If you haven’t used vintage EQ and understand how useful it is by virtue of limitation, hold off on slamming this product.

I would much prefer to eq guitars and drums with this Neve style eq than using some phase balanced million band eq… it can be done but it is much easier to use EQ that has useful bands.

If you want some modern eq, why can a ‘vintage British Six Band Equalizer’ plugin? maybe you should look elsewhere,

I think you make a good point here Andy, one that oddly enough is almost overlooked! For some reason many engineers often tend to believe that there’s an objective ‘best’ in these discussions, and that that ‘best’ equals 60′s-70′s recordings (I don’t point fingers at you now kassin, or try to put words in your mouth at all, I’m talking in general based on discussions I’ve been a part of).

I happen to like those sounds an awful lot myself, even if I fight some common rules dictated by the engineers that advocate them.

But, and this goes alongside Andys comment and is important, not all songs or arrangements are meant to sound that way. Some would even aim to sound NOTHING like them. There’s simply no good reason to assume that the great EQ’s and compressors of the past are the best tools for these jobs. They MIGHT be, or they might not be. At the moment I’m working with some compositions, or maybe we should call them experiments, that puts far greater demand on the technology than any Neve can handle. While at the same time I work on more traditional ‘songs’ where I would favor a (real) Neve over most other EQ’s I can think of.

As always, ‘it depends’.

As many readers probably know I’m a fan of limitations as kassin suggests as well. But even this depends. For my ‘songs’, of which the arrangements are usually sparse in nature, I LOVE the limitations. For the ‘experiments’, where I set out to complete a very particular task, there can be no limitations, and if there is one it must be overcome.

You present your opinions, based on your taste, as fact. That’s quite a limited perspective.

My taste is different, and the people I work with have different tastes. Therefore, I need a different set of tools to achieve the end result that is needed. I’ve worked in many pro studios around the world, with lots of outboard at my disposal. And yes, I like the sound of some of those pieces of gear. However, I get very frustrated by the limitations of the hardware – not being able to store settings and routings with my tools session, not being able to automate them, not being able to run 2 or more instances if I so desire, and in the case of EQ, not having enough bands and narrow enough Q.

In my mixes for Alanis Morissette, Britney Spears and Bebel Gilberto I was dealing with extremely dense and detailed productions (as is anything produced by Guy Sigsworth). “Broad Stroke” EQs simply wont cut it in these situations – I need an EQ that allows me to spectrally carve out with great detail, accuracy and control (with automation).

If I were a sculptor, then my chisel could be seen as analogous to EQ. If I had, say, a URS chisel, then I would have two options, “Broad” and “Narrow”. That limits my choices somewhat. What if I see in my head a sculpture that is incredibly detailed and intricate, but my tools aren’t going to cut it? I’m going to look for a chisel that suits the way I want to work, and the end result I’m trying to achieve. Choices based on taste.

As stiff says, “Whatever sounds best is the best”. However, this is subjective. I don’t doubt that for you Kassin, analog works best for the way you like to work. But saying things such as analog being “Clearly superior” is going to fall on deaf ears for those who need a different type of toolkit.

I’m with you on that. I’ve used several ‘vintage’ pieces and think that some of them are preferable indeed (though digital offers a very much better workflow). Whenever I take my work to larger studios I use them.

HOWEVER… A plug-in is NOT a vintage piece of gear.

AND… a vintage piece of gear is by no means always necessary.

I’m not at all an advocate for or against one or the other. Whatever sounds best is the best. There’s nothing else to say.

btw, the jack joseph puig waves plugs are very good as well but far less affordable…

if you need an eq with lots of bands, and tons more features, well, than you should, i’d humbly submit, learn to record better.

some of the best eq’s i’ve even used were VERY old passive graphics. limited options is a good thing in audio. try it sometime…

I don’t want another eq right now.

I think there’s still room for development in the EQ field and it should happen in plug-ins. Unfortunately every company is too caught up making emulations of old gear, which is of course the end-users ‘fault’, because if they didn’t sell they wouldn’t be made.

I think McDSP took an interesting step with the Retro EQ (which I favor for traditional song making), I’d be happy to see others do their own take of character EQ’s. Other than that the real interest, to me, in the future of EQ’s still lies in fairly old plug-ins: the RND stuff, Flux Epure and Massenburg. Of those the RND’s are the only ones revolutional and they’ve been around for years. Early on companies (and users?) were more interested to see what could be made with new technology, now they’re interested in seeing what can be remade,