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Post by rowmat on Mar 17, 2016 18:46:42 GMT -6
I have some CAPI LC53A EQ's which are great but am also interested in something a little simpler and less 'targeted'.
I like the look of the Electrodyne 511 EQ but I could build almost 4 CAPI 553F's for the same cost as a single 511 would set me back here in Australia.
I was wondering if anyone had compared a CAPI 553F to an Electrodyne 511 both set to the same settings?
I realise the 553F's hi and low shelving bands are fixed at 100hz and 10khz but would the 553F be sonically in the ball park of a 511 at the same shelving settings?
Just wondering?
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Post by noah shain on Mar 17, 2016 21:38:37 GMT -6
I don't know the electrodyne but I have four 553Fs with Litz transformers and SL red dots in my console.
The mid band SHINES on electric guitar. It's so good.
Shelves are great. Filters are great. Mid band is a guitar unicorn.
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Post by svart on Mar 17, 2016 21:44:01 GMT -6
I don't know the electrodyne but I have four 553Fs with Litz transformers and SL red dots in my console. The mid band SHINES on electric guitar. It's so good. Shelves are great. Filters are great. Mid band is a guitar unicorn. Cutting or boosting? |
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Post by noah shain on Mar 17, 2016 21:54:51 GMT -6
I don't know the electrodyne but I have four 553Fs with Litz transformers and SL red dots in my console. The mid band SHINES on electric guitar. It's so good. Shelves are great. Filters are great. Mid band is a guitar unicorn. Cutting or boosting? Boosting that mid band. I really bought them to get my diy chops up. I botched a couple, had to get tech help but I'm soldering my a__ off now. After building a couple LC53 the 553 is a breeze. I put em straight to work on guitars and they haven't left. |
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Post by mdmitch2 on Mar 17, 2016 22:49:07 GMT -6
I'm getting ready to try them on the two buss for my next mix.... small boosts top and mid. I think they're good tracking EQs too.
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Post by rowmat on Mar 17, 2016 22:51:22 GMT -6
Thanks for the info. Apart from the shelving filters the 553F's midband did cross my mind for use with electric guitars. Yesterday I used a Beyer M160 through a VP28 on an amp and really liked the overall tone although it was tracked without EQ and just a little limiting. The guitar track is actually an overdub on an outside production that we are not mixing. However while a SM57 typically has more midrange poke than the M160 I figured for similar future tracking sessions the M160 might benefit from a little midrange boost on some electric guitars and a fairly wide mid-boost would avoid things getting a little nasal. It looks like the 553F would allow for some pretty smooth tone shaping without sounding over EQ'ed which is what I'm looking for. Also the high & low pass filters seem like they would work pretty well in conjunction with the shelving filters to keep out any crap if boosting fairly heavily. Okay it appears I've talked myself into a couple of 553F's!  |
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Post by noah shain on Mar 17, 2016 22:56:45 GMT -6
I'm getting ready to try them on the two buss for my next mix.... small boosts top and mid. I think they're good tracking EQs too. I've also done this. With Litz and SL red dots. Killer. |
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Post by noah shain on Mar 17, 2016 22:57:15 GMT -6
Thanks for the info. Apart from the shelving filters the 553F's midband did cross my mind for use with electric guitars. Yesterday I used a Beyer M160 through a VP28 on an amp and really liked the overall tone although it was tracked without EQ and just a little limiting. The guitar track is actually an overdub on an outside production that we are not mixing. However while a SM57 typically has more midrange poke than the M160 I figured for similar future tracking sessions the M160 might benefit from a little midrange boost and a fairly wide mid-boost would avoid things getting a little nasal. It looks like the 553F would allow for some pretty smooth tone shaping without sounding over EQ'ed which is what I'm looking for. Also the high & low pass filters seem like they would work pretty well in conjunction with the shelving filters to keep out any crap if boosting fairly heavily. Okay it appears I've talked myself into a couple of 553F's! You won't regret it. |
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Post by mdmitch2 on Mar 17, 2016 23:01:44 GMT -6
Btw, I like the typical vp28 setup with 2520 on input and 1731 on output. You can really push it like that without getting harsh. Haven't tried red dots though.
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Post by rowmat on Mar 17, 2016 23:59:18 GMT -6
Okay order placed for 2x 553F's!
The build looks like it should be pretty straightforward after the LC53A's!
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Post by noah shain on Mar 18, 2016 0:19:38 GMT -6
Okay order placed for 2x 553F's! The build looks like it should be pretty straightforward after the LC53A's! A breeze! |
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Post by svart on Mar 18, 2016 8:31:59 GMT -6
Boosting that mid band. I really bought them to get my diy chops up. I botched a couple, had to get tech help but I'm soldering my a__ off now. After building a couple LC53 the 553 is a breeze. I put em straight to work on guitars and they haven't left. Interesting. I'm almost always cutting a small notch out somewhere between 2k and 3K to get rid of some of the pointy nature of distorted guitars though, so I'd be interested in hearing these in action.. |
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Post by noah shain on Mar 18, 2016 14:54:52 GMT -6
Boosting that mid band. I really bought them to get my diy chops up. I botched a couple, had to get tech help but I'm soldering my a__ off now. After building a couple LC53 the 553 is a breeze. I put em straight to work on guitars and they haven't left. Interesting. I'm almost always cutting a small notch out somewhere between 2k and 3K to get rid of some of the pointy nature of distorted guitars though, so I'd be interested in hearing these in action.. I have a hard time with that area, 1k-5K. I'm really sensitive to it. A lot of times I have to force myself NOT to cut there because I wanna dip it all out. Not many Eqs sound good to me in that range. I don't think I really like ANY plug ins boosting there. 553 and AWTAC are my faves. Bring stuff to the fore. |
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Post by cowboycoalminer on Mar 18, 2016 20:11:39 GMT -6
Boosting that mid band. I really bought them to get my diy chops up. I botched a couple, had to get tech help but I'm soldering my a__ off now. After building a couple LC53 the 553 is a breeze. I put em straight to work on guitars and they haven't left. Interesting. I'm almost always cutting a small notch out somewhere between 2k and 3K to get rid of some of the pointy nature of distorted guitars though, so I'd be interested in hearing these in action.. Chris, I always did the same. But then one day I realized that I only recognized a deficiency in that range and made moves to correct it. My reflex on any EQ is to cut because for the most part, subtractive EQ always sounded better to me (vocals). But I could never get satisfied. Then I started boosting in that range on guitars because what the hell right? And there it was. I was looking east but should've been looking west. |
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Post by jsteiger on Mar 18, 2016 22:44:12 GMT -6
My friend Gary Loizzo taught me that 2.5-3k is how you make a guitar solo pop. Its pretty easy to hear if you listen to the early Styx records he engineered. Kind of that '70's rock guitar thing.
