[Ardour-Users] graphical EQs [was: what linux audio, project, do you miss?]

[Lamar Owen]

On Monday, March 07, 2011 10:14:31 am you wrote:
> Lamar Owen wrote:
> > there really is no such thing as SOUNDING wrong if it's carrying the sound the engineer/artist intends it to carry.  
> >   
> 
> Have you ever been to a concert, and the mix was SOOOO bad that all you
> could think the entire night was "what the hell is wrong with that guy?"
[snip]
> I would say that for any given set of source tracks or mics someone has
> decided to mix, there are far more "wrong" solutions than "good" solutions

Your examples are all of the execution, not of the tool itself.  My statement I thought was clear: if the sound is the sound the engineer/artist intends, it by definition is not wrong.  Whether I like it or think it's terrible is totally immaterial; what I don't like is not automatically 'wrong' and what I like is not automatically 'right' either.  Music *production* quality is not objectively measureable, unlike audio *reproduction* quality, which is.  And live concerts are productions, not reproductions.  Maybe that 15+kHz squeal is there for a reason...... :-)

If Kim gets the results Kim wants with a 31-band graphic EQ, then a 31 band EQ is something Kim finds useful.   Whether anyone thinks it has potential to create a 'wrong' sound or not is immaterial to Kim's desired outcome.

I find a Dorrough DAP310 provides somewhat of a unique sound (would love a DSP version, in fact), but not for its intended purpose..... It has some other artistic potential that some might not like at all; but not liked does not equal wrong.  So while some might whine 'but but you need the latest Omnia or Optimod'  because the DAP310 has sonic 'issues' they are missing the artistic point.  

The sonic issues might be the exact effect the artist is after; a parametric EQ and a minimum phase graphic EQ will sound different even if the frequency response curves are the same, because of their different phase responses: and if that's the effect that is desired, it is not wrong.  This is about artistic music production, not reproduction, which is a whole different ball of wax.

At least that's what I got from Kim's message, and from a brief perusal of the Ozian term acousmatics.  Kim specifically mentioned that a parametric might be too 'musical' for certain field recording work (that in and of itself is an interesting statement).

So some might find a graphic EQ limiting; honestly, I find the 'paragraphic' EQ in Ozone and Alloy to be the sweet spot for me, combining what I like about both (and having the current spectrum plotted under the EQ curve helps me, at least). 

And that's why I'll end this with a standard 'net-ism':  YMMV.