EQ stacking!?

[FIXXXER]

situation:
high pass @ 100hz
low pass @ 12000hz
3 db cut @ 400hz

instead of applying this settings to one plugin instance i
load up three plugins and apply one setting each.

to me it seems like stacking the EQ's makes the settings sound
more natural and more precise...

what do you think!?

cheers
S.

 

[Nimvi]

I have never noticed this myself, and wouldn't really know why this would sound different. Are you using an EQ with coloration/oversampling maybe? I will have to try this out for myself tomorrow.

Btw, you've switched HP and LP. Nitpicking, I know

 

[FIXXXER]

haha, it's late already, edited it to avoid confusion

it's not a special EQ, just the standard Cubase studio EQ.
not sure but i think that the settings may have some kind of
influence on each other, even if they do not "cross" directly.

need to try out how it sounds when cutting frequencies that are closer to each other.

 

[Deofig]

I like to add some color with the Bootstrap Boot EQ and then HP, LP, and cut with Reaper's reEQ.

 

[tgs]

Try your method on one channel, all three in one eq on another channel, flip the phase and see if they null. Needless to say, make sure that the settings for each band are identical.

 

[Nimvi]

Try your method on one channel, all three in one eq on another channel, flip the phase and see if they null. Needless to say, make sure that the settings for each band are identical.

Was just trying this myself too. I was using ReaEQ with a HP, a heavy midcut and a LP. One channel with 1 instance doing it all, and one channel with 3 instances doing a single step, phase-inverted.
I can confirm that, at least for ReaEQ, it completely nulls.
I've also tried shuffling the order of instances on the second channel, to see if it had something to do with that, but same result. Was worth a try though

EDIT:
After trying some other transparant EQs, interestingly enough, some of them don't null with this method. Especially shuffling up the order makes a big difference. I have no clue about the internal workings of software plugins, but could this be because of the phasechanges introduced by the order of EQ?

 

[LeSedna]

Unless there is something wrong there shouldnt be any difference at all, all the filters in the Eq are additions (one after the other or all together doesn't make any difference), and setting another plugin instance after the first one does the very same result since its equivalent to addition as well. I think you are experiencing a placebo effect there !

If there are, it's either the transparent EQ is not coded 100% properly or is not phase linear (i don't know how much phase non linearity can affect the sound, and I can't affirm if the order has an importance for that or if the effects of phase non linearity can be added/substracted regardless of the order by the different filter instances), or the EQ used has some non linear component added to make its signature sound (like analogue modeling).

And I think the reaeq nulls because it's certainly coded very mathematically (if not only)

 

[FIXXXER]

yeah, i just tired the cubase studio EQ and it "nulls" completely, damn i was so sure that it made a difference

 

[Nimvi]

Haha, EQ is evil! Sometimes you don't even have to activate it to make things sound better...