This paper on the Audio Effects Ontology extension shows a possible direction
towards unified parameters for a given class of effects (see, e.g.: sec 4.3
Effect
Parameters)http://ismir2013.ismir.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/41_Paper.pdf
Disclaimer: I work in the same research group as the authors.
From: Jim Wintermyre <j...@pobox.com>
To: r...@audioimagination.com; music-dsp@music.columbia.edu
Sent: Tuesday, 22 December 2015, 0:02
Subject: Re: [music-dsp] automation of parametric EQ .
> so then, in your session, you mix some kinda nice sound, save all of the
> sliders in PT automation and then ask "What would this sound like if I used
> iZ instead of McDSP?", can you or can you not apply that automation to
> corresponding parameters of the other plugin? i thought that you could.
Nope, sorry. You could maybe manually massage the automation data, but AFAIK
there’s no automatic support for this in any DAW.
Jim
On Dec 21, 2015, at 3:46 PM, robert bristow-johnson <r...@audioimagination.com>
wrote:
>
> thank you to Nigel, Thomas, Bjorn, and Steffan.
>
> essentially you're telling me there is no existing standard of control number
> assignment or of scaling and offset of that control.
>
> regarding MIDI 1.0 (which is what goes into MIDI files), i had noticed that
> there were some "predefined controls", like MIDI control 7 (and 39 for the
> lower-order bits) for Volume. i just thought there might have evolved a
> common practice of some of the unassigned MIDI controls having a loose
> assignment to tone or EQ parameters. it would seem to me to be logical that
> 0x40 would be 0 dB (dunno what the scaling would be, maybe 1/2 dB per step)
> and for frequency, to use the same as MIDI NoteOn (and with the control LSB,
> you could tune it to better than 1 cent precision). i just would have
> thought that by now, 30+ years later, that a common practice would have
> evolved and something would have been published (and i could not find
> anything).
>
> regarding Pro Tools (which i do not own and haven't worked with since 2002
> when i was at Wave Mechanics, now called SoundToys), please take a look at
> this blog:
>
> http://www.avidblogs.com/pro-tools-11-analog-console/
>
> evidently, for a single channel strip, there is a volume slider, but no
> "built-in" EQ, like in an analog board. you're s'pose to insert EQ III or
> something like that.
>
> now in the avid blog, words like these are written: "... which of the 20 EQ
> plug-ins should I use?... You can build an SSL, or a Neve, ..., Sonnox,
> McDSP, iZotope, MetricHalo..."
>
> so then, in your session, you mix some kinda nice sound, save all of the
> sliders in PT automation and then ask "What would this sound like if I used
> iZ instead of McDSP?", can you or can you not apply that automation to
> corresponding parameters of the other plugin? i thought that you could.
>
> *if* that's the case, then there is the "Some have the SSL sound, some have
> the Neve sound, etc..." and i am wondering if, when comparing the different
> sounds, they are comparing apples to oranges. if you are EQing something,
> got the mix to sound "right" with one particular EQ plugin with say, EQ III,
> then decide to A/B test it against iZ or something, is it the case that the
> iZ EQ may sound different, simply because the automation sliders mapped to
> the EQ parameters differently?
>
> if that is the case, then, IMO, someone in some standards committee at NAMM
> or AES or something should be pushing for standardization of some *known*
> common parameters.
>
> i am thinking of putting together a discussion panel (at the next U.S. AES in
> LA in October) called "Q vs. Q" (name stolen from Geoff Martin with his
> permission) where some folks that have been involved with the parametric EQ
> from the beginning can discuss how they put the tick marks on the Q knob or
> the BW knob. (and then they can complain about the Cookbook Q being
> unnatural or whatever.) i have discussed with some pretty important folks
> about this and have heard at least 3 different definitions (all different, in
> some sense, from the standard EE definition of Q) and i read at Rane Notes
> and other places about "Constant Q" vs. "Variable Q" vs. "Proportional Q" vs.
> "Perfect Q". WTF do all these terms mean???
>
> whatever the definition, it should eventually translate to an unambiguous EE
> Q for an analog EQ or a corresponding digital EQ at decently low frequencies
> (this bandwidth cramping from bilinear transform is another issue to discuss).
>
> this, on top of the generalization that Knud Bank Christensen did last decade
> (which sorta supersedes the Orfanidis correction to the digital parametric
> EQ), really nails the specification problem down: whether it's analog or
> digital, if it's 2nd-order (and not some kinda FIR EQ), then there are 5
> knobs corresponding to 5 coefficients that *fully* define the frequency
> response behavior of the EQ. those 5 coefficient knobs can be mapped to 5
> parameter knobs that are meaningful to the user.
>
> we got:
> 1. gain at DC (the overall gain knob) in dB.
> 2. gain at infinity (for analog) or gain at Nyquist (for digital) in dB
>relative to DC.
> (there would be the "Orfanidis setting" regarding that knob).
> 3. frequency of boost or cut (in Hz, probably on a log scale).
> 4. boost/cut gain at that frequency, in dB relative to DC.
>
> everyone agrees about what those knobs should mean and where the tick marks
> go. the only knob left is
>
> 5. Q or bandwidth.
>
> i would like to see some recognition of the different ways of defining it,
> and some information regarding what different products (whether it's a big
> expensive SSL console or a cheap or free little plugin) do.
>
> and then there should be some discussion about how to define the automation
> so that someone mixing a session can pull up different EQ products and test
> them on the sound using the same original audio and automation data, and
> compare apples to apples.
>
> does this sound reasonable?
>
> --
>
> r b-j r...@audioimagination.com
>
> "Imagination is more important than knowledge."
>
>
>
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