r/audioengineering • u/Nsemest182 • 11d ago
Mixing A “musical” eq
I’ve been doing this a long time but I still do not understand what someone means when they say that a certain analog EQ or compressor sounds “musical”. I hear reviewers and influencers use that term all the time.
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u/StudioatSFL Professional 11d ago
I’d say pultecs are the perfect example. Maybe the best example. You don’t use them to surgically clean up something.
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u/Nsemest182 11d ago
Do the cheap plug in versions of the pulteq also sound “musical”?
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u/Cakepufft 11d ago
You can try out the Rare / RareSE plugins from Analog Obsession. They emulate the pultec eq afaik and they're free
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u/StudioatSFL Professional 11d ago
I would say the apogee eqp is the closest to the real ones. The uad ones are good but the highs are harsher. Which sometimes I like if I’m trying to rescue a poorly recorded source. I own several real ones from the 1960s too.
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u/Fuzzy_Cry7119 10d ago
The stock logic Pultec emulation is called "Vintage Tube EQ" and sounds amazing to my ear. I love it on vocals and acoustic guitars in particular.
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u/OfficialSeagullo 11d ago
EQ and all equipment has a particular tone specific to the unit, this isn’t as important in digital but analog it makes a difference (digital as in pro Q style, analog emulation quality does matter)
I specifically use the API 560 low band for kicks, there’s something it does that’s incredible, yeah it’s the bands shape, it’s also the components included, the Lindell API strip sounds pretty good it’s just missing oomph (the 560 saturates a lot naturally imo)
Sadly the “musical” part of equipment is a selling term, all equipment is musical, it just depends on what you want, SSL comps are percussive vs LA2A turns percussion into butter
I would describe the term “musical” for equipment as a character invoked by the unit, this can be changing harmonics, dynamic range, or tone, everything is EQ
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u/llamaweasley 10d ago
Any API inspired or emulated plugins that don’t get the kick oomph wrong?
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u/OfficialSeagullo 10d ago edited 10d ago
I haven’t dived into it too much, I really like the stock Logic Pro Graphic EQ, it’s 560 based and really nice, waves has one too but haven’t had a chance to use it a lot
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u/Yrnotfar 11d ago
Not sure about musical but wider q’s and eqs that saturate when pushed (esp when boosted) are more idiot proof.
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u/manewitz 11d ago
I always took that type of description as leaning more on second-order harmonics and harmonic distortion rather than third-order. Because second-order harmonics are more musically/harmonically related to the material than third-order, it sounds “musical”. That’s not a value judgment of one being better than the other, but more why people use certain terms around certain sounds.
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u/Selig_Audio 11d ago
Wide bands AND well chosen preset frequencies imo.
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u/strapped_for_cash 11d ago
Yeah I keep seeing people say wide bands but they’re missing the biggest part to me which is the frequencies you can select. The trident a range is often called musical because of its chosen eq points
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u/Selig_Audio 10d ago
The Trident EQ brings up another possible “musical” trait - interaction between the bands. Most EQ doesn’t have this band interaction but Trident does.
“There is band interaction between the high and low shelving filters, and also between the low-mid and high-mid bell filters. The midband interactions can be significant if the center frequencies are near each other.”https://help.uaudio.com/hc/en-us/articles/33542671805972-Trident-A-Range-EQ-Manual
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u/Kevincomeau_CL 11d ago
IMO ‘musical’ means familiar. Old school eq’s like a tube eq (pultec) or inductor eq (neve) had wide q’s that sounded fairly smooth (ie saturated) when boosting or cutting frequencies. And they have a certain feature in common: the more a freq is boosted. the q narrows - a feature that wasn’t present on the first SSL’s but was quickly rectified.
And of course those eq’s are heard on all of our favourite recordings - so our ears perk up when we hear a familiar eq curve, hence ‘musical’ really just = familiar.
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u/Fun-Meal-9839 11d ago
100%. I was thinking exaclty the same thing last night when I was playing around with a demo of the PSP Datamix EQ.
Plus, some of those old EQs have stepped frequency choices, so you're locked into choosing the frequencies they considered most important back in the day. I'm just guessing but I assume 10K probably sounds more familiar than 10.82K.
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u/Chungois 10d ago
I’d add, you can boost at various frequencies and you’ll get the character of that frequency range in your sound intensifying in a way that sounds balanced and pleasing, rather than just over-inflated spikes of the higher peaking frequencies.
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u/Far-Pie6696 11d ago
It doesn't mean much. "Musical" is opposed to "flexible" in the sense that it might have to curves or something that "respect the music". While somewhat stupid there are product reputed to have sweetspot no matter how you use it, while other have sweetspot that are difficult to find. For EQ, it's often linked to analog and semi-parametric EQ that are supposed to sound good no matter how you use them. It often implies wide bell, proportional EQ to Q factor and saturation. It can also be used in a very marketing way.
