FabFilter User Forum
Pro-Q 3 weird shelves
I love pro Q 3 and would love for it to be my only equalizer, but I cannot for the life of me get along with the shelves, particularly the high end.
They just feel to steep by default and, if I bring the Q down, the higher end reacts weird.
Analog EQs (or emulations) kinda sound more like a bell and that behaviour is not possible to replicate with Pro-Q 3 without using more than 1 band, which in turns makes it not practical.
I still resort to SSL, API and Neve alternatives to boost high end shelves.
Hopefully this can be looked into for future versions and these classic curves become easier to emulate/approximate.
Thanks,
Dani
Dani Salat — Dec 4, 2023
Hi Dani,
So the default shelf at 12 dB/oct with a Q of 0.325 is too steep for you? Or are you more looking for a different shape?
Cheers,
Hi Frederik, thanks for replying.
It might be a shape thing. Not saying that you couldn't get a very similar result with Fabfilter, but I guess there's some "familiarity" to a SSL 8kHz shelf boost or a Neve 12kHz boost that is rather unintuitive to imitate with pro q 3.
One of the main advantages of Pro Q 3 is how fast it is to work with, but I find it faster to load an emulation and boost a low or high shelf in this case. Doesn't happen with bells, though.
Thanks again,
Hi Dani,
What plug-ins are you using? I noticed a lot of difference in the values shown in the emulation interface compared to the values that are actually showing on an analyzer. For instance a 6dB shelf at 8Khz in the Brainworx SSL 4000E would be quite similar to a 3.8dB shelf at 3.5Khz in Pro-Q 3. None of the emulations are the same though, for instance in SSL's own native channel strip this sale shelf would show as a 3.6dB shelf at 5.8KHz.