the same volume If the reflection or second wave has a similar frequency response we expect a comb filter which is a series of boosts and dips Mostly when you see real life responses you can clearly see only a few dips and they look like the Asymmetric Cuts on the RenEQ and not the shapes found on other EQs This makes the RenEQ a natural as a notch filter We use notch filters to remove pitched noises like hum or annoying instrument resonance s Another thing to note is that lower Q values are needed to get a good narrow notch and this reduces resonance and ringing in the time domain A higher Q has a longer decay time So you got yer old magic in the shelves natural bell curves and more control and versatility What more do you need Did we forget the filters Similar concepts are followed through on the high pass and low pass filters Some vintage analog filters seemed to be preferred over others because they killed more of the garbage and left more of the music These favored filters have steeper slopes and were flatter or had a bit of boost nea
2. SUD 1000 2000 4000 S000 Symmetrical bell filter Engineering Q 1 0 from the Q10 Renaissance Equalizer Plug in Manual EH However an asymmetrical response is in a way the most natural thing for an equalizer to do in the ana log domain To put it in other words for a constant value of Q a boost and a cut at the same frequency of a bell filter will not have the same shape Here is the same setting engineering Q 1 0 but on the REQ ber Asymmetrical bell filters of the RenEQ 10 Renaissance Equalizer Plug in Manual Chapter 5 The Controls The faders meters peak numeric meters and method of changing values are part of the WaveSystem man ual Please refer to that document for such information which is common to all Waves products and only need to be learned once Individual band trol The small controls beneath the frequency curve display are the Value Windows for Gain Frequency and Q for each band At the bottom of each column is the control to switch each band In or Out and to choose the filter type for that band Top to bottom Gain Frequency Q In out Type Gain Gain may be adjusted in the range 18 0 to 18 0dB in increments of 0 1dB via the Gain Value Windows or by dragging the EQ curve The displayed frequency response graph shows a range of 18 0dB Freq The Frequency control displays the center frequency for each band when a bell filter is selected When in cut or shelf modes t
3. It was created by a sine wave frequency sweep of a high cut filter at 2kHz with a Q 1 41 it zu 4000 au nd lB ti t Curveof a High cut Filter Q 1 41 When the value of Q is higher than 1 0 the notch and bump actually give a higher slope than a 3rd order filter but still allow some of the higher harmonics to pass thru although greatly reduced When the value of Q is at its smallest 0 71 the slope is slightly less than a 2nd order filter about 10dB octave B Renaissance Equalizer Plug in Manual 1000 2000 4000 8000 16000 Q 0 71 A Slope of About 10dB octave Bell filters parametric George Massenberg invented the parametric equalizer and most people are quite accustomed to using them Almost completely without exception they have symmetrical response characteristics However when we use an equalizer to boost it is nearly always for tonal correction and when cutting for removal of both ersome artifacts see Chapter 8 An EQ Essay for a rather entertaining viewpoint about EQ The asym metrical filters had been described by several audio researchers and designers including Mitra Hutch Hutchinson and others but not included in any commercial products to our knowledge Waves chose to include this type of filter simply because it sounded better for high end use What does symmetrical mean Simply that most equalizers have exactly the same response in the boost or gain of a bell filter seen here
4. This preserves greater resolution of fine details and definitely affects the sound of the equalizer By working at this level of precision the most exacting details are maintained throughout the processor Only at the output does this dual precision data path become reduced This reduction is performed by dithering the 48bit internal data to the desired output Native 64bit inter nal processing is dithered to 32bit floating point output What are frequently asked questions A We get that inquiry a lot these days Please you should get back to work now E Renaissance Equalizer Plug in Manual Chapter 8 An EQ Essay with wonderful tips This quite entertaining article was written by Craig Hutch Hutchinson renowned designer with Manley Laboratories and occasional collaborator with Waves If you want to really work in audio Hutch gives you the value of an intensive course in these few pages Enjoy the knowledge and humor he brings to the work of pro audio Editor Equalizers If you are reading this there s a damn good chance you ve used a variety equalizers and tone controls EQs range from simple bass and treble controls on a hifi system to pretty tricky parametric EQs and 1 3 octave graphic EQs As an audio freak you have probably tried quite a few EQs and have gotten both great results and sometimes less than great and you probably have a favorite EQ Now that you have a digital system you may have questions about these
5. one of the most powerful functions is the ability to select and drag multiple controls or band markers at the same time If you have created a complex EQ curve for example using a high shelf and a small presence boost you can simply select both band markers and drag on either to change them together Alternatively you could drag a selection rectangle around both of the band s Frequency value windows or shift click on bands that are not beside each other then simply click and drag on any one of the selected value windows to change all of them Using the Control Option and Command keys as described in the previous section also applies when mul tiple bands are selected in the graph so you might start to see how powerful these features can be Renaissance Equalizer Plug in Manual H Chapter 4 The filters What is in each band Each of the bands of EQ provided by the Renaissance Equalizer are not the same unlike the Q10 This has been done to optimize the processing requirements for as many professional users as possible and for the platform they use Bands 1 and 6 are common to all components of the REQ that is if you select the 2 band component from your plug in menu then the 2 bands have the same filter options as bands 1 and 6 from the 6 band version The 4 band version adds bands 2 and 5 and the 6 band version adds bands 3 and 4 Band 1 and 6 have cut filters resonant shelves and bell filters 1 is low cut and shelf
6. p Separate unlinked equalization of L and R or dual mono Using Linked offsets It is possible to unlink the channels set them to different gains even different filter types and Q values then re link them When you move one the other channel will track the changes in values even if you tog gle to different filter types Kindly note that if you type in a new gain value then the typed gain value will be input to both channels eliminating any gain offset if you drag the band marker or gain value then the gain offset between the bands will be maintained Cap acte linea quna The WaveSystem offers many unique functions including the ability to copy and paste values within a plug in even if between different types of controls For the REQ copy paste operations are slightly more flexible than the WaveSystem so the differences are described here One unique function of copy paste is to be able to simultaneously duplicate settings between left and right either for one or multiple bands n Renaissance Equalizer Plug in Manual For example in the graphic shown below if it was needed to make Band 1 red line to have the same 1 9dB setting as the Band 1 Right yellow line simply click on the Band 1 marker then press the c key no modifi er keys This copies the values of that band into the internal Waves clipboard not the system clipboard Then click the Right button beside the Link button you ll s
7. 6 is high cut and shelf Bands 2 3 4 5 all have resonant shelves and bell filters 2 and 3 have low shelves 4 and 5 have high shelves Default values Each component 2 4 or 6 band of the REQ has a different default setup to provide a highly usable gen eral setting When you insert the REQ into your editor you ll see that all bands are already switched In by default except in the 6 band EQ in which Band 1 is intentionally Out because it is a low cut filter Since the low cut is the most commonly used cut filter it was included in the default but we didn t presume that you wanted to use it by default For complete details of the default setup and the factory presets see the Factory Presets chapter What the filters are You might be wondering what resonant shelves are or if you ve already been using the Renaissance EQ and are just now reading this sentence you might be doing so to find out just what a Gerzon Shelf or a Baxandall filter really is Resonant shelf filters Michael Gerzon proposed the idea of a resonant shelf in a confidential paper to Waves in 1994 Analog fil ters specifically Pultec had already achieved this type of EQ behavior by using both the cut and boost knobs simultaneously see Chapter 8 for many more great details Mr Gerzon had defined a way to make this acoustically desirable behavior into a single filter type He did not live to see the implementation of his proposal We
8. Pultec band using two or three Q10 bands and email these presets The reaction was wow Gerzon s formulas were revisited and with the first prototype Mr Seva heard the potential and contributed much effort Months later with good response from the working engineers who beta tested it is a finished distinc tive processor We hope you like it as much as they did You usually don t have to worry too much about levels with analog EQs but most digital EQs require some attention and optimizing of gains to get good resolution and no clipping This is typically the first thing that will bug an analog engineer The answer for the RenEQ was to use a bit more DSP power and go for double precision This called for 48 bit precision rather than the usual 24 bit math on fixed point DSP chips This gives plenty of headroom and a smoother less grainy quality Because of this increased math DSP cycles for 48 bit and more horsepower for some new curves and features there is a limit of 6 stereo bands per instatia tion although newer DSP boards can handle more decisions were made to keep backward compatibility On the other hand each band is significantly more powerful and flexible than other EQs Some of the frequency shaping curves are new by digital standards but old analog tricks The Shelf curves are inspired by the time tested Pultec EQP 1As With the old Pultecs you have a one knob to boost lows and one to cut lows Engineers favor using both kn
