Hi and welcome back. Today I'm going to compare the Fabfilter EQ
to ReaEQ, the stock EQ plugin in Reaper.
Ok, I know that's not really a fair fight. Pro-Q3 has a ton of extra advanced features.
It's got better ergonomics, so for example you can select multiple bands and adjust them all together.
And I think most people would agree that the interface is more attractive and easier on the eye.
But none of those extra features are essential for creating a good mix,
and you wouldn't get any of them on a console EQ.
The basic requirements are low and high shelves, parametric mid bands, and high and low pass filters.
Given that both these plugins are clean and don't try to model analogue saturation or noise at all,
is there any difference when using these core essential features?
So here's my test setup: I've a pink noise generator on channel one,
which I’m routing to an instance of Pro-Q3 in channel two…
and also an instance of ReaEQ on channel three.
If I flip the phase of one, and turn them both on together, they null as you would expect,
and drop right off the meters.
So lets try a high pass filter in both plugins, set to 100Hz …
thats a pretty good null already, though we still see signal on the meters
and low frequency content on the analyser…
but of course we need to match ReaEQs bandwidth parameter to Pro-Q3’s Q parameter,
so lets see if I can get a better match…
and sure enough around 1.9… there’s a perfect null again
Ok, thats a good start. So lets try a low shelf.
I’ve set both up with 12 dB of boost, still at 100Hz…
thats nowhere near a null, so lets tweak the bandwidth…
and there we go… there’s the null at exactly 1.
Ok so how about a bell. Lets start with the low frequencies, I’ll stick with 100Hz,
12dB boost for both… and lets tweak the bandwidth…
there we go, perfect null at 1.9 again, just like the high pass filter.
We’re doing pretty well so far... lets try 1KHz....
Well, nearly. Just peeping up on the meters.
Lets see if I can tune that out by tweaking the bandwidth…
and thats the best I can do.
Still, thats a pretty good null, and I doubt the difference would be audible.
Ok, let's try 10KHz…
and there’s quite a big difference there.
Lets see if I can improve on that…
it gets better if I reduce the bandwidth…
but that’s too far…
and no, I can’t get much of a null going there at all.
So lets hop over to the Plugin Doctor to see what’s going on:
here’s a 10k boost in Pro-Q3
and I’ve zoomed the graph in Plugin Doctor so we can see the high frequencies in more detail.
Lets save that as a reference…
and compare to ReaEQ doing the same amount of boost.
Lets try tweaking the bandwidth…
and I can get pretty close for the lower part of the curve
but the upper part of the curve ends up back at zero at nyquist regardless of my bandwidth setting
while the Fabfilter version doesn’t
so this part of the curve won’t match whatever I do.
So lets say I match the lower part of the curve, where our ears are more sensitive…
is the difference up here actually audible?
The only way to tell that is to do a listening test.
I’m going to use a drum kit mix as cymbal crashes can be quite revealing
but try to make sure YouTube is giving you a high bitrate stream if possible
otherwise they’ll probably sound like they're running through a guitar flanger pedal.
Ok here’s the drums with no EQ…
and lets do this blind…
Can you hear the difference?
I hear a more open, airy character to the Pro-Q3 version.
But its remarkable how much harder it was to hear the difference when I did a proper blind test.
So what if I sweep the frequency higher still?
And we see that gradually it warps further and further out of shape…
as wherever its set it still plummets right down to zero at
the nyquist limit at half the samplerate.
Lets set it to 20KHz... and compare to Pro-Q3… which hasn’t cramped narrower like ReaEQ,
and doesn’t do the dive down to zero at Nyquist.
Let's go back to the pink noise test:
here's Pro-Q3 boosting 20KHz with a lovely smooth symmetrical curve...
and here's ReaEQ with its ugly misshapen spike.
Obviously they're not going to null…
and nor do they.
But, what happens if I adjust the bandwidth to try to compensate for the cramping?
That's too far…
lets hold control to fine tune…
and that's about as good as I can get it.
A couple of things to notice: its not much of a null, and there’s lots of signal not cancelling.
But the difference is mostly high frequency content, right at the top of the
spectrum where our ears are less sensitive. The difference signal is similar in level
to the difference at 10KHz, actually slightly louder… but because its shifted higher up
the spectrum its likely to be much less audible, so in practical terms I’d consider this
a much better null than I achieved at 10KHz. I admit, this surprised me a little.
Proof is in the pudding though: can we hear this difference?
Lets run the same listening test again…
I’m not confident I could tell those apart, which isn’t what I expected. I thought the
20KHz test would be more revealing than the 10KHz test, as the cramping gets worse the
closer you get to Nyquist. But with the bandwidth compensated the opposite is true, as the differences
are now focused in the very highest frequencies that my aging ears no longer care about.
