Hi Folks,
I want to bring to your attention that there is bug in Studio One's Pro-EQ plugin. (Presonus Support are fully aware, and I am told that the software developers in Germany are "tracking" it.) Problem: The "button" that says "High Quality" in Pro-EQ is not performing correctly. What the button should be doing (when pressed 'on') is to engage 2x oversampling in order to remove any aliasing artifacts from the audio spectrum of the EQ'd signal. However, this is not happening and instead a many aliasing artifacts **appear** in the audio spectrum when this button is set to "High Quality" setting. You can test it for yourselves here with the attached .song file. With the HQ button 'on' you see the artifacts/harmonics on the square wave trace; and with the button off the aliasing harmonics magically disappear! Another user is demonstrates it even better here on You Tube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2p_hlH6eVI Summary: Until this bug is fixed you should **not** use the HQ setting for Pro-EQ. Let's follow this issue, and hope that Presonus fixes it soon! Cheers, Martin.
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Thanks much for the notice Martin.
Will test the song this weekend. Much appreciated. |
Oh, so I'm not that terrible then.
OK, I'll gladly blame it all on the "Pro EQ".
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This is very true! There is a caveat though.
A good test signal chain to see this is to insert a tone generator and set it for the rectangular wave (square) Then follow it with a Pro EQ and then the scope and finally a spectrum display such as Voxengo Span. If you leave the Pro EQ flat though, switching in and out of HQ mode will do nothing and you can easily assume Martin's observation is wrong. You need to apply some EQ even if its a slight + 1 dB at 1K for example. As soon as you do that you will see the high frequency artefacts being generated with the HQ button IN and they will be gone when OUT.
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Not sure how long this issue has been around. And like j0001s I have been using Pro EQ's a lot too and have not noticed anything real bad other than the fact you are going to get some top end lift with this issue. Which may or may not be a bad thing. But it still should be fixed though.
Thanks to Martin for pointing it out. I actually remember something about this too a while back as well.
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In all seriousness though, in hindsight I'm sure I've experienced this.
Years back, there was discussion about "if you stay in the same area and make a lot of edits you'll start hearing artifacts" and have attributed this to doing too many edits while zoomed in. It seems that this is still true (probably for any DAW) but with my latest song, I heard other strange things in a different context and with the Pro EQ on all of my 27 tracks, I'm sure I'm affected.
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I am sure if you have got many Pro EQ's e.g. 27 in total then yes it may have a cumulative effect. Each one adding in a little unwanted harmonics.
Try switching all of your pro EQ's out of HQ mode and see if there are any differences.
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Definately interested on keeping an eye (ear) on this. I use S1's Pro EQ all over the place. In the final analysis, until it's fixed, just be aware of what your EQ'ing, and where. Is it only around the 1 k hertz area ?, boosted, only? How long, and what rev's were possibly impacted, Etc.
I mostly take subtle frequencies away, but I do have numerous areas where I am targeting specific frequencies to boost, or pull down. Let's perhaps use this thread for information. Short and concise. Thx for posting. I suspect some official statement or fix will be in, soon. I'm going to check later and see if it impacts what I'm working on. I'll also A/B with some similar surgical EQ's. Not to make light of this but a ton of vintage type EQ,s often alter or re characterize an EQ and some even have a valued reputation based on that character, so my only point is use your ears to evaluate what's going on. On the flipside, the Pro EQ is not a vintage EQ, and should provide nothing more than pristine in colored (As expected) results. It used too.
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Lokeyfly's post got me thinking. Firstly it is very interesting to see what happens to a square wave when you applying boost and cut at low and high frequencies. With low frequencies the tilt of the wave get severely changed. With high frequencies the leading edge starts to acquire a high freq ringing like formation to the edge. Also rather interesting.
In answer to Lokeyfly's question. It depends on the amount of boost you are applying for a start. If you apply say 6 to 8 db around 6 Khz then the leading edge of the wave gets the ringing. And its major anyway. Switching HQ mode In and OUT only barely alters this. It still adds in artefacts but they are small in comparison. Not very audible either. It is when you are applying small amounts of boost say +1 to +2 dB then you really start to see the artefacts. You don't really hear them that much though to be honest. When you start to cut high frequencies, the leading edge of the square wave takes on a slope similar to the attack segment in a synth. The artefacts also still appear here but they are less effective and certainly less audible. It as Lokeyfly says, cutting is probably better, which we know to be true anyway. None of this is making dramatic audible results in terms of those artefacts being there or not. But as Martin points out the artefacts are still gone with HQ switched out and they are there when its is On so I would still prefer the EQ to work the right way around for sure.
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This has been around for a while. Some of us thought that maybe the button graphic was reversed, and that's why the high quality mode sounded worse than the regular mode. Glad someone was able to find what the actual issue was. It did inspire me to pick up the Eiosis Air EQ, which is now my all time favorite. Will be good to get the stock EQ back in shape.
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Can anyone give me a conclusion?
I don't want that anybody here rails against something without checking. So here is my result of a noise input with Pro EQ with maximum boost. After that you see the high resolution anaylzer. To the left with HiQ off, to the right HiQ on. so what is wrong here? Also please use my attached test song to test for yourself!
Ari Ahrendt - Quality Assurance Specialist
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I would try a different test. Firstly noise might a difficult test source plus using large amounts of boost also is also not a good idea either.