9. You Just keep twiddling until it sounds like you want it to Most digital devices like synthesizers and reverbs tend to get a lot of use from the included presets Most guys just don t want to get into that kind of programming EQs are the opposite where most guys will ignore the presets and start from scratch or flat I guess that means EQs are easy but not free There are some excellent presets to be used as starting points and some complex set ups for saving time or exploration Not so long ago in order to get your chance at the console you had to follow the path from cleaning toilets to making coffee to assisting to engineering to producing It cost years of micro paychecks and humble pie Not so anymore If you want your turn at the console you buy a console or be the main employee at a pri vate studio There were some benefits of watching the old pro s make the gear sound great and being able to ask how and why What we hope to do here is be a small substitute for those who didn t get that opportuni Renaissance Equalizer Plug in Manual m ty Specific settings for EQs are different for different situations Some of these examples don t really apply much to DSP plug ins but we include them for reference and comparison notes Live Sound In this author s experience live sound usually required the most drastic and heavy handed EQ Every factor contributes to this Not the greatest mics lots of leakage feedback strange
10. a click except for TV amp film scores The groove as today was important but it was a little less rigid It sometimes meant MANY band takes with different tempos and stylings 3 Arrangements were often written in stone It was cool to walk in with a working rehearsed arrange ment Sometimes professional arrangers were hired The fewer the instruments the easier it is to make each one sound great They featured instruments by writing musical rests for the other parts rather than moving a fader Big and powerful dynamics could mean more players more chairs 4 The mixes were critical because the word re mix wasn t created yet Remember each bounce had to be a real mix and these submixes were the basis of the final mix This is where they EQed most Part of the British sound was dipping a bit between 200 Hz and 1K on some instruments It was the proper way to clear space for each instrument Bass was hinted as the secret of rock and roll Part of the American sound was both the bored union engineers and the young rookies There wasn t much gear so they stretched it and pushed it hard Simple shelf EQs and filters were the norm and bell curves were rare until the mid 70 s However they sometimes had 5 to 7 band graphic EQs They could and did cut tape so they mixed in sections and spliced no automation Renaissance Equalizer Plug in Manual 27 5 Not much effects in dem days tape slap live chamber reverb an
11. check it out on some of those systems again before you send it out 80 of mastering is ensuring quality and confidence through expertise 20 is knob turning and then it is which knobs how little as opposed to much and when On the other hand it is only two tracks and probably you only intend to do a minor touch up and you are sure it will help It may not be as good as it gets but it is a valid improvement and you are not doing anything radical or stupid so go for it Miscellaneous Techniques You might want to keep in mind that many of the RenEQ curves were developed initially using a combination of two or more bands We included a few in the presets library for examples The actual RenEQ curve shapes are probably very difficult to recreate in other EQs because the algorithms are not simply a combo setting However you may find other combinations in both the Q10 and RenEQ that also work nicely We did when we were developing RenEQ and we found plenty of combinations that pretty much sucked except for a few rare applications You may have that application or you may find some thing you prefer First try two bands whatever shapes at the same freq and adjusting both gains and Qs then try moving one an octave higher or lower twice of half the freq and tweaking Yeah you have to tweak dB and Q again Move the bands together by grabbing both freq settings with the cursor Once you have it save it If you think it might help oth
12. for the presence boost at 3292 is not too sharp to be nasal At 7885 the classic brightness around 8kHz is still sharp enough to be very different from the high treble Baxandall which is centered at 12kHz Gerzon shelves 4 medium bells This is more of a classic set of frequencies for those people who just can t stand to see frequencies that they didn t see on consoles In a way they have ingrained themselves into our ears Filters 80Hz Low shelf 12kHz High shelf 125 500 2 5kHz 7 5kHz approximate parametrics This setup has shar per higher value Q settings which in general are too sharp for mastering and mixing but are so typically used in boards and mid line gear that they sound more familiar to some people First described by Michael Gerzon the very usable resonant shelving filters have a higher Q 1 25 which have a greater dip overshoot in the shelf than in other setups and sound more aggressive at lower gains At high gains these dips and overshoots may color the tonality too much so just back the Q value down a bit Classic bass and treble sound Four parametric filters all have Q settings of 1 3 for a sharper more focused edge These can be quite nice for small gains but at higher gains the tonality can be a bit too edgy depending on what you want to do The frequencies are not really selected for musicality as much as classic appearances the 125 is a high bass 500 is a little on the high side
13. impor tant the image or room sound is what sets the tone The EQ and processing may be needed to ensure the best overall groove and image rather than make each drum perfect Renaissance Equalizer Plug in Manual E Yes it is legal to EQ and Limit overhead and room mics EQ both sides of a stereo pair identically and link limiters If you are lucky you can almost get most of the drum sound from the overheads or room mics with some bass drum and maybe snare snuck in You should also consider suggesting to the drummer to bring lighter brighter smaller cymbals in than what he or she uses live Either you know why we say this or you will find out Some engineers use a combination of a filter set between 25 an 50 Hz and a shelf boost between 100 and 200Hz roughly It almost approximates a standard bell boost but sounds drier and tighter and still huge The shelf tends to ring less or decay faster than bells while the filter keeps it clean and under control Doing this with conventional EQs the shelf and filter give you 3 controls just like the bell except you have two freq knobs With the RenEQ you get 5 knobs ample control and probably a flatter desirable boost plateau Sampled D rums Probably pretty good right out of the box Try using a strange sample and using EQ com pression and clipping to turn it into something totally different You can turn a click track into a bogus kick drum It is fun and you might never ru
14. sounding stages and rooms questionable house speakers No luxuries like mic positioning just a quick sound check some times and the doors open We don t know of anybody using plug ins live but we know a lot of you mix tapes of live shows If you are accustomed to studio recording and clean tracks you may need to adjust your techniques in a hurry Sometimes you get these wonderful clean tapes with a lot of energy These tapes should be easy Other tapes can be pretty messy Some of your usual studio tricks are not working this time With these tapes you just might try taking the house mixer approach Pull down the effects there s too much leakage and dig in with those EQs It might help to start out with a good fader only mix and avoid using those solo buttons until you get the EQ roughed out Gates may help but may be audible and dis concerting if the leakage is gruesome You might have to write mutes early and avoid too much compres sion EQing the vocals may cause a lot of leakage problems if you boost lows or highs significantly If you get a raw tape with virtually no EQ or compression when it was recorded you may need to use different and more EQ on many of the tracks Usually the best approach is to try to smooth it out but not kick it into submission but remember this is raw and may need more help than studio tracks Tracking the band A bunch of musicians a bunch of mics and typically not a bunch of budget Well a
15. the entire system and that it is that way every day After all the big reason we need to go through the mastering process is that most of us mix on cheap small speakers self powered or not The kinds of speakers most of us use for mixing are about 2 25 of the reference quality most mastering engineers use every day If you describe your monitors as I guess the speakers are good enough to master on then they re not and if you say I KNOW these particular monitors in this room are good for mastering then they probably are These could be the same speakers too Do you understand the difference its not just attitude 3 The rest of the gear in major mastering houses is also so important that cost is no object The engi neers regularly shoot out new gear and will always buy if it IS better In a pro mastering house there are no weak links in the chain 4 There isn t a single processing unit that is the key but more like a combination of several that are mostly slightly utilized A common scenario is a combination of esoteric analog parametric EQs and compressors along with the digital EQs and dynamics processors all used together and each for a few dB of its strongest features Waves processing has been well received for mastering Just about any of the plug ins are appropriate and nicely complement the best analog processing The newest and least common piece of gear in pro mastering is DSP Multi band Compressors Howe
