FabFilter

We hear you! We have already planned a major Pro-Q update. :-)

Cheers,

I own the Pro-Q and I am very happy it, I use it for demanding orchestral work (filmscore / TV etc). We have thouroughly tested it and my feeling is that the FabFilter Pro-Q is a very well designed product.

The plugin market is flooded by nonsense products (warm/tube/vintage etc and similar stupidities) and the FabFilter products

I did try the evaluation version of the DMG Equilibrium the other day. Seems they want to do EVERYTHING in one plugin. Question is if they have tried a little too hard. The Equilibrium is not nearly as user friendly and nice to use as Pro-G. Nor is is working very well. Perhaps if the Equilibrium was made more bug free and smooth it could qualify as a "testing" plugin or "educational" plugin. What I tested felt very "experimental" and not convincing.

For actual real use and put into audio production FabFilters Pro-Q is vastly superior in my opinion.

Please don't make Pro-Q anything at all like the Equilibrium from DMG...

Kind regards and thanks for some great products!
Thomas

I will agree to disagree with Thomas in part. Did you demo the latest 1.03 version?

I'm not asking Fabfilter make an eq EXACTLY like equilibrium, Fabfilters strength has always been the wonderful intuitive GUI, you should have faith in them retaining that workflow edge even if they did expand the pro a with more features, because I do.
Bottom line is that EQuilibrium does have a sonic edge over Pro-Q in its other modes like analog phase FIR mode, and having precise models of classic vintage filter shapes, their shape and phase response are commended for good reason, because of how musical they sound.

At present I use the DDMF LP10 when I want high quality minimal phase equing, with the Pro-Q for most of the general per channel usage. the LP10 sound in min phase mode is closer to the Analog Phase mode in EQuality/EQuilibrium.

I feel the main thing lacking in Pro-Q is balsy powerful bass boosts, something LP10, Equality and EQuilibrium are all good at.

It wouldn't even require much additional GUI space, just a tiny button to turn a piano roll display on/off, and the existing button to select minimum or linear (variable latency) phase could maybe become two seperate buttons, one for phase and one for IIR/FIR (and impulse length) setting. That would not make Pro-Q a complicated mess by any means.

There's real potential here to bring Pro-Q bang up to date, whilst still being very fast and intuitive :)

Hi Laurence,

Good that we agree on the excellent GUI of FanFilter. In my opinion it's second to none.

But let's be a little precise and realistic about things here...

1.

You say: "EQuilibrium does have a sonic edge over Pro-Q in its other modes like analog phase FIR mode". OK, what exactly does this mean? Have you performed any accuurate and scientifically realiable measurements on this and can trace what you think you hear to actual real findings? If so, what are these findings?

2.

You also say: "having precise models of classic vintage filter shapes". What is this? Have you measured and seen results and understand what you mean here? Waht is "vintage" really... We live in 2013 and the possiblities for us to make better recordings than ever exist. We need to move away from thinking "tape saturation" is a cool thing. Unless we deliberately want to introduce destructive audio as an effect in our work. That's something completely different. Is what you are looking for destructive sound processing that makes you think you are using a device from the 60's or 70's etc? If so define this and label it as an "effect"... A "precise model of vintage" what does this really mean... How can you confirm this?

3.

"I feel the main thing lacking in Pro-Q is balsy powerful bass boosts, something LP10, Equality and EQuilibrium are all good at."

What is "balsy powerful bass boosts"? Run a few proper tests on plugins that give you this "balsy" sounds and report back what you have found. What exact performance of that plugin is making it sound like that? Do you know that...?

Again, I'm very tired of the "vintage" "warming" "distortion" "saturation" thing. I respect those wanting to use distorsion and artifacts and varaious means of shaping the sound for whatever reason. But we need to be careful when we are discussing these things on a technical and scientific level. Just beacuse a GUI has a photo of a glowing tube and someone calls this "vintage" or "warm" may fool many. Send the same WAV files to two friends and call one of them "used the vintage eq to warm it a bit" and my guess is that many will be fooled... In fact, it's a big business to make people hear things... But if a production facility needs to be sure and feel confident about their audio / signal chain we need to be realistic and able to define the differences etc.

Any designer of plugins has to translate whatever wish anyone has into real numbers and algorithms... And be very precise about it.

I have made several tests on several well known plugins and often seen less pleasing results. There are many good ways of measuring today and reveleaing what it is you are actually paying for.

