Selig Color EQ evaluation, My subscription

[calebbrennan]

My subscription to RE's is great
I’ve been trying to get my head around Seligs Color Eq and have some questions
I love the way it is laid out because I am a visual inclined which is why I chose Reason in the 1st place.
I upgraded from 6 to 10 last year and the built in Graphic eq has changed my mixes. So yeah I’m behind the curve but learning much.

I’m more singer songwriter producer than engineer but have realized over the years
That the art of mixing is less about levels on the fader and more about levels of the Frequencies and as they interact in the time line of the song.

I looked for vid turorials and there is not much out there for color eq but great promos.

Then I stumble upon this Vid of a guy using Waves for pinpointing vocal harshness. It turned on a light

I’m assuming that Giles has created an emulation and improvement on this VST, and tailored Color eq to Reason as an RE. Which is perfect for me as I don’t use VST.

I’ve been playing around with Color EQ especially on vocals and love isolating the freq bands so easily. I tried a preset called “colorize Vox 2 repatch” and it helped a lot on a great vocal with sloppy Mic technique.
Helped me realize how it works



Questions

There are some parameters I don’t understand,
What is Q and how does it effect each module I don’t see visual of it
I don’t understand The “sequencer Control section is that just for CV heads?

I do want to be able to set a range and threshold that activate a squashing the transient culprits like in above video. Maybe I can do this with leveler and de-esser I just want a little more info.
The color eq saturation added thickness I loved when cutting certain frequencies and I upped the harmonics

Love your contribution

Stay well

Caleb

[PhillipOrdonez]

Hi Caleb,

I don't have that re, but I can tell you, the q is a parameter that changes the width of the band you are modifying.. i.e, how thick or thin the curve will be, and thus affecting more frequencies, or less frequencies.

This will of course change the character of the effect, and given this is a colouring equaliser, it makes a great difference whether it adds saturation to a larger or smaller set of frequencies.

[aeox]

Hi Caleb,

I don't have that re, but I can tell you, the q is a parameter that changes the width of the band you are modifying.. i.e, how thick or thin the curve will be, and thus affecting more frequencies, or less frequencies.

This will of course change the character of the effect, and given this is a colouring equaliser, it makes a great difference whether it adds saturation to a larger or smaller set of frequencies.

Yes and to add to this, you won't see "Q" change unless you increase or decrease the "Gain". You can also change the EQ type, there are 4 different parametric types to choose from!

[selig]

I’m assuming that Giles has created an emulation and improvement on this VST, and tailored Color eq to Reason as an RE. Which is perfect for me as I don’t use VST.

I’ve been playing around with Color EQ especially on vocals and love isolating the freq bands so easily. I tried a preset called “colorize Vox 2 repatch” and it helped a lot on a great vocal with sloppy Mic technique.
Helped me realize how it works



Questions

There are some parameters I don’t understand,
What is Q and how does it effect each module I don’t see visual of it
I don’t understand The “sequencer Control section is that just for CV heads?

I do want to be able to set a range and threshold that activate a squashing the transient culprits like in above video. Maybe I can do this with leveler and de-esser I just want a little more info.
The color eq saturation added thickness I loved when cutting certain frequencies and I upped the harmonics

Love your contribution

Stay well

Caleb

Hi Caleb, hope I can answer all your questions!

First, ColoringEQ is not a dynamic EQ to not exactly like the Waves you mention (I DO have an interesting dynamic EQ in the works, but that's for another thread…).

ColoringEQ is not like any other EQ in how it approaches coloring, but the EQ part on it's own is a worthy EQ that compares to or exceeds any other EQ available today. On to your questions:

"Q" is an essential part of almost every EQ. Another name for Q is "bandwidth", as it controls the width of a bandpass filter or parametric EQ. In a low pass or high pass filter, or low/high shelf, Q has a slightly different effect which is to emphasize the frequency the filter/EQ is tuned to (sometimes also called "emphasis" in older synths).

Q varies from wide to narrow in band pass/parametric shapes, and from smooth to sharp in low/high pass/shelf shapes.

From the user guide, here is the affect of "Q" on a band pass filter:

Screen Shot 2018-10-01 at 8.33.26 AM.png (197.76 KiB) Viewed 1100 times

Sequencer Control:
Since the ColoringEQ is a "Musical EQ", part of what this means is that you tune it to musical intervals. This is more how us "humans" hear frequencies, and it makes understanding EQ easier IMO (you still see "frequencies" too, so don't worry!).