Try this: Setup the test tone generator on an audio track. Set it for a rectangular wave. Frequency can be 1kHz. Level to a reference e.g. -17. Insert a Pro EQ plugin. After the EQ plugin insert the scope plug in. With the EQ flat initially and the tone generator on adjust the scope so it shows a square wave. Adjust the horizontal timing for about 2 or 3 square wave cycles across the display. Now apply a small amount of boost say around 5K of only about +2 db. With HQ ON you will see high frequency artefacts appearing on the leading edge of the square wave. Switch it OFF and they will go away.
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Ari's basic test works fine for me. I tried a few sample rates to see if that made a difference, and all was good.
I then stuck Ari's test into a complex song that I have, and all is clean. So, I reviewed the youtube video, and the difference in the test is that he's set up a parallel path using a splitter. If the latency of the ProEq changed slightly when switched from standard to HQ mode, and that wasn't taken into account, you might get the response curve you see here. Just guessing - I'd need to do more tests to pin it down further. Looking at Martin's test, the scope wave in HQ looks like classic underdamped filter ringing to me, not aliasing. Now, my filter theory, DSP theory and math to back it up is far in the rear view mirror at this point, but IIRC, that's ringing. I tried a few more EQs that I know are oversampling, and I didn't see any ringing. To check for aliasing, I pumped a sign wave through the EQ near 20K (near the Nyquist frequency) and looked at it on the analyser. There was no aliasing. What does this all mean? Beats me. |
Hello Ari, Thanks for chiming-in!
What you demonstrate is quite subjective and doesn't really address the point we are making. The questions we are asking here are: Q: With HQ button 'on', does the Pro-EQ **fail to oversample** the signal ? (contrary to what the manual states) Q: And with HQ button 'off' does Pro-EQ actually **engage the oversampling**, when actually it should be dis-engaging the oversampling? We can test this hypothesis by splitting the raw signal **inverted** on one side, and the Pro-EQ'd signal on the other side, and subsequently routing the sum output into the spectrum analyzer -- to reveal the **difference** between the raw input tone and the output of the Pro-Eq NB. I've duplicated all the above onto a second track -- so we have one track for HQ button 'off', and the second track for HQ button 'on' -- all other variables being completely equal. My attached .song file for you to test in real-time (and also screenshot) here clearly shows the **difference** that the Pro-EQ makes with HQ button on and HQ button off: Observations: ~ The left hand trace (HQ button 'off') shows no aliasing anywhere. ~ The right-hand trace (HQ button 'on') clearly shows unwanted digital noise energy inside the audio spectrum, and bunching-up towards the highest frequency (~20kHz -- ie the Nyquist frequency). Moreover, this phenomenon is almost identical to what you see with other EQs when they are set to 'oversampling off'. So the master question is: Q: Is the HQ button in Pro-EQ is simply indicating 'on' when it should of 'off', and vice versa?? If so, as looks likely, can you please make this simple fix? Cheers, Martin.
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I admit to leaning towards what Ari's image shows or suggests, that a square wave or tone in a scope like the other example showing distortion may not be indicative of an audible issue. My "audio" engineering side (critical listening) suggests that if nobody actually heard it as being an issue before seeing it in the scope in an image, it may not be a practical issue at all.
No idea. All I can add to the discussion is that when I engage it with music I don't hear anything bad. But from a "technical" engineering design point of view (physical engineering) if the distortion, audible or not, isn't supposed to be there, I can see why they'd remove it. Digital measurement with modern tools is really tricky. We can see and measure all of kinds of things that we can't actually hear and sometimes we don't really know what side of that line a thing falls on. |
I just tried a bunch of other EQ's with the square wave test and none of them add any artefacts the way the Pro EQ does.
I agree with Lawrence it is not super audible but the square wave test clearly demonstrates the fact that the Pro EQ is adding unwanted artefacts with HQ mode ON. There is something wrong here. Until it is fixed I am very inclined to invest in a different EQ (Fab Filter etc) and make it my go to EQ from now on until it is resolved. As an audio electronics engineer I can assure you that the square wave is a very valid test signal. It is quite a difficult test signal for audio electronics and will show up many things. A sine wave in some circumstances is a less useful test as it won't some issues.
Last edited by Jemusic on Sat Jan 20, 2018 2:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Just out pure curiosity, did anyone actually hear it as being an issue or are we concerned because we see it in measurement tools?
Just asking because I tend to ignore things I can't hear as (obviously) they won't affect my mix decisions. But sure, if you can hear that difference, switching it on sounds bad in some way, that would be something that should take higher priority I guess.. But yeah, technically wrong and audibly wrong or bad, are often two very different things and I'm not yet sure if this thing is both. And of course, you guys ears are younger than mine so you may hear something I don't. I do have to leave open that possibility. |
Yesterday I was switching the Pro EQ HQ mode in and out and under certain conditions I was hearing very subtle differences in the top end. The spectrum analyser was showing it too. Small but visible.
How do you explain the fact that none of the other EQ's I have (and that is not many) do not add in any of these artefacts when applying boost.
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Jemusic wroteYesterday I was switching the Pro EQ HQ mode in and out and under certain conditions I was hearing very subtle differences in the top end. The spectrum analyser was showing it too. Small but visible.. Good or bad difference? Switching it on is literally intended to make a difference of some kind, that's what it's there for. If the result was audibly worse, well.. yeah... that would be something to talk about. Again, I'm not disputing anything, I just can't hear it as harming the sound and I'm not yet sure if anyone else here did before those images got posted. But I'm all for fixing anything that needs fixing. |
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