Download demos of the most expensive plugins and perform real scientific measurments and you'll see what I mean - hyped up marketing and "cool" factors etc. seems to fool many...

Best,
Thomas

Hi guys,

Thanks for all comments, ideas and feature requests. We'll keep all ideas in mind for the future Pro-Q update of course!

If you have any audio examples/snippets of situations where Pro-Q didn't match up to your expectations in some way, feel free to send them over so we can have a listen!

Cheers,

@Thomas

The funny thing about your post is, it looks like the kind of post I'd make to others when they harp on about magical differences!. It is BECAUSE I like a scientific approach that I come to these conclusions. But I'll address each of your points:

1) What that means is that it sounded better/more pleasing to my ears. I conducted several tests, everything from precisely matching curves using inverse phase copy method and then blind test comparing myself (easy to do with a loop and solo switching btw), to real world testing whereby I just insert the eq on lots of channels in a project and played around with it. A combination of both methods helps to decide what eq works best for me.
Difference tend to show up more in stereo material because of the effect on the soundstage. Transients also can be telling of differences, whether the transients become slightly softer, the same, or in some cases seem more prominent. Filters aren't just about freq, but also phase and impuse response differences.

2)What that is, is a workflow advantage. For sure, with any multi-point parametric eq and enough time you can match the curve of one eq closely to the other, but who wants to waste an extra 10 minutes trying to match a particular shape of eq response of some unit that just sounds naturally pleasing. You also have to factor in how the Q shape changes depending on how far its boost or cut with some of these vintage eq's. It's just workflow speed here.

3) I never made a claim that Pro-Q, EQuality, EQuilibrium or LP10 apply harmonic distortion, they don't. Nebula can and does but that's something else. I'm very aware that price has no bearing on actual quality, its why I'm one of those that DO perform lots of tests.

FYI, before chosing Pro-Q, I tested it for an entire month alongside EQuality. I chose Pro-Q cause, whilst I preferred the sound of EQuality Analog Phase mode, in terms of the low cpu zero latency modes, I preferred Pro-Q over EQuality Digital/Digital+ modes. It offered a more favourable GUI for me and like I said, owning LP10 already, that provided me with a higher quality high latency minimal phase mode already that was comparable to EQualitys Analog Phase mode.

Our scientific methodology and factoring the impact of expectation bias is actually very similar Thomas, its just our conclusions that are different ;)

Hi Laurence,

"The funny thing about your post is, it looks like the kind of post I'd make to others when they harp on about magical differences!"

T: Good :)

"1) What that means is that it sounded better/more pleasing to my ears."

This is good. But with other source material it could have sounded bad perhaps? Maybe that particular source material gained by getting the "magical" treatment that is yet unknown...

I conducted several tests, everything from precisely matching curves using inverse phase copy method and then blind test comparing myself (easy to do with a loop and solo switching btw), to real world testing whereby I just insert the eq on lots of channels in a project and played around with it. A combination of both methods helps to decide what eq works best for me.

T: Was it the EQ itself or was it what the sliders and knobs did? What I mean is that once you had arrived at a "good" setting, did you then measure exactly what you had, and then made *another* eq produce the same results? Did it sound just as good then? The reason I'm asking is that many times the strating points ond choices that the eq-manufactirer makes tend to "lead" you in certain directions. With different sonical results of course... That's why it would be intersting to see if it was the "quality" of the actual algorithms or just something else...

"Difference tend to show up more in stereo material because of the effect on the soundstage."

T: Well... not enturely sure about that but stereo is "more" than mono... so... well... ;)

"Transients also can be telling of differences, whether the transients become slightly softer, the same, or in some cases seem more prominent."

T: If harmonic distorsion and other artefacts are generated in the process then of course at certain levels that will be audible. Phase errors that for many designs are unavoidable may play a role. As will the shape of a bell curve etc.

"Filters aren't just about freq, but also phase and impuse response differences."

T: Of course. That's why we need to measure! If you found something you liked, it would fantastic if you actually made real and proper tests so that what you like can be documented and shared. Again try to make another equalizer do exactly the same.

"2)What that is, is a workflow advantage. For sure, with any multi-point parametric eq and enough time you can match the curve of one eq closely to the other, but who wants to waste an extra 10 minutes trying to match a particular shape of eq response of some unit that just sounds naturally pleasing."