16. the more curious effects of ana log gear such as extended frequency response with some analog equalizers going all the way to 300kHz inductor saturation transformer characteristics and so forth The bell filters of the REQ are wide when gain is positive and narrower when gain is negative Why A In a way this is the most natural behavior of analog filters For a constant value of Q width a boost or cut will look and sound different These types of filters are non symmetrical unlike the filters in the Q10 and nearly every EQ in the world which are symmetrical Shelving filters of the REQ also have a different shape to them Why A Primarily because they have adjustable slope simply change the Q to adjust the angle of the slope going to the shelf Part of this type of filter called a resonant shelf is the characteristic bump in the graph The overshoot undershoot on the angle of the slope is quite important to the sound of these shelves first available in the Pultec by using both the cut and boost knobs simultaneously then later described by Michael Gerzon in a 1994 paper as a proposed digital equalizer design for Waves Q What does 48bit processing really mean A Renaissance Equalizer is a dual precision processor This means all calculations are carried out to a 48bit value within the REQ on fixed point DSP chips for native processing it is performed with 64bit floating point values
17. Renaissance Equalizer Table of Contents Chapter gi sasana Introduction 2 Chapter 2 Renaissance EQ Quick Start 3 Chapter 3 TheInterface 4 Chapter 4 uses tin onu The Filters 6 Chapter 5 The Controls 11 Chapter 6 ne Factor y Presets 16 Chapter 7 emma FAQ s 20 Chapter 8 An EQ Essay With Wonderful Tips 21 Renaissance Equalizer Plug in Manual El Chapter 1 Introduction Welcome to the Renaissance Equalizer manual Since the development of Q10 by Waves in 1993 there has been an increasing need for high quality sweet EQs To answer the need Waves created the Renaissance Equalizer This EQ is a 6 band audiophile equalizer for professional audio production It offers a choice of 6 4 or 2 band operation for optimum use of processing power Stereo dual mono and mono implementations are part of the EQ although not necessarily available in all platforms The following manual explains how to use the Renaissance Equalizer Left Link Right a Renaissance Equalizer I Waves Renaissance Equalizer BH Renaissance Equalizer Plug in Manual Chapter 2 Quick Start Please do yourself a Power Tips favor refer to the WavesSystem Manual for a full explanation regarding standard Waves controls Difu I behavi 1 The REQ is slightly different from the Q10 in that when you first open the EQ the bands will be on The only exception to this is the 6 band in which the 1
18. Simple bass and brightness controls with broad Q for gentle tonal shaping Gerzon shelves Filters 250Hz and 4000Hz shelves As described previously it is the Q being very near 1 00 that gives these shelves their distinctive qualities Baxandall Filters 60Hz and 12kHz bell parametric Renaissance Equalizer Plug in Manual 9 Chapter 7 Frequently asked questions Why does the Renaissance Equalizer sound different from other equalizers such as the Waves Q10 A Might as well ask why do any equalizers sound different from each other All equalizers are based on a formula algorithm in hardware this formula mathematical function is implemented by components such as tubes transistors integrated circuits resistors capacitors and so forth In digital equalizers the algorithm works as a mathematical function directly on the audio data Every equalizer has a different sound with different ranges of controls and behavior the response of the equalizer In addition the REQ is a 48bit processor which increases the resolution of the equalizer and definitely affects the sound How can an analog equalizer be emulated in digital processing A Since each equalizer whether analog or digital can be essentially described as a mathematical function and indeed the values of analog components are directly derived from such math then it is certainly possible to simply do the same math in a digital processor At issue is
19. an anything you have been using for filters The other most common technique is boosting highs Part of this is because somebody used a dull mic because it was advertised as warm The other rea son to boost is a bright airy voice is needed with massively over dubbed over synthed mixes just to get above the track Watch out for boosting too much esses as you try to get it bright Conventional high shelves even if set for 16K will boost the esses and possibly the mids The RenEQ was designed to not have that very common problem and allow some unusually gorgeous highs Some engineers avoid EQing to tape while recording but use it in the monitor or mix channels as needed This way they still get a good working mix and may hear if headphone leakage will end up being a problem On the other hand as the tracks add up some engineers find it more practical to EQ tracks while recording so that speedy fader mixes are sim ple for the months of overdubs In the mix if you find yourself wanting to boost a lot of highs try dipping the mids and boosting the highs less If you still need a de esser use it as the last processor in the vocal chain in the mix Wanna know one of the least expensive and best de essers A bit of chewing gum filling the gap in the singer s front teeth Rather than try to do all your compression while recording vocals save some for the mix This takes a little pres sure off of finding the ultimate compressor and y
20. ance Equalizer Plug in Manual El Mixes There are two ways to process a mix The first is to set up the 2 mix EQ and compression early in the rough mix stage then mix into the processor The second and more common way is to get a finished mix then EQ and compress The first way forces you to mix differently and can produce results that can be pow erful but it can also be dangerous in less than experienced hands More and more guys are EQing their final mixes Sort of pre mastering or skipping the mastering process altogether Should you Let us describe some of the main ideas in mastering from the mastering engineer s order of importance and you can decide 1 The most imp ortant thing in mastering chain is the mastering engineer These people EQ and com press edit and check everyone s final mixes a CD or two a day 5 days a week and year in and year out They specialize in the most subtle paths to the polished product They are expected to bring the clients tapes to be ready for prime time quality and be sure that a problem free master is absolutely ready for any pressing plant Of course you are going to have to pay for this expert service 2 The most important piece of gear for mastering is the tweaked up speaker systems The best mastering engineers typically spend a great deal of money time and effort to be sure that their room is true and accurate to them and that every last bit of performance is squeezed out of
21. capacitors amp inductors being fixed values More active circuits like op amps would hurt the audio performance Not so with digital The audibility of the phase shift or lack of shift depends on a lot of factors but it tends to be subtle It seems to be easier to hear in the upper mids and highs It seems to be easiest to hear if the recording is pristine and the playback system has got near zero phase shift itself Phase compensated monitors are easy to listen to but difficult to get a mix on using normal EQs because most attempts to tone shape sound vaguely wrong You hear the phase shift on a good speaker but is it the speaker or almost all EQs to blame The Waves EQ s do not have the phase roller coaster drawback and may be the right choice for demanding tasks like mastering or audiophile engineers who would dread to be caught using EQ then there s those Rastafari who have no time for audiophiles Most equipment designers try to avoid phase shift but they would be hard pressed to describe what it sounds like Sometimes it helps most of the time it doesn t The best known of the Waves Equalizers is the Q10 which has been available for several years and on many platforms The Q10 can have as many as 10 fully parametric bands in stereo The curve shapes are very sim ilar to modern analog parametric EQs It may not be fair to compare analog EQs to the Waves DSP EQs because the Q10 has way more bands wider Q range storage recall and c
22. d highest octaves and what the back of the mic sounds like Small diaphragm condensers can be fast bright clear but sometimes brittle hard or thin Some are quite good for acoustic instruments cymbals and hi hats Watch out there is a wide variation in maximum SPL and noise with these Of course most engineers favor large diaphragm condensers and typically use FET types on drums and guitars The pattern choice is an important tool Remember that the proximity effect low boosting is biggest in figure 8 moderate in cardioid and non existent in omni It is worth listen ing to both the room tone and instrument in the 3 main patterns its often surprising The low roll off 26 Renaissance Equalizer Plug in Manual HP should be used where ultra lows are not needed or wanted and the filter kills some of the room noise and air conditioning rumble Dynamic mics are more commonly used close for guitar amps drums and sometimes horns Ribbon mics have their resonance in the deep lows and typically have a softish top end They seem to have a more ear like dynamic range This makes them a superb choice for raunchy guitar amps horns and anything that may be too edgy Some are cardioid and some figure 8 Try using the figure 8 ones near the musician s head Officially miking technique is not EQing but it does some of the same things and does it in the beginning This makes EQing easier and elegant When you do have to EQ the ba
23. d or EMT plates Some were OK and some were plain bad They did focus more on creating an acoustic space with the mics It wasn t until 16 track that it became fashionable to focus on separation and dead rooms Then we heard a lot of overdubs and double tracking and we got the 70 s sound 6 DI boxes and synths were very rare percussion was normal unusual instruments were cool Song structure often leaned toward a few standard patterns ABABCAB It was a more innocent era but more likely to be censored On the other hand the phrase politically correct would have been viewed as a joke an oxymoron Some of these techniques may be useful to you whether you are attempting to resurrect the 60s or the get the cool grunge of the 90 s Some tricks like the editing of mix sections can be transposed to workstations with all the advantages of both It sure can be a better alternative to an long automated homogenized mix Limiting overdubs may inspire getting that perfect band groove and may spur creativity Limiting yourself to shelves and filters or old gear may be a silly way to get the 60s sound When you want to lean on shelves the Renaissance EQ shelves and filters are about as good as it gets In other words an old analog engineer will feel right at home well hear right at home Now if you could just remove that computer screen Individual Sounds There just isn t a general EQ that works on all snare drums or kicks o
