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4.1 An Audio Engineer’s Best Friend
The equaliser is the oldest and the most popular sound
processing tool. From the earliest days, its main function has
been to correct or enhance sound by boosting or cutting
certain frequency ranges. Engineers have developed countless
equalisers for over 50 years and some of them became
legendary and were considered bench marks. The most
popular type of EQ in recording and post-production studios
is the parametric equaliser or PEQ. It offers maximal
flexibility due to direct access to all relevant filter parameters.
Properly used the PEQ is a very powerful tool and the best
friend of every sound engineer in the battle for perfect sound.
If misused, it can be the greatest enemy of any recording.
4.2 The Best of the Analogue and Digital Worlds
X-EQ is a creative equalising tool combining the best of both
the analogue and digital worlds. We recreated the most
legendary analogue equalisers and added a few experimental
characteristics only possible the in digital domain. By using
proprietary filter algorithms, we have achieved a huge
dynamic range as well as extremely low noise and distortion
level, and thus unparalleled sound purity; impossible with any
analogue circuitry.
4.3 Analogue Parametric EQ Modelling
In today’s era of digital audio workstations, hundreds of
software parametric equalisers are available. Many of them
are intended to be “THE best sounding equaliser ever”. The
truth is that only few of them are recognised and adored by the
experts. You may ask why one equaliser sounds great while
another does not. This question is almost as old as the
equaliser itself and still is not completely answered. On the
one hand there are some obvious rules which must be
followed when designing a good sounding PEQ, on the other
hand some never really proven esoteric claims driven by
marketing departments or self-nominated audio evangelists.
Especially treasured analogue equalisers are considered by
some people as being absolutely unique and unmatched by
any ‘dirty’ digital equaliser. The truth is that with a properly
designed, fully parametric analytic EQ every amplitude and
phase characteristic of any other equaliser setup can be
recreated. Of course, the contribution of distortions to the
specific sound of a particular analogue equaliser caused by
the respective electronics has to be considered. If the
distortions are ‘good’, they may make certain applications
sound better. Usually however, ‘bad’ non linear distortions
and other deficiencies like limited dynamic range are surely
not responsible for a ‘magic’ sound. Therefore our policy in
digital PEQ design has always been to make the equaliser
4. Some History