T: True Laurence. That's the ergomonic "starting point" that the EQ manufacturer is presenting to you. For instance, try such a simple and basic thing as this new Harrison Consoles "Mix Bus". Simple EQ's. But they are sitting there ready to be used and the "starting points" seem very intelligently thought out. After all they have made real consoles for some 30 years or so. Starting points and wgere the GUI is leading you is of major significance in how you perceive the EQ and where it leads you...

"You also have to factor in how the Q shape changes depending on how far its boost or cut with some of these vintage eq's. It's just workflow speed here."

T: "Vintage" again... Vintage could be a lot of things. A lot of really bad things too as a matter of fact... Of course the upslope downslope and how the curve is shaped plays a role. Again, I think it's important to "define" and "identify" what it is you like and why.

"3) I never made a claim that Pro-Q, EQuality, EQuilibrium or LP10 apply harmonic distortion, they don't."

T: Pro-Q seems a very professional and "clean" eq. Looks like it's made in a proper honest way. Haven't made measurements on the others.

"Nebula can and does but that's something else. I'm very aware that price has no bearing on actual quality, its why I'm one of those that DO perform lots of tests."

T: This is intersting. I actually made some measurments on some of the most expensive plugins and it's surprising that people are willing to pay more and get less. Psychology and hype does a great job for some manufacturers here.

"FYI, before chosing Pro-Q, I tested it for an entire month alongside EQuality. I chose Pro-Q cause, whilst I preferred the sound of EQuality Analog Phase mode, in terms of the low cpu zero latency modes, I preferred Pro-Q over EQuality Digital/Digital+ modes."

T: I agree. Pro-Q is nice and efficient and you can have many of them in a project.

"It offered a more favourable GUI for me and like I said, owning LP10 already, that provided me with a higher quality high latency minimal phase mode already that was comparable to EQualitys Analog Phase mode."

T:

"Our scientific methodology and factoring the impact of expectation bias is actually very similar Thomas, its just our conclusions that are different ;)"

T: Nice exchanging views here with you Laurence! Have a nice evening wherever you are! We both seem to strive for quality and do our best to avoid getting cheated by photos of tubes etc on the GUIs...

Best,
Thomas

Another rather important aspect is: a zero latency equalizer doesn't necessarily get better than what you already have only because it is an external plugin that isn't part of your sequencer/DAW package...

For a lot of basic work the already built in EQ in your DAWs channel strip may be good or even better.

Many tend to think it gets better because they have a large new screen popping up that they have paid for.

Thomas

(I'm not referring to the Pro-Q here)

"We hear you! We have already planned a major Pro-Q update. :-)
Cheers,
Frederik (FabFilter)"

This is good news. I really like your Pro-L, and I thinking about buying Pro-Q, but I have one question.
After this major update Will be the Pro-Q free update or will be paid update. I thinking if I should wait for the new version and than buy it or should I buy it now?

Thanks

We're planning a major 2.0 update to Pro-Q which will be available to existing customers for a highly reduced upgrade price. However, we still have some other things in the pipeline first, so it won't be released very soon! It's up to you. :-)

Cheers,

I reiterate my feature request: ability to zoom in the horizontal axis (to get in very close to specific, narrow resonances)

Just wanted to add that today I finally demoed EQuilibrium properly (before I'd only really tested EQuality and just assumed it was more of the same).

I gotta be honest. Equilibrium in Analog Phase FIR mode set to 8192 impulse time or higher sounds incredible with low boosts.

I mean I just compared Pro-Q, LP10 and Equilibrium doing a 2db boost around 100hz on a full mix, making sure to match the curves as closely as possible and when I A/B'ed back and forth I didn't have to strain to hear the difference. Equilibrium just sounded soo much tigher and clearer, it made LP10 and Pro-Q sound slightly smeared by comparison. It was like there was more focus and seperation of the elements with Equilibrium, quite extraordinary.

So I do hope whatever improvements you're making to Pro-Q v2.0, you have in mind just how good the sound quality of Equilibrium is in its higher latency analog phase mode, because I would dearly love to hear a similar quality of sound in Pro-Q.

Thank for the feedback. You can rest assured that we'll go through a thorough research phase when working on the next version of Pro-Q. :-)

Cheers,

Jees, no pressure right? :D

In blind test I preferred Pro-Q over EQuilibrium.

www.gearslutz.com/board/9449780-post53.html

Explanation:
www.gearslutz.com/board/9450153-post67.html

Listening to them both, I have to say that I prefer A. There highs seem to be sharper and the transients are more present.