But, the Fabfilter plugin has another trick up its sleeve, which I’ll demonstrate in
Plugin Doctor by switching it to show phase shift instead of frequency response.
Now when I boost a low frequency we see the phase shift happens both above and below the centre frequency…
notice the nice symmetrical shape…
in fact the greatest phase shift coincides with the steepest gradient on the frequency response
while the actual target frequency is at zero phase.
Now if I shift this higher… notice that the phase always ends up at zero at Nyquist…
and when we get to the highest regions it becomes asymmetrical and cramps out of shape.
If I set it to exactly 10k…
the phase should be at zero at 10k…
but it isn’t.
We can fix this by switching to Natural Phase mode
and 10k is now at zero phase exactly as it should be…
and the phase shift is nicely symmetrical until we’re well above 20KHz
where it still inevitably has to plunge down to zero at nyquist.
Other than that this stays nicely symmetrical wherever we move it, just like a good analogue EQ.
If I set it to exactly 10KHz… and compare zero latency with natural phase
the difference seems pretty significant.
So lets try the pink noise test again.
This is the best null I could get in zero latency mode…
so lets try natural phase…
and that’s unexpected: we’re getting a much deeper null now…
lets try a bit lower…
or a bit higher…
thats probably still the least audible setting
and that’s way better than zero latency, which is not what I expected.
I thought there would be more difference between them in natural phase mode, not less.
Lets pop back to Plugin Doctor to see what’s going on. The red trace is ReaEQ…
and we can see that the phase is cramped in a similar manner to the frequency response
so the upper half is narrower than the lower half.
The green trace is Pro-Q3 in zero latency mode
and we can see that whatever they’ve done to correct the frequency response in zero latency mode
has caused a slight overall phase shift, so the target frequency isn’t at zero phase.
The blue trace is Q3 in natural phase mode. This does pass through zero at 10KHz,
and stays nicely symmetrical for the top half as per the analogue model.
But notice that for frequencies at 10KHz or below the phase shift from ReaEQ matches natural phase mode
much more closely than zero latency mode,
with the differences all concentrated right at the top
which is why we get a much better null.
Of course, its more conventional to use a high shelf when dealing with the highest octave,
so does the same apply there?
Well, ReaEQ’s shelf slope does indeed get much steeper as I sweep it up through the highest octaves
and yes it does cramp out of shape.
Here’s the comparison with Pro-Q3, with both set to 12KHz:
I can't get those slopes to match very well
and the phase looks different too.
Here’s the pink noise test with 12k shelves, and Pro-Q3 in zero latency mode…
and this is about the best null I can get…
I can sweep the null up higher in frequency by increasing the bandwidth
or lower by reducing it
which is probably less audible.
So lets try natural phase mode…
and there’s much less of a null this time.
Lets see if I can tune it any better with the bandwidth
and I can get a deeper null at 12k
but whatever I do this is less of a null than I achieved in zero latency mode
indicating more of a difference.
So, can we hear the difference?
Let's just say that the difference is unlikely to cost you your Grammy!
Now don't get me wrong: the Fabfilter EQ is awesome, and I use it so much I load it with a hot key.
The ergonomics really do help you get results quicker, which can sometimes mean better results too.
And the advanced features really can help you create better mixes.
If you can afford to buy it, go ahead, you won't regret it.
But in practical terms, ReaEQ is just as clean and free of distortion
and if you stick to the 12dB slopes in Pro-Q3 the results are almost the same
for most of the frequency range.
The cramping at higher frequencies in ReaEQ is a real difference.
This used to be quite common in digital EQs, but it's a little disappointing these days.
However, I was surprised how well I could tune out the difference by compensating the bandwidth.
When you're mixing you'll set this by ear anyway,
so you'll probably tune out most of the difference instinctively without even being aware of it.
The difference also depends on samplerate: I've been comparing at 48KHz
so you can expect the cramping to be marginally worse if you're working at 44.1.
Conversely if your project sample rate is 96k all the cramping will be shifted up an octave to twice the frequency.
This doesn't entirely remove the problem, but it probably makes it inaudible unless you have the ears of a dog.
But if you're working at 44.1 or 48 and you're worried about the cramping
there is a solution that won't cost you any money: head over to Tokyo Dawn Labs
and download the free Slick EQ plugin.
This is nicely free of cramping
both with the shelves and the bells
and even better, the phase shift is also free of cramping
just like Natural Phase mode in the Fabfilter plugin.
If you use ReaEQ for surgical duties, and Slick EQ for airy high frequency boosts
you can be confident that your tools are not holding you back sonically
and your choice of which frequencies to cut or boost is the only thing that really matters.
Ok that's all for now, thanks for watching.