Punchy EQ

[desol]

What goes into the design of a good punchy EQ, and what are some examples?
-mike

Hmm. Well...a good electronic design is just that...good. Alot of folks are used to
what they've come to rely on...API, Neve, Pultec, SSL, etc. All of these designs are good.

From an electronic component standpoint, i'm not sure it matters....AS MUCH.
Whatever works.

The best punch comes from a good drum, hit well and mic'd well. You can't just throw a mic
up...and your done. Not saying that's what you do tho. ie: listening gets you the best punch..

Good mic's and pre's don't hurt. Good compression used tastefully at tracking and/or mixing.


.002

 

[nickeveslage]

What goes into the design of a good punchy EQ, and what are some examples?
-mike

Hmm. Well...a good electronic design is just that...good. Alot of folks are used to
what they've come to rely on...API, Neve, Pultec, SSL, etc. All of these designs are good.

From an electronic component standpoint, i'm not sure it matters....AS MUCH.
Whatever works.

The best punch comes from a good drum, hit well and mic'd well. You can't just throw a mic
up...and your done. Not saying that's what you do tho. ie: listening gets you the best punch..


.002

Though I can appreciate (and agree with) the frustration, and maybe confusion, being felt in regards to how vague and sometimes insulting the OP has been....I think this post is getting warmer in regards to the type of answer that he wants. My interpretation is that he's asking about what, on a component level, might lend to the punchiness of a circuit.

I've noticed that API equalizers tend to 'preserve' punch rather than give a characteristic of punchiness as opposed to other equalizers which may sort of suck the punch out of a given sound.

 

[myker]

I apologize if I offended anyone, I throw the term music snob around loosly very often. To me it means people who sit around and really argue, analyse, and rack their brains talking about audio and it's inherent issues. My question did leave a lot to the interpretation of the reader.
Your response pucho, is exactly what I was after, everyone knows the ideal situations, but I was trying to isolate the rest of the signal chain from the eq at mixtime. How often do you really get a project to mix and everything is awesome? Some of the coolest records ever were total trainwrecks when the mix engineer got them. And this was before the widespread use of drum samples. So this illustrates the power of the right eq's and compressors in the hands of the right person.
If all compressors are equally "punchy" then why do we have favorites? I suppose my definition is punchy is  bringing out specific frequencies and presenting them in the most pleasing way. Even an A/B between E and G eq's there are the qualities that make us prefer one over the other.
Even in plug-ins this is true.
Again, sorry if I offended anyone.    

 

[Michael Tibes]

You guys seem to be missing the point, I'm asking for your opinion, and analysis. I allready have eq's and I have a commercial recording studio. I have experience engineering. I'm not asking what to buy, or how to get a punchy sound when tracking, I'm asking what you guys think makes for an eq that adds punch to the kick. Everyone knows that all major label recordings are sampled, the producers that rent my studio use samples all day long as well as make samples from some of my drums there.
I allready know what I like, what do you use and why? If everything you tracked was allready as "punchy" or "huge" or "beautiful" as it could be then we wouldn't have EQ's. If every musician was perfect then we wouldn't use compressors.
Do you guys that don't understand what I'm asking record music for a living? Because I can't figure out why you don't understand about my question. I can tell who records a lot by your responses, and some of you have that studio snobbery going on.
Who cares what the quality of the source is, your a mix eng and you have a decent kick track, what is your choice eq to put some more balls on it? And why do you think that design is the one you go to it for that particular situation.
What is it about the design that makes me personally go to the E eq's and ignore the G's? What's the difference?
   

So maybe you could elaborate your question - because it seems rather broad. If you ask 100 people what 'punch' is you might get 101 opinions. What the technical difference between a SSL E / G and Neve VR might be (which would probably be my choices for more or less 'punchy' EQs) seems more concrete and answerable. Not that I could explain it immediately, but it sure would be interesting to read some brains opinions for me  And since you already seem to have made your choices, I wonder why you don't mention which designs you have in mind?
All major label recordings being 'sampled' seems new to me nevertheless and I would still use compressors even with 'perfect' musicians, because they're a part of my sound-shaping process which goes way beyond evening out levels.

Michael

 

[myker]

There are some things that I had come to believe that didn't make sense to me, so I thought I would ask the pro's. I was under the impression that all good designs must have transformers and coils. Caps are bad in the signal chain, etc. I knew this couldn't be true, but I wasn't sure how to ask. The question was clear to me, but I forget that you guys have a much deeper perception than I do into this gear and you needed more info from me to know what the heck I'm talking about.

 

[myker]

There are so many choices that I haven't tried. Ones you guys have, and ones you DIY'ed that I have never touched. What makes them good, what makes the different designs more appealing for you for certain applications? I like my Chandler because it sounds punchy and is really easy to get a good sound with it. You guys have way more experience with this stuff, especially the exotic stuff.