24. digital EQs and the differences between any analog and digital techniques Let us begin at the beginning and then get into some real techniques Who invented the first electronic tone control Who knows The first hints of flat electronics came decades later George Massenburg first described in a 1971 AES paper the Parametric Equalizer I believe he was 19 at the time All EQs do one thing they can make some bands or areas of frequencies louder than others manipulating the frequency response Speakers and mics do that to but we normally think of EQs as something that allow us to alter the frequency response deliberately with some knobs and buttons including the GUI ones Some equalizers have no controls they are part of a circuit and generally are almost invisible to the user A good example of this is the EQ circuits used as pre emphasis and de emphasis used for analog tape machines and radio broadcasting The idea of these is to boost the high frequencies before it hits the tape or air then reduce the highs on playback or reception This reduces the hiss and noise and usually allows a hotter signal which also improves the noise performance These EQs usually have trimmers avail able but we would rarely consider using them for adjusting the tone Instead the object is to get a ruler flat response at this part of the signal chain It is still called an equalizer In fact the original definition of equalizer wa
25. don t have to be loud to work Be aware that boosting mids or highs will make peaks easier to clip too Bass Good spot for a reminder The bass and kick are usually meant to work together musically yet remain separate and distinct The usual idea is if you have a deep bottom kick then the bass guitar doesn t cover that space Put it in the low mid part of the spectrum Or you can make the bass guitar extra deep and the bass drum in a higher part in the spectrum You also want to watch where you place the kick s attack and the harmonics of the bass If you use a mic on the amp plus a DI expect that when you mix them they very often sound half out of phase You can use a delay to try to compensate the DI or just use the RenEQ filters to get the DI lows filter from the mids up and mix in the mic amp highs filter or shelf cut the lows What is easier simpler and can be best is using only the amp with a damn good selected mic and using the RenEQ low shelf to nail the bottom E Renaissance Equalizer Plug in Manual Guitar My favorite difficult instrument to EQ So many different guitar sounds and so little time Filtering the high freqs on loud amps can make them more amp like natural and kills that studio buzzy distortion Check out what filtering highs does with the RenEQ The low pass filter is one of the main functions of speaker simulators Feel free to play with the simulator s controls along with the RenEQ LP filters The mids are e
26. e Flat button will switch all bands Out and set the Gain values of all bands to 0 0dB The bands are switched Out in order to ensure a flat response as Cut filters are not affectee by the Gain value Output fader values are not changed by the Flat button nor are any Freq Q or filter Type values Renaissance Equalizer Plug in Manual IH Chapter 6 Factory Presets This equalizer has 3 component versions available for selection from the plug in or processor menu in your application 6 band 4 band and 2 band Since each of these are for slighly different uses and obviously have different functional abilities the setups for each are slightly different Each has a default setup that is particularly suited for the number of bands available In addition there are alternate setups that you may prefer to start from including classic Baxandall from the late Peter Baxandall and Gerzon Shelves designed by the late Michael Gerzon as an alternative to the Baxandall ___General notes Since the Renaissance Equalizer is more suited for professional applications including mixing mastering and fine adjustments the default Q values are wider than some people might expect In addition the fre quencies are not restricted by some old conventional approach such as off the shelf capacitor values instead they are chosen for real world use to be as usable as possible right out of the box The bands are already switched In except the cut filte
27. ed as a negative gain the filter s asymmetrical property described in the previous chapter is actually narrower than an equalizer with symmetrical behavior Therefore an REQ bell filter with negative gain sounds sharper it would be equivalent to a higher Q on a symmetrical bell equalizer roughly double the Q of its value In out Type At the bottom of the controls is a row of dual toggle buttons Each has two toggles one to switch each band In or Out and one to control the Filter Type Please recall that not all bands have the same complement of filter types Bands 1 and 6 have cuts bells and shelves Bands 2 and 3 have bells and low shelves bands 4 and 5 have bells and high shelves Click the Filter Type button to toggle through the available selections for that band On some platforms you can option click the Filter Type buttons to display a popup for direct selection not all programs sup port popups in plug in windoids so the toggle mode is the default method of selecting the filter Each filter curve is represented by an icon shown here from left to right To switch the band In or Out click the left edge of the control when the band is In the control will illumi nate with the corresponding color of the band marker m Renaissance Equalizer Plug in Manual Trim One special feature of 48 bit processing is the ability to use some headroom to completely avoid internal clip ping The REQ automatically eliminates any cl
28. ee the band marker jumps down to show it is controlling the right channel To copy the entire left or right channel you could select and drag all the band markers press c switch to the other channel select and drag all the markers again then press v to complete the paste Alternatively you could select all the Value Windows numerical buttons below the graph and perform the c and v key operations if supported on your Mac editor PC does not support this You may select any group of controls for copy paste for example you could select only the Freq buttons to be pasted to the other channel or shift select discontiguous controls and so forth ina witicantamati When using automation in your editing program the linking button is not automated nor is its status saved as part of a setup This allows you to load a setup into only one or the other channel for dual mono use There is a downside to this functionality which is that true dual mono automation is not possible at the present time within an unlinked stereo REQ The automation systems of most editors only controls one channel so any set tings you try to save or automate on the other channel will not be written into the automation If you have complex EQ that requires fully total reset automation on each channel whether dual mono or L R mastering you should use two completely separate mono REQ processors and automate them independently Flat Clicking on th
29. elves or something different from standard you re screwed Yes Waves allows a little more freedom and both the Q10 and RenEQ has two or three kinds of curves for every band For the first time we know of this steeper type of curve has been applied to the high shelf Finally we have a new shelf EQ that when we want to boost the upper highs we don t end up with nasty esses We get real air and sweetness instead of harshness and that hard edgy sound Because you now have an active Q con Renaissance Equalizer Plug in Manual El trol in the shelf modes it allows a whole new level in finessing the tone It might be considered a little breakthrough like the original Parametric EQ which added an independent Q control to the bell curves Speaking of bell curves These are a little different too Waves calls these Asymmetric Bells The boost shape is conventional but the cut shape may be new to you For a pleasant change it is not a mirror image of the boost There have been some similar relatively unknown analog counterparts but none that were available to the pro engineers before this Waves gave their field testers a choice between conventional bells Asymmetric Bells or both Apparently the overwhelming choice was the Asymmetric Bells only It seems that at any more than a few dB of cut we tend to prefer narrower Qs This is quite the opposite of boosts where we usually prefer wider Qs This EQ does this for y
30. ers you can email the preset to Waves at the WWW site You may also like a combination of the 2 or 4 band RenEQ together with the 2 or 4 band versions of the Q10 Its like an old engineer s trick Rather than look suspect with an EQ boosted 12 dB he would use three different EQs each with 4 dB It looked way better very pro and seriously into gear Ever have producer looking over your shoulder checking out your curves Nuff said Renaissance Equalizer Plug in Manual EH Also it is worth experimenting with the order of processors especially when compression limiting and clip ping is involved This may mean adjusting thresholds and gains so save your original settings plus the tweaked ones The RenEQ Maxxbass combo is outrageous for killer bottom The RenEQ C1 in split mode is a terrific combo for superb highs and getting sweetness smoothness and brilliance all at once We get asked whether it is best to EQ then compress or the other way around People do it both ways and each has advantages depending on the situation If you compress first then you should be able to boost EQ more without clipping If you compress after EQ then you smooth the track based on the new tone which may be more leveled or even sounding De essing if needed is best and easiest as a final or next to final stage Limiting and maximizing levels truncating and adding dither should be the last step EQing a sub group is highly recommended It saves