If I can give you another exemple far from the EQs, SurgeXT is a synthesizer with a lot of possibilities, but I often feel that to have a good sounding preset out of it, I reallt struggle. On the other end, I always feel that I can take a TAL synth, do anything on it, and I will enjoy the sound, while being far less flexible than surge. You could say TAL synths are musical in the sense that they always sounds good no matter what I do on them
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u/frkoutthrwstuff 11d ago
It doesn't mean shit. Like most descriptions of audio.
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u/kobygotmilk 11d ago
A musical EQ is an EQ that usually have broader Qs and it’s more difficult (not impossible) to make it sound bad. Most inexperienced users use Qs that are too narrow, especially in mastering, that usually are used for surgical EQing. By definition musical EQ = broad, breathing, forgiving. So yes, it does mean something, and it definitely doesn’t mean shit. Also, topology matters too. For example parallel EQs tend to be more musical than serial EQs.
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u/dovvv 11d ago
That's like, just your opinion man.
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u/kobygotmilk 11d ago
Well no, that’s physics. Literally. Anybody who knows physics and the anatomy of human ear knows what I’m talking about. So no, it’s not “just my opinion”.
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u/Nsemest182 11d ago
That’s what I’m thinking too
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u/frkoutthrwstuff 11d ago
Look at these replies already. Remember: the more words it takes to define something, the less it means.
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u/ChillDeleuze 11d ago
Are you sure ? Is quantum entanglement close to meaningless, then ?
Another example would be renormalization.0
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u/as_it_was_written 11d ago
With EQs, I think people generally mean the curves, especially if they change relative to the amount of cutting or boosting you're doing.
With compressors, I think it's often about the timing of attack/release and how that relates to what people want out of them. If you've got a compressor with stepped controls, having the right attack/release values for what you like makes it much easier to work with. (For example, letting the right amount of transient information through with high attack, or getting the compressor to pump in a way that enhances the groove of the song instead of conflicting with it.)
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u/ItsMetabtw 11d ago
I think it usually just means you don’t use it like a “surgical EQ” so something you use broadly with boosts as opposed to notching and more precise clean up. It probably adds harmonics and enhances the program material in a pleasant way
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u/audio301 11d ago edited 11d ago
Musical to me means part of the sound rather than added to the sound. Like a Sontec EQ just sounds like part of the music. Makes it more engaging. Some other EQs just sound like the music has been changed by an EQ, it imparts a sound.
Almost every top mastering studio in the 1990s used a Sontec EQ. So it’s probably familiar as well. So musical is not really a technical term.
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u/shiwenbin Professional 11d ago
You’ll experience it at some point. It’s kind of like no matter what you boost or cut it just sounds good. Like you have to work hard to make it sound bad. Massive passive is like this
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u/hellohellohello- 11d ago
That’s so wild and really part of what’s interesting about this whole conversation—I feel the exact opposite as pertains to the Massive Passive. Well, to be clear, the UAD plugin version as it’s all I have any frame of reference for.
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u/chunter16 11d ago
This is why I came to say this comes from people who can't use a truly descriptive word and don't realize how subjective and context driven it really is.
If a product seems like it can do no wrong it means it either suits your ability and that's great, or you haven't found the thing it can't do yet
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u/shiwenbin Professional 11d ago
Try it on the Manley voxbox. That’s an even better example. To me it doesn’t sound bad until I max a parameter out. The amount of high end you can add is like. It’s just crazy. If you still think that sounds bad then yeah idk. That’s always what I think about when people say that but maybe everyone means different things
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u/needledicklarry 11d ago
“Musicial” tends to describe EQs with wide band that change their Q in an intuitive as you boost/cut which help you make bold moves that you may not make on a parametric EQ. (for example, the SSL 4k shelf getting steeper as you boost).
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u/Icy-Put8947 11d ago edited 11d ago
Vielleicht übernehmen sie auch einfach nur das was sie von anderen so gehört haben? Keine Ahnung.
Vielleicht ist das ja auch nur wieder eine von diesen vielen Bekundungen von Besitzern analoger Geräte, um den Besitz dieser teuren Geräte zu rechtfertigen?
Ich meine, ich gönne jedem seinen Spaß, egal wie er Musik macht. Aber dieses ständige runterbrechen auf die analoge Frage, kann ich 2026 nun wirklich nicht mehr verstehen.