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Post by jsteiger on Mar 18, 2016 22:55:04 GMT -6
A great example.
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Post by rowmat on Mar 18, 2016 23:25:08 GMT -6
My friend Gary Loizzo taught me that 2.5-3k is how you make a guitar solo pop. Its pretty easy to hear if you listen to the early Styx records he engineered. Kind of that '70's rock guitar thing. Listening back to the rough mix I made using the guide stems we received for the guitar overdub I can hear a that little subtle mid push would help based on my mix but we aren't mixing it and the guitar is pretty sweet with the M160 through the VP28 as it stands. There's enough inherent tone in the guitar track to EQ it either way during the final mix and as the song is pretty smooth and soulful I decide to keep the EQ pretty neutral rather than risk making the guitar too pokey. However I'm looking forward to pulling some sweet tones with these 553's when they arrive! Speaking of sweet tones I gotta say the girls doing the BV's on this tune are dynamite!! Unfortunately I can't currently post any links as it's a reworking of an album that was initially released and then withdrawn from sale is it was decided it needed some more 'edge'. Pretty big call to make but I guess that's why we're now involved which has gone from two to three songs and probably some soundtrack work to boot! |
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Post by EmRR on Mar 20, 2016 16:45:12 GMT -6
My friend Gary Loizzo taught me that 2.5-3k is how you make a guitar solo pop. Its pretty easy to hear if you listen to the early Styx records he engineered. Kind of that '70's rock guitar thing. The best part of a Langevin 251A. |
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Post by noah shain on Mar 20, 2016 21:35:09 GMT -6
My friend Gary Loizzo taught me that 2.5-3k is how you make a guitar solo pop. Its pretty easy to hear if you listen to the early Styx records he engineered. Kind of that '70's rock guitar thing. The 553 has some of that sound for sure. It's a guitar focuser. I put a record up in what are you working on that has them on all the guitars except the steel. It's a wooly record, all tape, but you'll hear it. |
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Post by svart on Mar 21, 2016 7:28:15 GMT -6
Interesting. I'm almost always cutting a small notch out somewhere between 2k and 3K to get rid of some of the pointy nature of distorted guitars though, so I'd be interested in hearing these in action.. Chris, I always did the same. But then one day I realized that I only recognized a deficiency in that range and made moves to correct it. My reflex on any EQ is to cut because for the most part, subtractive EQ always sounded better to me (vocals). But I could never get satisfied. Then I started boosting in that range on guitars because what the hell right? And there it was. I was looking east but should've been looking west. I was mixing over the weekend, and went back over this.. I still ended up cutting in the 2.5K range.. Narrow, deep cuts on most of the guitars to get rid of that painful "point" that distorted guitars get when close mic'd. I tried all kinds of things, but this was the only way to get it to compare favorably while A/Bing with a "pro" mix. If the 553F is a "swinging inputs" style EQ like API tended to use, then boosting more tends to focus the Q tighter as more boost is added(or cut is added), which would likely help during cuts, but would only make my problem worse with boosts. |
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Post by noah shain on Mar 22, 2016 11:24:16 GMT -6
Chris, I always did the same. But then one day I realized that I only recognized a deficiency in that range and made moves to correct it. My reflex on any EQ is to cut because for the most part, subtractive EQ always sounded better to me (vocals). But I could never get satisfied. Then I started boosting in that range on guitars because what the hell right? And there it was. I was looking east but should've been looking west. I was mixing over the weekend, and went back over this.. I still ended up cutting in the 2.5K range.. Narrow, deep cuts on most of the guitars to get rid of that painful "point" that distorted guitars get when close mic'd. I tried all kinds of things, but this was the only way to get it to compare favorably while A/Bing with a "pro" mix. If the 553F is a "swinging inputs" style EQ like API tended to use, then boosting more tends to focus the Q tighter as more boost is added(or cut is added), which would likely help during cuts, but would only make my problem worse with boosts. In my use of the 553 I'm boosting 1, maybe 2 hash marks on the mid band. Sometimes just pulling the knob out of the detent. So...gentle boosts. But you can hear in most of my work that I'm after a fairly relaxed sound. I often do my cuts with a plug in before the signal leaves the daw. Narrow cuts under broad, gentle boosts. FWIW |
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Post by jsteiger on Mar 22, 2016 13:57:11 GMT -6
Yes the 553F is a swinging inputs inductor/capacitor topology so it is inherently proportional Q. It would be quite wide at very low settings. More like lifting regions.
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