31. es the Alt key and supports on the fly switching to Q control To change the filter type of the band press the Option Command keys and click on the band Each click will toggle to the next filter type PC doesn t support this To turn a band off you can Command click or double click the band PC doesn t support this To turn a band on simply drag it or double click it To constrain the band marker to moving in just the X or Y direction press the Control key while n Renaissance Equalizer Plug in Manual dragging If you want to change to the other direction simply release the key then press it again then move the mouse in the preferred direction again you don t have to release the mouse PC uses Control drag but does not support on the fly directional changes you have to release the Control key and mouse then press Control and click again to drag in another direction Keyboard control Though the Renaissance Equalizer makes use of an intuitive graphic interface which can be controlled almost entirely via mouse if preferred there is also complete keyboard commands for those who prefer to work that way All parameters may be selected and their values entered directly from the keyboard TAB based control is used to navigate through all parameters and Value Windows and to move from one param eter to another when multiple items are selected Multiple Selecti Whether working with the graph or keyboard
32. for warm it is truly a mid 2500 is a little low for presence usually 2900 to 3300 The 7551 is the only one near a classic sweet spot 7 5 to 8 5kHz Baxandall 4 bells mix setup Filters Baxandall 60Hz and 11986Hz 200 452 1756 5496 Hz bells parametrics The Baxandalls are previously described so refer to paragraphs above for details The four parametric filters are designed for tracking and mixing with frequencies at common boost cut points with moderate Q values 1 0 For example a kick drum might have a boost at the 60Hz Baxandall and a cut at 200 plus a boost at 5496 to give the currently classic click with a nice fist in the chest low Renaissance Equalizer Plug in 17 end For guitars a boost of 200 and or 452 give a nice warming to sometimes too bright amp stacks in the studio And a boost of 1756 and 5496 for vocals can lift the presence and increased intelligibility a bit with out increasing the esses too much And so forth 4 band setups Default 4 band reset loaded each time when plug in is inserted Filters 3 bell parametric 1 High shelf This is a subset of the 6 band default without the 50Hz cut filter and the 7885Hz bright bell Baxandall lo mid presence Filters Baxandall bell filters 60 and 11986Hz 200Hz low mid bell 3292 presence bell A subset of the 6 band setup Baxandall lo mid warm presence hi but without the 351Hz and 7885Hz bell filters This is an al
33. have named some of the presets using these shelves in his honor although our implementation is not quite exactly his proposal Instead they are a compromise between his idea and the great sound of the Pultec filters with thanks to suggestions from Craig Hutch Hutchinson n Renaissance Equalizer Plug in Manual The two main differences in these shelves from traditional shelves such as those in the Q10 are the visibly obvious curves of the shelf shown here and that you can change the Q of the shelf which shifts the steep ness of the slope In a way you can think of these as parametric shelves Qz1414KkH z High shelf With the highest available Q of 1 41 the slope is steepest and the resonant parts of the curve are at their most extreme The lowest Q is 0 71 which is very similar to the gentleness of the slopes in the Q10 shelves Michael Gerzon suggested that values of Q just under 1 00 would be pleasing for most applications The classic Gerzon Shelf setting is a Q of 0 99 with low and high shelving at 250Hz and 4kHz respectively Variations of this shelf are in the factory presets of each REQ component 2 4 or 6 band For more extensive suggested uses of the resonant shelves please explore the small but powerful setup library for the Renaissance EQ Cut filters These are sometimes called pass filters in the USA in synthesizers and by design engineers highpass fil ters are the same as low cuts lowpass fil
34. he Freq parameter controls the corner frequency of the filter The Frequency control values are adjustable in one sixteenth tone steps 96 steps per octave rounded to the closest integer The left right arrow keys may be used to step the selected Freq value in one sixteenth tone increments Renaissance Equalizer Plug in Manual HI Q The Q control displays the Q value which functions differently for each filter type Bell Q corresponds to the width of the frequency range for that band Shelf Q controls the slope of the side of the shelf and the resonant dips and peaks Cut bands 1 or 6 only Q controls the slope of the cut filter from about 10dB oct to 18dB oct plus controls the bump in the slope as explained in the previous chapter In all cases when Q is a higher value bigger number the slopes of all filters are generally steeper bells are narrower cut and shelf filters are more sharply sloped More about Q Q is a way of expressing the frequency width of a filter in relation to the center frequency of the filter band and may be represented by the mathematical relationship Fc Fw center frequency divided by frequency width at the traditional 3dB point both in Hertz For example a Q of 2 0 at 1 000Hz gives a bandwidth of 500Hz 1000Hz divided by 2 In the Renaissance Equalizer the Q value is the traditional engineering Q for the bell filters but only for positive gain When us
35. ipping in each band which could occur in the Q10 and other equalizers Such clips would not be indicated on input or output meters but would certainly affect the signal Because of this feature in REQ input gain controls are unnecessary only an output gain control is needed as it is certainly possible to clip the output by boosting the EQ of an already hot signal Fortunately the same headroom allows the REQ to calculate exactly how far over a signal goes beyond OdBFS full scale digital In the center area just above the meters is the Trim button calibrated in dB Just below it is the clip light shown illuminated here the Trim button indicates a signal 3 1dB below full scale The positive value of the number indicates that there is still some headroom available although we re close to full scale 0dB FS If there was headroom such as in this example the value is positive and the clip light is not illuminated which shows the faders can be moved upward 3 1dB without any clipping This is sometimes called mar gin on some processors and recorders and simply shows how close the signal came has come to 0 0dBFS full scale digital To Trim the faders simply click the Trim button once to automatically move the faders by the value shown in the button When you do so Trim will reset to 12 0 the maximum positive gain allowed for reasonable safety in such matters To reset the Trim and the meters without cha
36. ips just like it does in analog When it clips it makes harmonics that are higher frequencies For example if you clip a 10 kHz note the distortion consists of a number of added harmonics at 3 times the frequency or 30 kHz and 5 times and 7 times etc The aliases would be at 48 30 or 18 kHz 48 50 or 2 kHz etc Early op amp based anti alias filters left room for improvement but the latest generation of DSP filters used today are extremely inaudible in use and the results without them would be intolerable Waves anti alias filters are invisible inaudible largely because they are phase compensated So what does that mean now All conventional EQs have a side effect In changing the frequency response EQ s change the phase response too This is a fact of life a law that all analog and most digital EQs have to abide by If you create the SAME frequency curve with 2 analog EQs and two typical digital EQs all 4 will have the same phase response curve Another little fact of life is that the steeper the curve the more dramatic the phase shift Digital EQs have the advantage on this field Some of Waves Equalizers and filters have been designed with an added phase compensation algorithm sub program so that it changes the phase opposite to what the EQ causes so that the end result is an Equalizer with minimized phase shifts It is possible to do this in analog circuits but not practical There are problems with ganged controls component tolerances
37. ment leave yourself room to slide it into the mix later on Loops The trick Make the bad stuff sound good and the good stuff sound bad Put it all together and go nuts with the mute switches Synths There is a lot of room to EQ on analog synths and often less with samplers Watch out for sub har monics and ultra deep lows that the small monitors don t reproduce What you hear in the studio and what they hear with a subwoofer can be different and that is often an understatement Some car systems are a good place to compare the very deep subwoofer zone More often than not try to leave space for the rest of the tracks by dipping a bell curve strategically It works better than boosting bells into resonance on the remaining tracks If the arrangement is dense avoid making every sound as big as a house The secret to amazing sounding individual tracks are sparse sections where these sounds are featured The arrangement also helps contrasts and sets up the thicker sec tions LP Filters can be very interesting on synths because a LP filter sound is a functional part of analog synth hardware or software Try making up a synth like resonant filter by combining a standard hi Q filter with a medium Q 3 to 10 bell boost at the same or close frequency Then grab both bands and shift the frequencies to where it sounds best You might find some cool combinations if you are into manipulating synth knobs in conjunction with RenEQ filters Renaiss
38. n out of sounds this way Some of the genesis of the rap kick and 808 rediscovery was some NY engineers who would use a drum machine part to trigger a noise gate on the studio s oscillator set at 40 Hz Others found it easier to get sim ilar results with an extinct vintage 808 drum machine sound sampled and EQed Many went all the way back to using purely the 808s and these little drum machines became sought after which then sparked an industry of 808 clones and sample disks These things seem to start off cool and clever and became a bit mindless and overused then sneered at for a few years then makes the cycle again At least we don t have Rodeo Drive Milan runways and fashion designers dictating to us For those with a sense of timing it seems to be best to join in at the 20 to 50 part of the loop for the money and acceptance but more exciting and creatively juicy to be in at the beginning Percussion There are two big tricks The first is don t trust VU meters use peak meters and don t get too close to full scale The key word is percussion and the peaks or transients are very short and impressively hot When in doubt turn it down Actually when in doubt listen to a short bit recorded then turn it down if it was crunchy The second trick is to EQ these tracks in the mix not soloed We tend to make things big ger by themselves but the function of percussion is to fit in the track and work with the other instruments They
