I'm glad finally someone mentioned that it's 50/50! Since Linear-Phase first started rearing it's head, a large portion of engineers have been saying it's essential, while other saying it destroys the mix, finally someone says use your ears and make a decision - like how all audio engineering should start imho!
Love your channel for learning audio engineering and mastering. You make genuine content, and appear to have much experience and thus knowledge about all these things. Big thumbs up!
If you use the software sonarworks for acoustic conditioning of the room, in its advanced mode in linear phase makes the same effect with your mixes, in the kick you hear that kind of sub sweep before the attack kick, if you change it to minimum linear phase, the drum is heard as it should sound without that sweeping effect.
Recently discovering phasing problems and wonder how many times when I heard (synths usually) odd dynamics jumping allover the stereo spectrum was the phasing problem. I kind of felt that it has to do with waveforms interraction but I couldn't put my finger on it.
I was hearing a high frequency ring. Couldn't tell if it was what you were talking about at he beginning, or if it was at the end because it was looping, but it was almost "clicking" off, so I'm wondering if it was at the tail.
The key is definitely listening in context. Normal EQ possible drawback of phase smearing vs Linear EQ possible drawback of pre-ringing... which poison to swallow? DDMF's LP10 EQ has "variable phase" so you can fine-tune the compromise, for nerds desiring ultimate flexibility. Pretty neat. ddmf.eu/lp10-linear-phase-equalizer-plugin/
The most mentioned uses for linear phase EQ are multi-micked instruments and mastering. Especifically in mastering is only used to to narrow cuts when there are resonances, but let's be honest, if there are resonances (unless they're intentional) the mix must be fixed before sending it to get mastered. In the other case sometimes there are other ways with normal EQs, it's more about testing and hearing. This video is a good example: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Vagwy7gvPrw.html
wait, what's the solution then? If you don't high pass most things, the low-end goes of the charts and it sounds bad. Any workaround so that many no-latency eqs don't mess up the phases in a mix?
So how is the noise-to-signal ratio on that phase linear kick drum? Do you actually _hear_ that pre-ringing in the mix? You _do_ , however clearly hear a muddy bottom end if you do _not_ high pass your acoustic tracks. I have _so_ much low end rumble on my mic tracks (yes, I am using suspension, _and_ a plop filter, _and_ I am careful not to tap the rhythm on the carpeted floor during recording - and I *still* get tons of rumble) that I'd *much* rather filter out to enhance the transparency of my mixes. Choosing the lesser of two evils should be a no-brainer: go for the lesser one.
I was so happy when i found this "artifact" a coupel of years ago. I heard this "effect" on kicks on a coupel of metal productions. I just love this back sucking effect on some productions. I remember I tried different compressor settings and other stuff to mimik this brilliant kick sound but everyting faild until one day "Bingo" linear fase on max setting. Yeeeha naild it :)
Could it be possible that at maximum "quality" setting the actual cutoff frequency is higher? The last part of the tail of the kick would be lets say.. 50 hz down to 20hz pure sine.. if you highpass that out yes the kick will appear shorter in time? I've always noticed that Highpassing on a linear phase eq has always been a drastic way to kill the subs on a master even down at 20 hz. I take it that it because of the pre-ring?
Fwuzeem Go back and watch the video. He explained why pre-ringing occurs. It’s a processing artifact that has nothing to do with what the content of the source file is.
Could you put a gate on the kick? pre ringing is annoying but it seems very low in volume could a gate quite easily get rid of it? Genuine question not trying to be clever.
I come back to this video after checking the MAAT thEQRed, claiming that it works in the tima domain so no transient smearing appears. Can anyone explain this? I wonder if there's any other plugin developer into that.
Would you make a follow-up video about FFT filters? I think they don't mess with the phase of the track, so in practice they are linear phase EQs, but they are much different from linear-phase FIR filters under the hood. They use fourier transforms to convert the audio into the frequency domain and apply the curve there before converting it back into audio. This is a fundamentally different type of EQ algorithm than IIR or FIR. Funnily enough, I think Reaper's ReaFIR eq is actually FFT not FIR. Same with Audacity's EQ. Also, there are FFT modes on the LSP (Linux Studio Plugins) EQs. I don't think FFT filters will pre-ring or post-ring, nor affect the phase, correct me if I'm wrong, I want to hear all about it. When I look up info about FFT filters, it's usually just about the mathematics of fourier transforms, not even related to audio processing. The availability of info about this is lacking.
heres how you use (and must use) linear phase. Tweak it, THEN RENDER. then REMOVE IT/DISABLE IT. thats the only way you can remove the latency. but for highpassing lin phase sounds better. its just the case. at least in mastering. but when using lin phase you HAVE TO RENDER AFTER...... then disable.. then move back into time + remove pre-ring from the audio PEACE
Simply blind testing I really doubt you could tell the difference as long as the two results are played back at the same db level. Take any effect, turn it up to 11, and you are bound to get something you did not want. In all the cases you present, simply turning down the effect or not using at all is the solution, so basically learn how to use your ears to set effect levels. You can't hear scopes, and graphic depictions of waveform phase. If you can't hear it, if you can turn it down. You going in circles.
So much cirurgical overanalysing. I think as long as you're not a top-notch mixing & mastering engineer you shouldn't bother too much. For music producers it doesn't really matter to have this not really recognizable pre-ringing effect.