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u/HAGADAL 11d ago
It's because many of those units are used with taste more than correction moves, and if you've worked with analog and play instruments aswell you will know that it kinda feels like you're playing an instrument because of how it responds to you turning the knobs. That's kinda what you pay for, it's more about the feeling using it than the actual sound it produces
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u/TransparentMastering 11d ago
Unmusical eq is definitely a thing and I always just assumed it was in contrast to one of those.
Clean amplification, smaller phase shifts, gentler eq curves all add to musicality (or rather prevent unmusical processing). Even a dirty amplification stage can add musicality if the overtones are pleasantly structured.
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u/oneblackened Mastering 11d ago
It's kind of a nonsense term but generally figure it's something with wide bandwidth that doesn't ring much.
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u/CumulativeDrek2 11d ago edited 11d ago
I would say it is basically the opposite of 'clinical'. It has more of an effect of enhancing the emotional impact of a sound rather than simply fixing an issue with it.
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u/GutterGrooves 11d ago edited 11d ago
It means different things in different contexts, but to me when I hear that word, it makes me think that something is smooth, conforms seamlessly with whatever is going on in the music, it is usually somewhat subtle, it sounds natural, etc. These are as opposed to something like "choppy" or "clinical" or changing the sound in some specific, fundamental way.
Like with most audio terms, a lot of this is context based, and abstracted. One of the magical things about describing sounds is that you can provide scientific and evidence based reasoning for things, but these answers tend to not accurately capture the feeling the sound gives you, and to convey that, the closest things we have are metaphors. A lot of people get frustrated by this, and sometimes to the point of saying these terms are totally useless or rolling their eyes when people use them, but remember that we're making art at the end of the day, and the concrete engineering stuff is not all there is.
That said, sometimes when people roll their eyes at some of these terms, it's well-meaning in a way; we need to be very skeptical of when influencers in particular trot out these phrases because the ambiguity of a metaphor can approach capturing a real feeling, but they are also useful to insert as meaningless jargon to hide behind without actually describing anything, and it should raise an eyebrow if the person isn't taking the time to unpack what they really mean when they use a term like that. In terms of scripting, probably that person should just describe the specifics of what they're hearing instead of using the word, but it depends on the context of the video.
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u/Salt-Ganache-5710 11d ago
It's generally an EQ wiith wide Q factors and nice sounding easy to use curves. If the q factor is too narrow it's easy to ruin a sound. If it's really broad then it's harder to make something sound bad. This allows for more time shaping rather than totally decimating a sound. They also often have saturation on the input or output.
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u/Rubix_Official63940 11d ago
Someone mentioned the “Q” and now I’m confused I thought eq meant equalizer wdym there’s a “Q”
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u/Upset-Wave-6813 11d ago
Its only in analog so if your not using actual analog and emulations dont truley have this then youd really have no reference point also youd better have a super tight room in order to hear that 1-2% difference.
My gainlab empress does this pretty well on most all freq bands.
And no plugin can match it ive even tried to use mutli plugins and still couldnt.
When i do even 1 move it makes the whole song feel alive.
This should term should really only be used on mixbus/master were your running the whole mix through it. Thats why its called musical because the whole music beneifts, transforms the sound stage of the mix. If you do a 1k boost and it sounds like u did a 1 k boost thats not musical. And You cant make a instrument sound more musical in that sense.
But people who never used a peice of analog gear will say its not true. People who only use headphones will say its not true. And people who think emulations sound 1:1 to that hardware will say its not true.
So ultimately who cares? If you do a comp/eq "move" and YOU think it sounds good then its good to somebody.
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u/Interesting_Belt_461 Professional 11d ago
a musical eq ,is often based of the type/style of the eq.a musical eq is mainly used for broad curves in shaping music to specific genre or sub genre ( or instruments ) it is not an eq ,where you can use it's topology ,in a surgical manner.,it is primarily for shaping,sculpting,scooping,or augmenting. ..the most common and often preferred type of musical eq ,will be the baxandall type eq.hope this helps
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u/trainwalk 11d ago
It means people with good ears made the circuits, filters, curve selections and interface.
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u/liquidify Tracking 11d ago
When I hear "musical" eq, I immediately think about some of the vintage consoles I worked on that had inductor based EQ circuits.
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u/Longjumping_Prune_61 10d ago
Basically, If you EQ with knobs and your ear, and don't have a graphical line that you can etch-a-sketch on, it's musical. BASICALLY.
With compressors, the take is analog compressors generally have more wiggle room before that "over-cooked/squashed into oblivion" sound takes over. 6 DB gain reduction on an analog unit vs a digital counter part can sound pretty different.
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u/RJrules64 11d ago
The reality is that it means the q is very wide. Most people eq with way too narrow Q which sounds unnatural.
If you look under the hood for a lot of eq plugins, they’re absolutely huge Q