39. nd tracking session is the time to be careful and conservative Most experi enced pro engineers don t wing it here Safe fast ready recorded It may not sound as slamming as it could be but wait it still gets overdubs and a real mix Engineers who don t play it safe at the right time tend to find other occupations like accounting With your workstation and a few passes with Waves plug ins you can fix the EQ and Compression later You may want to save those initial more or less flat tracks though for a few days or weeks just in case Another little detour There always seems to be some fascination with re capturing some of that 60 s and even early 70 s sound These were the days of 4 track and 8 track analog machines and no time code or sync systems They didn t have a lot of gear so it was important to have the good stuff Much of it was vacuum tube or passive Overdubs were a luxury but they could mix those 4 or 8 tracks to mono or stereo and bounce them over to another machine It was analog tape so you couldn t do it more than a few times So what are the priorities when you record that way 1 The song and the vocals was what producers wanted and perhaps that hasn t changed much Bands were recorded with live vocals back then Even overdubs were a band thing Much of the signature of both the British or American sound were the vocal harmonies Same today 2 It was only practical to record as a band as a group They rarely used
40. nging the faders values dick anywhere in the meters or between them If you accidently click the Trim and did not want to most Macintosh platforms support the WaveSystem z key function simply press the z key no modifier keys to Undo the last action PC does not support this Both platforms support the Undo button at the top of the plug in win doid In this illustration the signal has clipped as shown by the red clip light and needs to be reduced 3 9dB so the negative sign indicates which way the level must go As in the previous example clicking directly on the number 3 8 will Trim the faders by the amount indicat ed here the faders will be reduced 3 8 dB to avoid clipping Renaissance Equalizer Plug in Manual IH Link Using the REQ as linked stereo or dual mono equalizers is easily chosen by using the Link button located below the meters Lefi Link Fight When the Link button is on showing half yellow and half red then changes to the equalizer affect both channels simultaneously in all controls of the EQ gain freq Q filter type in out and in the output gain faders For separate channel EQ or dual mono click the Link button to turn it off then select either the Left or Right button to adjust the selected channel In the example shown the Linking is off and the left channel is selected for adjustment The right channel is graphed in red the left is graphed in yellow Left Link Right
41. obs at the same time secret You might think that this would just cancel out as it would on most EQs but it doesn t Instead you get the full amount of boost in the deep lows a steeper slope then a dip at the frequency or knee where it would normally be approaching flat The usual immediate reaction is that This is very FAT Why On most equalizers when you boost low shelves you also boost the low mids and to a smaller extent the mids When you boost lows on the RenEQ that is all you boost A typical single pole shelf EQ generally has a rounded slope tapering at the top and bottom At its straightest and steepest points it is about 4 5 dB per octave and gets lower 4 5 dB oct is grad ual like a low Q on a bell so a high shelf grabs a lot of high mids esses and mids honk These new slopes on the RenEQ range from 10 to 18 dB per octave significantly steeper depending on the Q control The dip at the knee is unusual and will probably hurt de esser sales The boost knob together with cut knob of the Pultecs is considered somewhat confusing Waves was able to use the Q control in shelf mode to adjust this curve from gentle to conventional through to Pultec In case you haven t noticed the Q control is a dead knob in shelf or filter modes on other EQs and most EQs can t can switch between bell shelf and filter modes Most have dedicated bells 2 shelves and 2 filters and if you want all bells or 2 high sh
42. ompare features phase compensa tion and graphic displays You can compare the Q10 to other DSP EQs but besides the number of bands range of control and phase compensation there are issues of DSP allocation efficiency and stability that tip the scales towards the Q10 Other Waves plug ins allow some frequency shaping besides the Q10 and its lit tle brothers the Q8 Q6 Q4 amp Q2 or AudioTrack with dynamics and EZWaves EQ tiny are simpler stan dard EQs The MaxxBass C1 in split mode and the S1 shuffler and De esser can manipulate the response in their own special ways The most recent full blown EQ in the Waves line up is the Renaissance EQ Waves decided to make an ana log of analog EQ It was a research and opinion polling search to find what was magic in some of the vin tage EQs and an exploration project to determine new and interesting approaches A blend of old tools Renaissance Equalizer Plug in Manual fresh new tools 48 bit precision and an intuitive simple interface all make this one special It has some roots in the late Michael Gerzon s writings describing the math to design some unusual EQs Meir Shashoua wrote the code fine tuned the program accommodated dozens of requests and polished the GUI Meir and this writer were email chatting about the old Pultec EQs Working at Manley Labs I am pretty familiar with them Rather than send a FAX or scan or draw curves it seemed to be convenient to simulate each
43. ou have the option of compressing the vocals as a group Real D rums Typically need lots 0 EQ because we typically close mike individual drums Big shelf boosts on the RenEQ are particularly good When EQing watch out for leakage so have the drummer play the whole kit alternating with a drum you are working on keep those other faders up Sometimes boosting too much highs on a snare or toms may boost the hi hat and cymbals out of control Gates may be needed in profusion when the close mic style and drastic modification is desired If you are chaining a bunch of processors try this order Gate C1 RenEQ MaxxBass RCL and maybe L1 The gate first because it usually false triggers less here Compression or limiting last partially to maximize levels to tape and partially to con sistently sculpt as opposed to all over the place The attack and release rates are very critical controls Too fast an attack and the drum is gone a little slower and the click is featured a little slower and it sounds nor mal and still slower and nothing is happening Spend a little less time working on individual drum sounds and get the mix up sooner and get the groove going earlier then go back to adjust EQ as needed Keep in mind that the hi hat and snare work together which should fit with the bass drum and bass and that most people hear the drums as one instrument and mostly engineers hear them as several individual sounds or tracks The blend and groove are most
44. ou semi automatically It also allows you to get deeper cuts without messing up as much frequency area that you wanted to keep If you like wide gentle cuts the RenEQ can still be unusually wide and smooth too There will always be a few who say the advantage of a symmetric bell is that it can be used like an undo button You can restore some overdone EQ by setting up the opposite curve We can t dispute that and the Q10 does that very very well However this seems to be a reasonably rare need Most engineers lean towards approaching EQ conservatively and most often find themselves boosting a bit more where they boosted before or vice versa or just fine tweaking a recorded track with whatever works best It seems most guys don t make those kind of mistakes or require un EQing to be THE prime concern They would rather have an EQ that simply sounds magnificent Some conservatives may argue that all other EQs are symmet rical and its probably the only real way to do it and must be the best When have you ever been given a choice Working engineers chose these Asymmetric Cuts because they really like how this EQ sounds Now you have a choice You can use the Q10 with symmetric bells or the RenEQ with these new cut shapes You should sit down and compare them get a rough idea of what Qs you like for little boosts big boosts little cuts and deeper cuts Check it out We think it sounds more acoustic as opposed to electronic
45. r in the 6 band default so you can just push the gain up for quick adjustment with a minimum of clicks ___6 band setups Default 6 band reset loaded each time when plug in is inserted Filters 50Hz cut variable to 18dB oct 92 351 2890 7885Hz bell Q 0 80 10992Hz High shelf yy The cut is not in when loaded or reset Note that the slope of the cut filters can be adjusted from approxi mately 10dB to 18dB octave by changing the Q value Bell or parametric filters are set for reasonable bass warmth presence and high settings with Q s of 0 8 you could dial the Q s down to 0 3 for very broad tonal adjustments or to 1 3 for more focusrite or pul tec type sound Baxandall lo mid warm presence hi Filters Baxandall lo and hi 60Hz 0 29Q 12kHz 0 34Q 200 351 3292 7885Hz bell Q s vary An alternative mix master setup with Baxandall filters and a mixed group of bell filters In Renaissance Equalizer Plug in Manual In the late 1940 s British audio engineer Peter Baxandall defined the classic bass and treble control with the values used in bands 1 and 6 Since the Q s are even wider than other values the bells have more person ality in this setup than bands 1 and 6 in the Default setting for 6 band 200Hz is quite good for bringing out the note of the bass being around the 2nd harmonic or so For a gentle warming effect the 351Hz has a relatively wide Q of 0 60 The sharper Q
