Would an elipitical filter be useful on a console

[pucho812]

Random thought but would it be worth it to have an elliptical filter on the stereo bus of a console?

 

[JohnRoberts]

what for?

JR

 

[pucho812]

Processing the 2 bus while mixing....

Honestly if you can't see a reason for it, then  I am certain it's a bad idea and one of the many toss it on the wall and see if it sticks notions I have..

 

[bluebird]

It could be cool for tightening up the low end. I mean the "sound" of vinyl  records owes a lot to the fact that most of them are mono-ed below 150hz or so.  I believe the Maselec mastering console has an elliptical filter on it.

It would be simple to implement. In the old Neve transfer consoles at Capitol there is just a custom multi tapped Jensen inductor that shorts out the left and right signal.  You just select different taps for different frequencies. 

But to be honest unless your cutting records you might not use it that often. And there are many plug ins that do it.

 

[analogical]

My 2c: It's actually become a fairly essential tool for all the 808 bass heavy electronic music and Hip-Hop (trap) coming out of studios as of late. I rely on plugins for that though as they do a good job. I only add it to the mix bus if its a rework of a bad mix. I prefer to mono-ize per channel, catch it early on.

 

[Monte McGuire]

It makes sense for vinyl, to prevent vertical groove excursion at LF, but for digital, which has no inherent highpass effect nor does it restrict interchannel phase at any frequency, I can't see the point.  LF out of phase information adds depth - I forget which reverb designer (David Griesinger at Lexicon?) says that it adds depth and dimension, and is found in real rooms quite often. IMHO, you might as well go all the way to mono if you need to eliminate that.

But, for cutting vinyl, where you have to stuff the mix into a small box, it makes sense.

 

[abbey road d enfer]

An elliptic EQ can find its use in a PA situation, as it optimizes the available LF volume for a given box count.
However, most of the PA processing units do that, often by putting subs in mono.
BTW, inserting a HPF in the S component of an M-S matrix results in the same effect.
OTOH, an elliptic EQ takes only two opamps, 2 caps and a few resistors, perhaps one potentiometer, so why not experiment with it?

 

[porkyc]

Original question
No!
Next.................

 

[thomasdf]

Yes, Yes, and Yes! But it has to have a bypass.
I don't see myself mixing without an eliptical filter. It is the first thing I insert on my mix bus, along with my usual compressor, and sometime EQ.

 

[abbey road d enfer]

Diversity is beautiful.

 

[home_listening]

Any setup with a Sub will sum to mono and out of phase is of course canceled. So most car stereo and home theatre stuff. Low end stereo content does sound good but it still isn't that practical in a digital recording.

 

[pucho812]

Diversity is beautiful.

so is tossing shit on the wall to see if it sticks

 

[porkyc]

I must be missing something.
The Neumann "elliptical EQ"  is/was a low frequency mono blend to sort out a constraint associated with the (now) 60 odd-year old stereo vinyl medium. So why do you need it? (ie vinyl is not better!)
The "modern" Tchaikovsky style orchestral layout ends up with basses on hard right. (Good luck with Bruckner and 11 double basses on one side. Symph #4); vinyl  cannot cope with this. So as Decca called it, " LF mono blending" is required.
BUT, the master mix did not include this process. It was only applied at the stereo master-to-vinyl production master. ie these are not not the same thing!
The production master contained all of the tweaks/doctoring/butchering necessary  to get the master stereo onto the constrained vinyl medium. (this meant that the juniors could subsequently re-cut whilst the main cutters did the new stuff).
So, forgive my terseness, but one of us is in HUA.