Since all bands are already tuned "musically", it made sense to add the ability to "play" the EQ from a keyboard. This allows many new techniques, from turning kicks into baselines, tracking a vocal by converting the audio to MIDI, and using that MIDI track to "track" the EQ to the vocal (allowing tracking HP filters, notching a harmonic on all notes, etc.). You can also boost a weak harmonic on a vocal or bass or lead line, to bring that element out in the mix.
You can also use it to track the bass line while EQ'ing the kick drum, allowing you to duck the bass frequencies from the kick automatically to prevent clashing and buildup in the low end (or on any instrument!). Creative applications include "playing" a resonate Comb Filter to add pitch to just about any non-pitched track.

There are also CV inputs on the back so you can create smooth LFO or ENV EQ effects, since there are so many EQ/Filter types to work with (you can even create chorus/flanger effects).

As for "Transients", that's not what the video is showing (not "transients", rather). Vocals are a great example of needing a dynamic EQ (you'll have to wait for the selig Dynamic EQ, sorry to say). In the mean time, there are TWO approaches the ColoringEQ can take to solve these types of issues. One is in the sound bank, in the "Unique" folder, and called "Mid_Band Compression". In that example, the mids are split and compressed, then re-combined with the rest of the signal.

You can also build a single band dynamic EQ, which I've done for your and attached here:

DynamicEQ.cmb.zip

(70.23 KiB) Downloaded 44 times

Let me know if you have any further questions, of course this is one of my favorite subjects and I don't mind talking about it all day (good luck getting me to stop…).

[napynap]

I’m assuming that Giles has created an emulation and improvement on this VST, and tailored Color eq to Reason as an RE. Which is perfect for me as I don’t use VST.

I’ve been playing around with Color EQ especially on vocals and love isolating the freq bands so easily. I tried a preset called “colorize Vox 2 repatch” and it helped a lot on a great vocal with sloppy Mic technique.
Helped me realize how it works



Questions

There are some parameters I don’t understand,
What is Q and how does it effect each module I don’t see visual of it
I don’t understand The “sequencer Control section is that just for CV heads?

I do want to be able to set a range and threshold that activate a squashing the transient culprits like in above video. Maybe I can do this with leveler and de-esser I just want a little more info.
The color eq saturation added thickness I loved when cutting certain frequencies and I upped the harmonics

Love your contribution

Stay well

Caleb

Hi Caleb, hope I can answer all your questions!

First, ColoringEQ is not a dynamic EQ to not exactly like the Waves you mention (I DO have an interesting dynamic EQ in the works, but that's for another thread…).

ColoringEQ is not like any other EQ in how it approaches coloring, but the EQ part on it's own is a worthy EQ that compares to or exceeds any other EQ available today. On to your questions:

"Q" is an essential part of almost every EQ. Another name for Q is "bandwidth", as it controls the width of a bandpass filter or parametric EQ. In a low pass or high pass filter, or low/high shelf, Q has a slightly different effect which is to emphasize the frequency the filter/EQ is tuned to (sometimes also called "emphasis" in older synths).

Q varies from wide to narrow in band pass/parametric shapes, and from smooth to sharp in low/high pass/shelf shapes.

From the user guide, here is the affect of "Q" on a band pass filter:
Screen Shot 2018-10-01 at 8.33.26 AM.png

Sequencer Control:
Since the ColoringEQ is a "Musical EQ", part of what this means is that you tune it to musical intervals. This is more how us "humans" hear frequencies, and it makes understanding EQ easier IMO (you still see "frequencies" too, so don't worry!).

Since all bands are already tuned "musically", it made sense to add the ability to "play" the EQ from a keyboard. This allows many new techniques, from turning kicks into baselines, tracking a vocal by converting the audio to MIDI, and using that MIDI track to "track" the EQ to the vocal (allowing tracking HP filters, notching a harmonic on all notes, etc.). You can also boost a weak harmonic on a vocal or bass or lead line, to bring that element out in the mix.
You can also use it to track the bass line while EQ'ing the kick drum, allowing you to duck the bass frequencies from the kick automatically to prevent clashing and buildup in the low end (or on any instrument!). Creative applications include "playing" a resonate Comb Filter to add pitch to just about any non-pitched track.

