Waves C4 vs. LinMB and ?'s about Phase EQ's, etc.

[nwright]

I've been using Waves LinMB for a while now and I like my results. However, the highs can get really strident. From what I've found online, this is common for most users and they compensate by adding an EQ after LinMB to tailor the highs...Which is what I've done in the past. On a whim, I tried Waves C4 on a mastering project earlier this week and the sound was much sweeter without the crazy highs and still retained a great sound overall. Actually, seemed to be better than LinMB all around. The Waves site says that the C4 plug in has "phase-compensated" crossovers, but fails to call it a linear phase MB compressor...Any of you use this in place of LinMB in mastering projects? While C4 doesn't have all the parameters of the LinMB plug, it has everything I need and I like it better...

Also, in mastering, is a phase EQ preferred over other types (i.e. non-phase EQ's)? I have a the linear phase EQ and never noticed a difference over Q10 or REQ, so I just don't use it...

 

[AStacy2]

I actually tried the C4 on a whim for mastering once too, and it definately did sound much sweeter like you said when compared to the LinMB. I tried it on another project after that and it didn't work as good. I still use LinMB now though because it is more versitile. I think it is commonplace to use linear phase EQ's in mastering.

 

[TheDude]

Linear phase doesn't mean that it's a good dsp algorithm for an eq. Since it's all computer code and the code was assembled a couple of years ago, it's safe to say that they used algorithms that was optimized for slower computers = suckier sound.