GreatGreen
Power User
EQ is a tricky mistress. Especially when boosting frequencies. Yes, best practice is to cut, but sometimes boosting is just the best way to create the best sounding curve.
Unfortunately, boosting can be deceptive and make us think we sound bigger and better than we do. Adding a big bass boost means more rumble! Adding a big mids or treble boost means more clarity! However, in the grand scheme of a mix, that's not really how things work. The mixing engineer is, the vast majority of the time, going to set your level using your loudest represented frequencies. In this context, by the time you hit the mix, "boosting bass" actually becomes "cutting mids and treble" and "boosting treble" is actually "cutting bass and mids" etc.
What I'd like to see is a way to counteract the psychological effects of boosting and your brain thinking "louder = sounds better." Basically, I could see value in a mode introduced in the PEQ and GEQ blocks that would simply look for the highest positively set db value and then auto-adjust the block's Level parameter by an equally negative value.
Examples:
Unfortunately, boosting can be deceptive and make us think we sound bigger and better than we do. Adding a big bass boost means more rumble! Adding a big mids or treble boost means more clarity! However, in the grand scheme of a mix, that's not really how things work. The mixing engineer is, the vast majority of the time, going to set your level using your loudest represented frequencies. In this context, by the time you hit the mix, "boosting bass" actually becomes "cutting mids and treble" and "boosting treble" is actually "cutting bass and mids" etc.
What I'd like to see is a way to counteract the psychological effects of boosting and your brain thinking "louder = sounds better." Basically, I could see value in a mode introduced in the PEQ and GEQ blocks that would simply look for the highest positively set db value and then auto-adjust the block's Level parameter by an equally negative value.
Examples:
- if the Level is set to 0 db and you boost a PEQ frequency or GEQ slider by +5 db, the Level parameter auto-adjusts to -5 db.
- If the Level is set to +10 db and you raise one slider by +3 db, the Level will adjust itself to +7 db (10 db - 3 db = +7 db).
- if the Level is 0 db and you boost two sliders, one to +5 db and the other to +8 db, your Level control will now read -8 db, because the highest boosted value is +8 db.
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