There are also CV inputs on the back so you can create smooth LFO or ENV EQ effects, since there are so many EQ/Filter types to work with (you can even create chorus/flanger effects).

As for "Transients", that's not what the video is showing (not "transients", rather). Vocals are a great example of needing a dynamic EQ (you'll have to wait for the selig Dynamic EQ, sorry to say). In the mean time, there are TWO approaches the ColoringEQ can take to solve these types of issues. One is in the sound bank, in the "Unique" folder, and called "Mid_Band Compression". In that example, the mids are split and compressed, then re-combined with the rest of the signal.

You can also build a single band dynamic EQ, which I've done for your and attached here:
DynamicEQ.cmb.zip

Let me know if you have any further questions, of course this is one of my favorite subjects and I don't mind talking about it all day (good luck getting me to stop…).

Thank you Selig, nice explanations, I watched your videos on Coloring EQ, and I'm hoping to get this RE someday!

[calebbrennan]

Thank you all for responding
( I still don't understand why we are supposed to post all the text from previous poster when we're all on the same thread, it's redundant and creates clutter but that's another topic.)

Giles I am very impressed with Color EQ
the way I learn is to mess around with a device and hear the audible result.my first experimentation made me realize Color eq is more of a synth/processor/ morph machine than it is a traditional Equalizer.And reminds me of one of my favorite RE's Synchronous.
Though as an equalization / Saturation unit it helped me smooth out 3 vocal last night .

My Dad had a great joke " If all else fails ,.... read the instructions"

Is there a manual of any sort for color EQ? You posted a graphic from a "users guide".
I have not found any documentation or instructional videos on this unique device and I learned a lot from your vid on Gain / peaks and valleys. Think about doing a brief one on tuning the unit with a keyboard.

Selig said"

Since all bands are already tuned "musically", it made sense to add the ability to "play" the EQ from a keyboard."

I tried this and liked it but I don't understand the relationship between how the intervals on the keyboard relate to the Frequencies laid out in the program pods ie F1-1-5 F2.
It seems the only change audible started at C3 or C4. What is the rule on this?

I may not need dynamic eq if I can dip/duck frequencies from my keyboard.

Caleb

[aeox]

https://shop.propellerheads.se/media/pr ... 20v1.0.pdf

[selig]

I tried this and liked it but I don't understand the relationship between how the intervals on the keyboard relate to the Frequencies laid out in the program pods ie F1-1-5 F2.
It seems the only change audible started at C3 or C4. What is the rule on this?

I may not need dynamic eq if I can dip/duck frequencies from my keyboard.

Caleb

Quoting should include JUST ENOUGH text for context, IMO.

aeon already posted the link for the user guide, which I tried to write to cover as much detail and additional information as possible (sorry for writing a "book" there, but I always like a user guide that was educational as well).
User guides are typically found on the store page, btw. There is a petition to provide a link from inside Reason when you are using the RE, fwiw.

If you have a keyboard setup to "play" the EQ, and you have a band boosted or cut, you will see the EQ curve move as you play different keys. The range is 16 to 136, or E-1 to E9. All bands cover from roughly 20 Hz to 20 kHz.

The relationship of pitch to frequency is VERY important to understand IMO, and it took me a while when I was first learning about audio to make this connection. We hear each octave equally, but it's actually a doubling of frequency. Meaning that the first octave we hear (20-40 Hz) only covers 20 Hz, while the last octave (the tenth, 10,000 to 20,000 Hz) covers 10,000 Hz, or 500x as many frequencies.

Since spectrum graphs already account for this logarithmic curve, it makes sense to control EQ the same way. If EQ tune knobs are not logarithmic, the center position between 20 and 20,000 Hz would be around 10,000 Hz which would mean 9 octaves in the first 50% of rotation and only 1 oct in the last. Add to that the fact that the most accuracy is needed in the lower octaves (that's where the fundamental pitches reside), you can see why a linear frequency knob would be pretty useless.

If you think about EQ in terms of octaves, things become much simpler. Bass frequencies cover the bottom 3 octaves or so, from Octave 1: 20-40, Octave 1: 40-80, and Octave 3: 80-160 Hz. The next three octaves cover the fundamental pitches of most common instruments: Octave 4: 160-320 Hz, Octave 5: 320-640 Hz, and Octave 6: 640-1280 Hz. Octaves 7 and 8 include the upper mid-range, or "critical" bands (1280-2560, 2560-5120) while octaves 9 and 10 cover the "treble" and "air" (5120-10240, 10,240-20,480 Hz).