There is however a large group of people out there who prefer the smoothing out that some of these plugins do to the sound.

I was happy that the first one was Pro-Q when I checked. Saves me from having to buy another plugin.

Cheers!

Interesting, thanks for the link! :-)

Cheers,

Hello! Any news on a 2.0 update to Pro-Q? I love this plugin, but I dón't want to change to DMG Equilibrium just yet..

Don't worry, we haven't forgotten about it. You'll be pleased. :-)

Cheers,

Well the difference that I hear is mostly in the lower frequencied and larger FIR filters. As you go higher with the size of the filter, the impulse is more precise and that means less mud in the bass. So I hear it as tighter sound. Yet sometimes you don't want that ;).

I'd love PRO-C to have something similar as Equilibrium analogue/FIR mode and more choices for HPF, Allpass filter for "phase rotation voodoo", zoom in the graph for precise "ring-kill" and dynamic section to make this EQ content aware. Unfortunatelly ProMB has it's limitations with how narrow you can go.

Any updates on the 2.0 release? Its been about 6 months since the last response. :)

I'd be happy to hear about anything FF is doing at this point. Whatever they're working on, they're keeping it really well hidden.

Hey Frederik, I'll give you cupcakes and hugs if you tell me what you're working on! Oh, and money, too!

Just a hint? Pleeeeease?

Hi guys,

Just a bit more patience please guys! We tend to work on our products until they are really -really- finished and well tested, and never rush a release :-)

I can't wait till Pro-Q2 comes!!! Whatever you've got planned, it's going to be ridiculously tight, and more flexible than I could imagine!

I love Pro-Q, looking forward to the update! A feature that I'd really like to see is pitch-tracking like the 'Sound Radix Surfer EQ'does. That would be well ace! :D

Hello,

Please make the piano roll similar to H-EQ hybrid Equalizer. Seeing (with colors) which notes are boosted or cut is very visual.
For me tuning easy and fast is a plus!

my 2 cents, :)

Hi guys,ive been reading through the comments about the pro q and dmg,

my company use both,and i find the pro q to be the one reached for more often,
when tracking at 96 and above now,we dont reallly hear to much of a difference between the 2 the dmg seems a little soft on the top end which can be good or bad thing,and also feels a little wrong i cant put my finger on what it is with the dmg,

we have a vast array now of plug ins,but for me personally version 2 should be about sound qaulity and how well the plug in works,and up in the high side of things such as 192 where life gets tricky,

no disrespect to anyone but why put a piano roll into it or colourise the fft,

things like phase alianment on stereo sourses would be helpfull,

its already a great plug in its fast and does its job,plus the MB comp has now become my go to sculpting tool.

keep up the good work guys i look forward to v2

Here's a first look at FabFilter Pro-Q 2! youtu.be/GYTCQeggyzo

That looks stunning! Fantastic workflow improvements all over the place. Looks like I'll return to all FabFilter on the master bus :)

And if it's really as CPU efficient as Dan makes it look, you may just have cured all my EQ cravings... Well, except for this one purchase, of course...

Can you hint at the upgrade pricing?

Pro-Q 2 is twice as CPU efficient as Pro-Q 1! Existing users can upgrade with a discount between 50 and 65%, depending on the products they already own. Plus there will be a grace period for people who purchased Pro-Q recently :-)

When you say grace period, how far back are you going? I bought the Pro-Q during your last sale. I doubt it goes back that far, but thought I'd check anyway. :)

I'm speechless, with the piano roll idea I hated the fact that it would wreck the interface... Yet you've managed to implement it and make it look sexier than anything!

This looks SO good!!!

Looks really really great!
One question tho, does Pro-Q2 overwrite Pro-Q1 or will it be co-installed/co-authorized?
I'm a bit worried about the compatibility when opening older sessions since it seems like a pretty big jump.

I'm in awe, you guys are amazing: it looks like it's everything we've been asking for (many MANY thanks for listening) and more, sooooo much more... Even two of the best features of SlickEQ GE, my (thus far) favourite gentle-type mastering EQ: auto-gain and the tilt filter... And the spectrum match thing, bandpass and flat-top bell shapes, spectrum sidechain... Wow, just wow.

I'm curious about the "natural phase" mode, is it somewhat related to Pro-MB's dynamic phase, sort of a "static" version of it?

WoW! Please Step BACK!

One question for FF.
What is the grace period of buying Pro-Q for this new version?
Thanks.