46. r the knee A large share of modern analog filters are 12 dB per octave while the better vintage filters were at least 18 dB per octave Waves created e Renaissance Equalizer Plug in Manual filters with steeper but controllable slopes Like the shelves the RenEQ uses the Q control to give you the abili ty to dial in exactly the cut off slope that you need for each situation It ranges from about 12 dB per octave to greater than 18 dB per octave and has a notch and bump at the knee you may see with some settings We are tempted to generalize that steeper slopes for shelves filters and bells sound more musically valid This is sometimes true When you boost or cut a band of frequencies with a steeper slope you will be affecting the frequencies that you are aiming for with much less action on other frequencies that you didn t intend to touch One exception to this generalization is boosting bell curves With steeper slopes on bell curves the side effect is a tendency to create audible resonance s Some resonance might be helpful with synth sounds but it usually is not so good with acoustic sounds The effect tends to make acoustic tracks sound more synth like and electronic Often conventional bell dips sound electronic the audio equivalent of a straight line occurring in nature We found that there were some directions to avoid and some very appealing ways to create an EQ band We think we hit on many of the optimum methods Given that vi
47. r vocal Too much depends on the player the instrument the room the mic and a hundred other variables We heard of one producer that insisted on cloning a guitar sound he once got by insisting that this elaborate chain that he had documented of amps mics several vintage compressors and several old EQs There were 3 problems This producer insisted that only the exact settings he had so carefully noted were used It was a different studio with different individual units like mics like rooms consoles engineers The last problem was that they only had a few weeks to shout at each other Avoid that technique You gotta be creative play it by ear use your own variation if it works out that way for you Only the final result counts There are many ways to get a killer sound and too damn few that work every time You may know most of this already General Suggestions If you are recording acoustic instruments the most important first step is going out to the studio and listening evaluating and memorizing Next step if there is a way you can fix a sound physi cally like changing a drum skin or tuning a tom this is the time and place If you can you should attempt to improve the mic choice and positioning There s always room for improvement but most often the obstacle is available time EQing is usually faster than experimenting with mics unless the producer wants perfection EQ is maybe more dangerous though Vocals There is something tha
48. rtu ally all EQs have very very similar shapes The RenEQ offers a unique new family of the most used basic tools the EQ and yet it has that elusive retro charm What about the warmth attributed to analog EQs The real truth about analog is that transformers and inductors were a common component in both tube and discrete vintage gear but are rare in modern gear due to cost It s the transformers that gave most of that warm quality How They tend to distort add harmonics only in the lowest octaves Because most of us don t have speakers that go down to the lowest octave or two these harmonics help us perceive these low notes Waves Maxxbass not only simulates this effect but goes a lot further in allowing you to control a wide range of parameters For those that are look ing for those vintage EQ sounds we suggest that you chain the RenEQ and the Maxxbass or Renaissance Compressor The Ren Compressor RCL also has a Warm button that subtly mixes in low frequency har monics Cool You can drive the RenEQ to clip the output by pushing the faders and the clipping will sound more analog than digital Pushing the RCL will soft clip before hard clipping and avoid pushing the MaxxBass into clipping EQ Hints One of the best things about almost all EQs is that you dont really need an instruction manual You plug it in turn a few knows and when nothing happens you take it out of bypass and the rest is easy
49. s a device to restore all the frequencies to be equal again in other words force the frequency response to be as flat as possible Another example of an invisible EQ is the anti alias filters associated with analog to digital conversion and again from digital to analog Without these we would get all sorts of weird noises from the converters Almost two hundred years ago a mathematician named Nyquist published his theories on how we can represent any wave form as a set of numbers The theory had a few rules The main one was that if the high est frequency was X then you needed to sample or measure the signal at 2X or higher For digital audio we usually want to have good response up to 20 kHz so we need to sample at a frequency higher than 40 kHz If you sample at 48 kHz the Nyquist Frequency or highest allowable frequency is just under 24 kHz If there are harmonics above 24K for example at 38 kHz the conversion may get ugly You get a non musi cal false note or alias frequency at 10 kHz 48 minus 38 Virtually all digital processing also requires more anti alias filters sitting there invisibly and we hope inaudibly because it is possible to generate harmonics higher than the Nyquist limit 2X simply by turning up a level For example if the signal is pushed a little Renaissance Equalizer Plug in Manual 21 too far and it tries to go further than the full scale or the highest digital numbers then the signal cl
50. specially critical and might take some drastic EQ This is where you get singing lead solos or biting ones or more unusual sounds and its how you can separate a few parts from each other To get that big bot tom you hear in the studio but not in the control room means that you should have used a ribbon mic and or miked the cabinet back too You may still need to EQ but be sure you have some solid lows to work with The secret to acoustic guitar is no EQ Getting the sound with instrument choice and with careful miking is how the professionals do it Again you can dip mids or shelf boost the highs Sometimes a notch and or HP filter is absolutely needed Leslies This reminds us of a trick question When you have a rotating baffle for the lows and a rotating horn for the highs what is the most critical thing to EQ Answer the mids If you somehow lose the mids it will sound weak You can make it bark or bite or soften it into a smooth pad but the attitude should fit the song not some memory of some legendary B3 unless it was playing a similar part in a similar texture Piano So much depends on the piano the player and how you mike it We might suggest starting off with a gentle dip in the 200 Hz to 500 Hz area The piano may benefit with a shelf boost in the upper mids and highs but be gentle in the recording stage Remember it is a percussion instrument and a boost may make it harder to record without clipping Being such a full range instru
51. st band is off because it is a low cut filter highpass and is not desirable to be switched in until needed Preview the source track or play audio depending on your platform Click and drag any dot band marker in the graph to change the Gain and Freq of that band The default settings are designed to be usuable immediately for a wide range of applications see the Factory Setup Notes for explanations of Gerzon shelves and Baxandall5 and so forth Double click any band marker to turn it on or off or just drag it to turn it on Option drag any band marker to adjust the Q left right movement PC uses Alt drag Vertical movement always changes the gain Command dick any band marker to change the filter type it will toggle to the next type available for that band not all bands have all filter types PC does not support this Control drag any band marker to constrain that band to one direction the first you move in either Gain or Frequency if option control drag then it will be Gain or Q PC uses Control drag and Alt Control drag Renaissance Equalizer Plug in Manual H Chapter 3 The interface With a functional design based directly on the Waves Q10 Equalizer the Renaissance EQ has a single window with full graphing numerical display and control and color coordinated objects for intuitive operation All buttons controls meters and faders operate with a common set of functions called the WaveSystem If yo
52. sults unless you have time to play About the only thing to be aware of with generic DSP based EQs compared to analog is watching input and output levels for clipping if too loud or losing bits and resolution if too quiet You may have to pull down input levels to avoid the worst sounding offense clipping individual bands Until we get excess DSP horse power we won t have anti alias filters on every band Output levels are a bit more forgiving The great news is that the RenEQ avoids all this with its 48 bit precision Multi rack is about as safe as it gets in computer land If you are using a computer based EQ for live or broadcast we might suggest removing unused extensions and minimizing the operating system and avoid running other programs to steer clear of crashes The first last and only real rule about EQ is if it sounds good do it Feel free to experiment The more we hear from our customers the more different ways we find the plug ins get used Enjoy and please let us know what adventures you are having with the Renaissance Equalizer E Renaissance Equalizer Plug in Manual
53. t least you have some good mics By far the best way to EQ at this stage is to use those good mics to your advantage With the right mic and the right position very little console EQ is needed Use the rooms appro priate to the instrument and use separation to control unwanted spillage get the instruments physically sounding awesome we wish then use the mics to create a natural picture with real room ambiance If mic choice is a mystery you might want to research some Steve Albini or George Massenburg interviews Rather than guess wrong some engineers compare 3 or 4 probable choices Some choose the mic that minimizes EQing later some hear the mic s transient or dynamic character and anticipate what some EQ should add in a nice way Some guys have been there done that and know exactly what they like and don t but always seem to be ready to learn more and bring in their own mics The closer you have the mic to some instruments the more likely EQ will be needed and less likely you will get either some great leakage and some not so good leakage Close miking is better when you intend to sculpt the sound Distant miking is better for documenting recording the music On vocals and room mics many use big diaphragm condenser tube mics where you want smoothness and richness Some tube mics may add a bit of attitude and aggressiveness and some are very real sounding The biggest differ ences in this family of mics is the two lowest an
