Removing unwanted frequencies or lifting desirable ones can fix compromised recordings, or make unremarkable sounds shine. Conventional EQ can make huge improvements, but one solution can un-break the seemingly unfixable. We check it out.
All The Gear
With pro-quality equipment available to all, every musician or engineer has the tools available to make world-class records given the right space to make them in. However, having the right tools is arguably the smallest piece of the puzzle. The democratisation of the record-making process has meant that often, even projects that begin in word-class facilities will be augmented with overdubs made in essentially domestic environments by the artists themselves. Sometimes, this gives rise to audio that is noticeable by a sonic footprint that differs from a studio recording.
Often, augmenting recordings in this way is best for an artist to turn in good performances without time pressures. That said, spectral problems coming from bad mic technique and/or mic mis-matches, or even comb filtering arising from working in an untreated environment can start to creep in. In these cases, matching sounds that were made through studio equipment can become a technical process that mixers must fix.
Subtractive And Additive EQ
Using subtractive EQ to remove problem frequencies is the time honoured way of ironing out unwanted resonances, boominess, or harshness using cuts. This is often highly effective, not least because equaliser design is less of an issue when making large cuts as opposed to when effecting big boosts. When we do need to make subjective lifts, regardless of equaliser design one universal truth has always rung true; we can only boost what is already there. Until now…
Zynaptiq UNFILTER
For any mixer contending with the anomalies of a co-produced project, a different kind of tool is sometimes needed. UNFILTER from Zynaptiq is the plugin that not only deals with bumps arising in compromised audio, but also can even restore frequencies with seemingly little information left to work with. UNFILTER also has extremely powerful features that change the available options for post-production mixers as well. UNFILTER has a unique feature set that makes new ways of working possible:
UNFILTER Features:
Automatically detect and remove resonances, equalization, roll-offs and the effects of comb filtering from musical, location, dialog and surveillance recordings.
Apply the measured filter response to other signals to place them in the same "acoustic world".
Export the measured filter response to or import it from a linear- or minimum-phase impulse response file (WAV).
Mastering grade adaptive, free-form and graphic equalization.
Extremely steep 96dB/octave shelving high-pass filter.
Output limiter for unsupervised use in batch processing applications.
Highly time-efficient workflow and UI
Watch in the video how we use UNFILTER’s impulse response taking capability to replicate the sound of a guitar cab on a direct recording from an amp.
The Smartest EQ?
UNFILTER from Zynaptiq breaks a few ‘absolute truths’ and changes what the engineer can expect to achieve when restoring audio spectra that would otherwise have been a compromise. In an area of audio processing that is becoming increasingly well-catered for, UNFILTER continues to innovate having been one of the first to ask the big questions and drop the mic long before the others had found the stage. Getting there first to do ‘magic’ EQ, and holding its ground since makes UNFILTERED the smartest EQ yet.