 

[pucho812]

I apologize if I offended anyone, I throw the term music snob around loosly very often.
Again, sorry if I offended anyone.    

it's o.k.  no harm no foul. you know what, if you really wanna cook your noodle start getting into the different sounding parts that help or hinder the sound of the eq like wima's vs something else or transformer vs transformerless doa vs non doa op amps. If you ask me transformers will make more of the punch in an eq then the eq itself. which is why I like the neve 1073, 1081. the SSL's are good but they are in the board and no transformers around the eq. Hell even a 1:1 interstage would make for interesting sonics mnight not be good but then again they might.

 

[skipwave]

I can offer one anecdotal experience. recorded a rock band in a studio with a Neve V51 in one room and an SSL 8000G in another. Drums tracked through Neve 1073s, EQ defeated during tracking. First, I put the mix up on the Neve V51 desk, and then later on the SSL 8000G. Just in terms of EQ I preferred the precision of the SSL for tweaking the kick. However, for punch-y-ness of the overall mix I felt the summing in the Neve was better.

If the tracks were recorded with SSL pres, maybe I would have liked EQing them with the Neve. There is some credence to the advice about tracking on a Neve or API and mixing on SSL.

SSL 8kG:

For me, though, adding punch to an un-punchy track is mostly about messing with the envelope via dynamics and adding distortion to psychoacoustically embiggen.

Best punch-adder I've used is a Distressor.

 

[phishman13]

Best punch-adder I've used is a Distressor.

A...................................

motha fuckin'

MEN!

 

[Gold]

The only real answer is to warm up the soldering iron and figure it out for yourself. Just because there is a lot of technical mumbo jumbo doesn't mean there isn't some mystery involved. The one thing everyone can say with certainty is that there are no easy answers as to what sounds good and why.

 

[abechap024]

Interesting thread. Seems like on a design level, the less capacitors in the signal chain an EQ uses (or any piece of equipment for that matter) the more "punchy" or focused it will be...Capacitors do tend to smear the signal a bit.
My 1 cent...

 

[babyhead]

Do you mean Pucho EQ? I only know of one in existence...

 

[smallbutfine]

To me punchy eq still sounds like a paradoxon. If the punch is already there, the eq with the best transient-neutral behaviour wins. For quality eq's -> all should be good enough. Fast enough opamps, that's all.
(well, sorry. topic sounds like dancing architecture to me, although I really got a picture of what you mean.)

 

[Autophase]

I'm in total agreement with Skipwave.
I just dont attribute the term "punchy" to an Eq, the dynamics are more important in the case. I think of EQ's as having character, colour or as some people say "sound"
Perhaps the topic title was misleading, maybe "warm eq" could hvae been better.

 

[okgb]

Was that PuchQfactor ?

 

[abechap024]

Don't Lie, I know we all are busy trying to be the first to build the all new punchy EQ for the next AES convention. you'll make millions.

 

[tv]

A rhetorical (OT??) question: in opamp-based designs, has anybody tried to mis-bias the opamps and/or bias them class-A in EQ-sections? IIRC member "living sounds" has done some similar mods to his gear and seemed to be very happy with it..

 

[JohnRoberts]

You guys seem to be missing the point, I'm asking for your opinion, and analysis. I allready have eq's and I have a commercial recording studio. I have experience engineering. I'm not asking what to buy, or how to get a punchy sound when tracking, I'm asking what you guys think makes for an eq that adds punch to the kick. Everyone knows that all major label recordings are sampled, the producers that rent my studio use samples all day long as well as make samples from some of my drums there.
I allready know what I like, what do you use and why? If everything you tracked was allready as "punchy" or "huge" or "beautiful" as it could be then we wouldn't have EQ's. If every musician was perfect then we wouldn't use compressors.
Do you guys that don't understand what I'm asking record music for a living? Because I can't figure out why you don't understand about my question. I can tell who records a lot by your responses, and some of you have that studio snobbery going on.
Who cares what the quality of the source is, your a mix eng and you have a decent kick track, what is your choice eq to put some more balls on it? And why do you think that design is the one you go to it for that particular situation.
What is it about the design that makes me personally go to the E eq's and ignore the G's? What's the difference?
   

The problem with your question is its and apples vs oranges thing.

"Punchiness" if I'm allowed to speculate, is a dynamic characteristic, the opposite of squashing something with too much compression or limiting. The opposite of compression is an expander which could make a sound more punchy than it would sound good to do (a little expansion goes a long way). If you ever ran a  tape track through a dbx NR playback decode that wasn't encoded you are hearing 1:2 expansion (plus the absence of the encode HF pre-emphasis). If you listen through the HF rolloff it is violently dynamic.

EQs have a pretty limited palette of what they can do. They differ only in what frequencies they boost/cut (center frequency) and and how broad a swath of frequencies they take with those adjustments (Q). Perhaps a parametric EQ would allow you to zero in narrowly on an already dynamic frequency range of the sound source to boost.

It still seems an inappropriate term to characterize an EQ.

JR

 

[Gold]

I think some forms of distortion add "punch". That can come from anywhere. Reshaping of the low end can also feel like "punch". It's all very vague. Slam some level through a transformer. It can add punch. If you don't have punch and you want it it's operator error.

 

[ioaudio]

not sure if this qualifies as punchy per your definition, my latest project:
squeeze the classic pultec into the 500 series.

-max