With EQ choice being highly subjective, what features must a contender have to make it stand out from the crowd? We look at a new product from one of the biggest names in vocal production with some serious heritage.

EQ For Voice - What Are We Trying To Do?

A great test for any EQ is its use on vocals. Engineers (and indeed listeners) are hard-wired to hear when something is amiss with humanity’s oldest instrument, so any tool must be up to scratch. First it’s helpful to keep a close eye on the horizon: what exactly is EQ’ing vocals for? If the voice already sounds like its owner why change it?

Objective EQ

EQ moves whose aim is to get back towards the original sound is often referred to as “corrective” equalisation, and it’s certainly easy to forget that we’re supposed to be “equalising” the signal, after all. Corrective moves could be compensating for mismatches between source and mic (with vocals especially shining a light on this), or for tonal shifts due to lack of mic technique. Both scenarios often involve cuts to counter mid range or lower end anomalies respectively.

Subjective EQ

With many songs vying for the listener’s attention, making sounds ‘pop’ is almost as old as EQ itself. Adding some zing or bottom end fullness on instruments are both tricks that the ear loves, but adding subjective interest to vocals is, by nature, harder to do right. Further filtering to remove excess bass or low mids are common, as is some top lift avoiding the critical mids, but most voices change with register and/or loudness. This last point can be partly helped with mic choice, but some voices can sound better with treatments that go beyond conventional static treatments.

Antares Auto-Tune Vocal EQ

Following its release earlier this year, Antares Auto-Tune Vocal EQ sets out to provide spectral tools for vocals that haven’t been available until now. Arguably, its headline feature is its pitch tracking EQ bands.

Although this isn’t unique to Auto-Tune Vocal EQ, what is exclusive to this product is its ability to apply a dynamic EQ band to track a moving target relative to the fundamental.

• A Track button locks a band onto the fundamental pitch or a harmonic of your vocals.

• The band will follow along with the fundamental pitch or harmonic in real-time on the Filter Graph.

• When Track is enabled, the Frequency knob becomes the Harmonic knob. The Harmonic Knob determines the interval (in octaves above the fundamental) that a band tracks. 0 denotes no interval.

This is indispensable for those situations with some vocalists where certain notes take on an undesirable bump owing to the singer’s physiology. Those mixing singers whose voices come with an unwanted ‘free’ mid band lift on loud notes are going to like Auto-Tune Vocal EQ dynamic tracking EQ. Watch in the video how we use Auto-Tune Vocal EQ to iron out an overly sibilant vocal whilst retaining some air. We then tame mid band spikiness on certain notes on a different line to sit the two together in a way appropriate to the genre and feel of the track.

From Antares:

• Auto-Tune Vocal EQ is the world’s first dynamic equalizer with built-in Auto-Tune Pitch. Tracking technology. Expand or compress available with Range and Threshold.

• Featuring 6 fully customizable dynamic EQ bands, Auto-Tune Vocal EQ helps you isolate and accentuate precise frequencies while suppressing interference and resonance to carve out the right spaces in your mix.

• Watch a vocalist’s pitch move across the filter graph for real-time analysis, and lock an EQ band to the vocalist’s pitch to focus on fundamentals.

• Additional Tilt and Air Bands

The Ultimate EQ For Vocals?

The choice of weapon in audio production for any given task is a personal one. There are so many strongly held beliefs out there that newcomers to audio engineering could be forgiven for thinking that there’s no room for subjectivity. Yet most would agree that any well-operated EQ will sound better than the ‘best’ one in the wrong hands. Once those at the helm know what they’re doing, then EQ choice comes next. We can then take the ‘best’ EQ as being the one that sounds the most pleasing, but the choice must also have the right features assuming a skilled pair of ears.

With everything else in place, Antares Auto-Tune Vocal EQ may well be the one to beat when it comes to vocal production. For some, being able to target a moving band with dynamic processing will be the feature that gets this versatile tool to the top of the list as a go-to vocal EQ. Powered by a name that has invested decades in pitch tracking tech, Antares Auto-Tune Vocal EQ is hard to beat as a feature-rich vocal production toolkit.