To simplify, the bottom two octaves are "lows", the middle 6 are "mids" (3 "low-mids, and 3 high-mids), and the top two are "highs". Or even simpler, 5 bands of "lows", 5 bands of "highs".

Now look at just about any spectrum display and you'll see the ten bands equally spaced:

Screen Shot 2018-10-02 at 9.52.01 AM.png (114.97 KiB) Viewed 976 times

For fun, import some mixes of songs you love into Reason, and look at any spectrum display to see which octaves represent which sounds. With the ColoringEQ display, there is a very handy button called "HOLD", which allows you to freeze the display to show the highest peaks at every frequency and see the overall "curve" of a mix which you can use to compare to your mixes to commercial releases.

Dynamic EQ:
ColoringEQ can do a neat trick with it's Sequencer Control section, which is to apply the velocity to the gain while the note/pitch is controlling frequency. This allows you to play a "soft" note and get only a little effect, while a loud note will get the full effect. Say you set your EQ to -24 dB cut. When you click on the GATE button in the Sequencer Control section, no EQ will be applied until you actually play a note. On the back panel you can increase the VELOCITY depth to 100%, and in this example a velocity of 127 (max) will give you a cut of -24dB, while half of that (velocity 64) will give you half the cut (-12dB) and so forth. Additionally, you can use the ATTACK and RELEASE controls (with a tempo sync option) to affect how quickly the EQ kicks in when you play a note, just like on a synth (and there's glide too, if you need it or want to get creative).

This effectively allows you to create a very fine-tunable dynamic EQ, in which makes a nice addition to the Combinator I posted earlier.

[calebbrennan]

Selig
:

The relationship of pitch to frequency is VERY important to understand IMO, and it took me a while when I was first learning about audio to make this connection. We hear each octave equally, but it's actually a doubling of frequency. Meaning that the first octave we hear (20-40 Hz) only covers 20 Hz, while the last octave (the tenth, 10,000 to 20,000 Hz) covers 10,000 Hz, or 500x as many frequencies.

Since spectrum graphs already account for this logarithmic curve, it makes sense to control EQ the same way. If EQ tune knobs are not logarithmic, the center position between 20 and 20,000 Hz would be around 10,000 Hz which would mean 9 octaves in the first 50% of rotation and only 1 oct in the last. Add to that the fact that the most accuracy is needed in the lower octaves (that's where the fundamental pitches reside), you can see why a linear frequency knob would be pretty useless.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks so much for your explanations on equalization. It was in depth but to the point and just enough for my low attention span. It's really starting to sink in. As I said the graphic eq built into reason really help my mixes but the Selig Color eq is a graphic EQ on steroids with the saturation filling out lost body of the wave when you curtail the peaks.

Agreed. Navigating EQ by SSL mixer is extremely inefficient

"you can see why a linear frequency knob would be pretty useless"

Both our eyes and our ears can play tricks of perception . I prefer both to have a counter balance control

[calebbrennan]

Wow Giles

GOOD JOB!

i downloaded the combinator you made above and got to play my EQ with my keyboard. Very Amazing.
Yes a Singular Frquency realm but makes me undestand the concept of playing the EQ with your keyboard or midi.

By the way
Your explanation of frequency and octaves was stellar in it's simplicity,( You claim your users guide is too much of a book),

yet you boiled it down really well in your response to me, the science of equalization, Epic contribution for any student of sound.

[selig]

"you can see why a linear frequency knob would be pretty useless"

Both our eyes and our ears can play tricks of perception . I prefer both to have a counter balance control

My comment was focused on the LINEAR part, not the FREQUENCY part. All EQs use log frequency controls, not linear. That is to say, the half-way point of a linear knob would be around 10kHz (10,000 is half of 20,000).

BUT, the half way point of the audio spectrum isn’t 10kHz, it’s closer to 640 Hz. If you consider the audio spectrum to constitute 10 octaves, then you need a control who’s first 10% covers only 20 Hz (20-40Hz), while it’s last 10% covers 10,000 Hz (10,000-20,000 Hz)!

With that in mind, I totally agree with you in that it’s my belief that every EQ should show BOTH frequency AND pitch because that’s how you can best learn the relationship between pitch and frequency. And you should also understand the OCTAVE relationship, best displayed by the spectrum graph having divisions every octave (which most already do).




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