The Ray Charles EQ

[abbey road d enfer]

Back on Topic:  having plug in Eq's that are set by note as a relative scale.    Both Waves and DMG make an interface with a piano key type of selection.  I'm not sure but some midi keyboard jockey/composer might prefer an interface like that. 

I don't doubt they've done it for a reason. i suspect, as I wrote earlier, in order to make their product more "musical".
That's typically done for non-audio people.
I have nothing against helping the unwashed master the intricacies of the audio world, but in that case I think it is misleading. It tends to implant the notion that EQ is related to the height of notes.

 

[fazer]

Both Waves and DMG have the normal EQ controls as well so its a feature added in to make it an extra as much as anything.  To me the more useful feature in the two EQ's are the spectrum analyzer built into the display (superimposed over the Freq. curves) to spot resonance and sibilance frequencies.  Again nothing replaces training your ears but can't hurt on a plug in.  Just some extra code for a bored software programmer.

 

[pucho812]

Next time I hang with the dude, will be in a month. I am going to have him get me the eq points. Other things to note was how the eq only over lapped at one frequency point per band VS the regular quad 8 version which had 2 over lapping frequencies.

 

[Gold]

Paul you have me interested in QE 312's.  Have you seen this article.  I'm sure you have. 

I haven't seen that. If mine are screwed up I guess I like it that way. Mine are actually a 312S. They are three band with four frequencies per band. No overlap. With a two selectable frequency HPF and LPF and a mic pre.

 

[CJ]

you can pick arbitrary frequencies for an eq,

or you can use music theory to set the freqs,

read some old Neve interviews,

so I could see some guy tweaking an eq for a singer,

Owsley probably did  stranger things,

Brother Ray?  i would listen to him thru a some tin cans and a string, eq or no,

Louis Armstrong, tweaking an eq for him would be tough,

Louis CK?  no eq required, but Bill Hicks needs heavy compression, jus sayin...

 

[ruffrecords]

YOu beat me to it CJ. I think there is a case for setting EQ frequencies at musically related intervals. Octaves would possibly to too coarse but you can imagine 250Hz, 500Hz, 1K, 2K, 4K, 8K and 16K as mid frequencies for an EQ. If you added fifths as well you would get:

250, 375, 500, 750, 1K, 1K5, 2K, 3K, 4K, 6K, 8K, 12K, 16K

Looks vaguely familiar. Take out the top or bottom one and you have 12 mid frequencies.

Cheers

Ian

 

[Unit7]

Even if it seems to me a bit too much to actually tune an eq to correspond to musical notes - perhaps a combination of being a little naive and at the same time a man used to have things his way - I think for a musician musical notes is a very natural reference. And I'm sure the intension wasn't to play the eq like he was playing the piano, just a good reference for a life long musician that was not close or intimate but ONE with his instrument and the language of music.

 

[okgb]

I can see frequencies being centered on notes , bandwidth aside of how wide and what it covers
How does it relate to the Key the particular songs happens to be in ? tuning drums can be done
song by song ,  but if the vocal is singing those note you get increased resonance and if it is not
you have more spread out spectrum ?

 

[lassoharp]

Maybe it was just modified so that the center of the curve was right near where his vocal tended to resonate over his most common keys.  I'd be thinking simple - make it so I can reach right here and give my vocal just the right bump without having to fool with sweeping and Q to find it.

Note?  Semantics?    "You like this Ray?"  "No up a little bit - this note right here see?"

 

[JohnRoberts]

This feels like over inspecting for belly button lint but here goes.

In nature musical instrument sounds often occur on harmonics or fixed ratios** above the fundamentals, so there is some slender merit to center frequencies being similarly spaced above presumable lower frequency fundamentals.

However tuning and note spacing are an artificial man-made construct so EQing things like human voices will vary with the specific  human's physiology.

JR

** then there's drums where the overtones are not on harmonic or even musical intervals.