Professional Analog Mastering.
Professional Analog Mastering.
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This EQ is very popular, primarily for its Airband.
Looking at a graph of its curve, you’ll notice small boosts at 37Hz. 150Hz. and 675Hz, all of which are only about 1 dB.
To emulate the 40kHz air band, we can use a regular EQ or your stock EQ, and with a stereo high shelf, boost 10.6kHz by 3.5dB. with a low Q value to emulate the Maag EQ with the air band set to 5.
If you want more or less of this effect, simply amplify the output—the Maag EQ4 boosts all frequencies once the Air gain goes past 5, which is similar to simply increasing the output. But what’s nice about emulating the gear is that you can ignore this strange feature and just amplify the band you actually want more of.
Let’s listen to the 40kHz air band set to 5, being emulated with the Pro-Q3.
Watch the video to learn more >
The frequency response for the Portico’s width and depth functions can be found in its manual.
Changes to the depth occur on the mid-image. Changes to the width occur on the side image.
Taking a look at these presets I’ve created, you’ll notice how they match up with the manual.
With a little tweaking, the amplitude, the center frequency, and the slope can all be matched for the Low, Low mid, high mid, and high options for both width and depth.
Then, if you want to vary the amount, simply highlight and turn the bands down. It’s very easy to emulate and can be done with any M/S EQ.
For any members, I’ll add these presets to the membership soon so you can download them.
Let’s listen.
Watch the video to learn more >
The violet EQ is incredibly simple: center a band on 300Hz for the low shelf and use a relaxed Q value. For the 90Hz option, the filter will reach slightly over 2kHz. For the 20Hz option, lower the center frequency and use a slightly higher Q value until the filter reaches unity around 1kHz.
It’s a very similar situation for the high shelf—it’s centered on about 10kHz with a relaxed Q value until it reaches unity around 500Hz.
Then, you can adjust it up or down to determine how much you want—really, there’s nothing too complex going on here.
When it comes to the vintage drive function, it’s also shockingly simplistic.
To emulate a low-density setting, use Saturn 2’s warm tube setting with 0% drive. The harmonics match nearly identically.
For the high-density option, use Saturn’s Warm Transformer setting with a drive of about 37% and a mix of about 23.5%. The harmonics aren’t identical, but they are incredibly close.
Let’s listen with Saturn’s saturation and the EQ enabled - the sound will be very close to what you’d get from Fusion.
Watch the video to learn more >
SPL is known for its transient design, but something like this can be emulated with free plugins. Flash by Wavesfactory is a good option.
It achieves a similar effect by utilizing compression methods and phase interference to emphasize the attack or sustain.
This plugin is even subtle enough to use on a mix bus.
The de-esser on this unit is more interesting, though. Instead of frequency-specific compression, phase cancellation is used to attenuate sibilance. This results in a very smooth sound when compared to regular de-essing.
To emulate this, either duplicate the track you want to affect or set up a bus and first invert its phase using a stock utility plugin. Due to complete phase cancellation, you should have no signal when they’re both at the same level.
Then, insert a linear phase EQ and isolate the range where you’re noticing sibilance. 24dB/Octave High and Low pass filters will work well.
Then, add a dynamic bell to expand the isolated range whenever sibilance occurs. Lastly, blend the phase-inverted track in with the signal.
It takes a couple of steps, but this accomplishes the same thing and produces a very similar sound.
Let’s listen to it on some vocals.
Watch the video to learn more >
I have to be honest, there isn’t much about this that’s hard to emulate. The shelves are very similar to Fusions - the lower the frequency on the low shelf, the higher the Q. The higher the frequency on the high shelf, the higher the Q value.
I created some presets to match these shelves and was going to add them to the membership, but they’re so simple there isn’t a real reason to.
The same goes for the compression - I needed an initial -1dB threshold, a harder knee, a ratio of 1.64:1, and to select the mastering style to recreate this unit's settings.
Additionally, I could use the internal side-chain HP to mimic this unit's HP and then vary the release time between 100ms to 1.5s to mimic the compressor’s release times.
For the high ratio, the starting threshold is lowered to -1.7dB, the knee is slightly harder, and the ratio is increased to 3:1.
I’ll add these compression presets to the membership, but it might take less time to just dial these settings in during your next session.
Let’s take a listen
Watch the video to learn more >
So, I was thinking about showing how to create a Pultec EQ with regular equalizers, but honestly, I’d recommend downloading Analog Obsession’s free Pultec EQ.
I’m a big fan of impulse responses, so I thought I’d show you how to create your own.
All you need is a DRAC file or a very short sample of white noise.
Using this stock test oscillator, I’ll select white noise and export a second of it.
Then, I’ll trim it down to as close to one sample as possible. Ideally, I’ll isolate a section with a positive value.
This could then be run through hardware reverb units, EQs, and even plugins to create an impulse response.
If you don’t want to do it yourself, some engineers have created impulse responses for the Briscasti M7, the Lexicon 224, and other units.
But let’s try running this white noise sample through a plugin and A/B the results. I’ll show you the plugin’s sound and the impulse response that’s been loaded into a convolution plugin for a blind test. Let me know if you can pick out which is the original and which is the IR.