54. t makes EQing vocals very difficult Human beings have evolved hearing fine tuned to other human s voices Not many people know precisely what a drum sounds like but almost every body can recognize when the vocal sounds weird or natural Another common factor is the goal of making a mediocre vocal sound awesome through the miracle of electronics The toughest one is when the singer deeply desires to sound like their idol and thinks that the only difference is the gear and settings With luck you may work with a great singer and discover you need no EQ and it sounds incredible Same is true with spoken words Some of the best paid guys are those professional voices that do narrations voice overs and character voices They don t do it with EQ its in the voice If the singer is having headphone adjustment E Renaissance Equalizer Plug in Manual problems try flipping the phase of the mic and asking the singer which they prefer Ya see some mics are out of phase with some people s bone conduction or the headphones are 180 degrees out but there seems to be 50 50 odds that flipping the phase will sound better to them and about 99 likely it will sound the same to you until you put on their phones talk into the mic and check it out We commonly chop off the lows while recording voice to kill room rumble and pops Some use a HP switch on some mics some use the mic pre filters and some use their console The RenEQ HP filters are as good or better th
55. ternative mix master setup Bands 1 and 4 are classic bass and treble with warm and presence bands in between For convenience these notes are repeated from above 200Hz is quite good for bringing out the note of the bass being around the 2nd harmonic or so The sharper Q for the presence boost at 3292 is not too sharp to be nasal Gerzon shelf 3 bells mix setup Filters 110Hz Low shelf 351 2890 and 8476 bell parametric Ideal for mix channels track inserts these filters are just good starting points for many applications The low shelf is high enough to be general purpose the bells are set for low mid warmth presence and bright ness To get an air band try setting band 4 to a high shelf Q 0 9 Freq 13500 or higher Gerzon shelf lo mid presence Filters Gerzon shelves at 250Hz and 4kHz 351Hz and 2890Hz bell parametric Michael Gerzon described these shelving filters in 1994 as being even better than Baxandall for general pur pose bass and treble controls Keep in mind that Mr Gerzon was a peer of Mr B so he meant no disrespect They are clean and very usable for mixing or mastering with a stronger distinction than Baxandall bell filters Bands 2 and 3 are the warm 351Hz and presence 2890Hz settings described in other setups In Renaissance Equalizer Plug in Manual 2 band setups Default 2 band reset loaded each time when plug in is inserted Filters 92Hz and 8476Hz bell parametrics
56. ters are the same as high cuts Again a variable Q value makes these cut filters distinctively different from typical cut filters The Q changes the slope of the line plus includes a bump in the frequency response that allows the filter to be more musical and pleasing while still performing the basic operation of a cut filter to clean up unwanted frequencies outside of a given range Initially it might seem that using a sharp filter would be the best thing to really remove unwanted frequen cies However if a very sharp brickwall filter is employed to cut off these frequencies there is a psychoa coustic effect of making the sound very dull when using a high cut By allowing a few of these frequencies to remain the removal of frequencies is performed and the resulting sound is sweeter and not as dull Please note that this situation is not applicable to multimedia or other bandlimited requirements such as various digital conversions which do require very sharp brickwall filtering The REQ filters are designed for the most musical and magical results for pro audio Renaissance Equalizer Plug in Manual dB Bands 1 and 6 are third order filters equal to 18dB octave When the Q 1 0 then they are indeed 18dB octave without the bump as seen below 3rd Order Filter Curves Q 1 0 In order to show the bump of a higher Q value which is below the edge of the graph of the REQ here is a screenshot of the Waves PAZ real time analyzer
57. time to de ess is during mix as the final step in the vocal chain De ess ing a mix in mastering can be 10 times harder You have probably heard that one of the reasons we master is to get hotter levels True but keep in mind that anybody can compress 20 dB squash and clip and get super loud but that mastering engineers do not do that The way they compress and limit typically gets about 6 dB into the red on a VU meter and rarely sounds compressed or crunched It is not only about get ting louder but optimally loud and not at all messed up in the process There is gear used for mastering that is specific to the trade Sony 1610 s or 1630 s transfer consoles cutting Lathes for vinyl along with their computers They may use some special processors like High Frequency Limiters cousins to de essers used to prevent expensive cutting heads from erupting in flames Elliptical Equalizers created to remove out of phase deep lows and the skips when the record is played Many guys have a variety of classy VU and Peak meters digital bar graphs phase scopes 1630 video tape monitors etc If you are attempting to master the project or pre master this year s hot new audio buzzword yourself here are some suggestions Take a week off after mixing then listen to the mixes on as many different sys tems as you can friend s homes cars boom boxes headphones etc and make notes With an eye on those notes adjust Now
58. u are unfamiliar with it please do a quick read of the WaveSystem manual The information you ll find there works for all Waves plug in processors so you only have to learn it once It is highly worth your time as Waves offers controls that are absolutely unavailable on competitors products such as simultaneous con trol of multiple values use the selection rectangle or shift click to select desired controls then drag on any one of the selected controls and much more You can drag directly on any button to change its value click on it and type in a value or click on it and tweak the value with the arrow keys You may also drag any marker in the graph directly to change the EQ Graphical control Simply click and drag any marker in the graph for easy control of Frequency and Gain On the left edge of the screen you ll see little arrows near the labels so as to make it clear which way to move the mouse Some con trols work left right and some up down Hint WaveSystem manual has the clues on using this feature for real power By using the X Y controls of the mouse in combination with the Option Command and Control Keys you can have complete control of the EQ band with a very small number of clicks and keypresses Legend of the Mouse M oves To control the Q instead of Frequency just press the Option key while dragging you don t even have to stop holding the mouse down just press the Option key to switch to the Q value PC us
59. using a lot of EQ on individual tracks and tends to blend and mesh the tracks into a cohesive group and makes it easier to mix them Lots of us group EQ and compress the drums or backing vocals Sometimes it works on bass or guitar sub groups or whole rhythm sections as long as you don t expect it to replace all the track by track EQ too You should start off with the group EQ then the individual channel EQs should fall into place easier And for the opposite approach Some guys split a track or mult it or copy it and EQ one channel lightly and one heavily then mix them The advantage is that you can easily change the tone by changing the mix in automation It also makes adding reverbs and delays into whole new thing Here is a tougher one Chain a Q4 or RenEQ RCL an LI and another RenEQ if you have the DSP power The object will be to get a variety of guitar amp crunches Boost the first EQ bell at 3 or 4K and dip at 300 to 400 Use the RCL gain to hit the L1 hard You can play with the compression later Use the last EQ to get a curve almost the opposite of the first EQ simulate a speaker plus filter out the extreme highs 8 10kHz The first EQ simulates the shaping of the tone controls on the guitar amp sometimes a 30dB difference between 400 and 4K The RCL L1 is used for the distortion The last EQ simulates the cheap 12 speakers Gentler variations come close to tape saturation It is tricky so don t expect amazing re
60. ver multi band compressors have been used to maximize the loudness of radio and network broadcasts for about 20 years Do you really like the radio squash Contrary to the ads a single piece of gear does not make anybody into a mastering engineer This also does not mean these devices are bad only that they can be somewhat dangerous or powerful and sometimes amazing when used properly and carefully Rather than think of them as multi band compressors you will find that they act like multi compressed EQs These compressors are changing the EQ all the time so it is important to understand the specifics of the controls and what each can sound like Just because it is multi band doesn t excuse a poorly set up compressor in fact it makes it worse because EQ changes are easier to notice than flat gain changes The most exercised button should be the bypass switch The mastering engineer may not be able to fix up a tape butchered by these toys Oops E Renaissance Equalizer Plug in Manual One can prepare for mastering fairly simply Mix to a well maintained 1 2 tape or to a 20 or 24 bit digital format Many guys mix to DAT only but mastering engineers will almost always suggest analog Best format mix to all three and let the mastering engineer choose The best prep for the mastering engineer is a well balanced mix Its fine to compress and EQ the mix but don t overdo it Be careful you can mess up months of work if you get carried away The

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