EQ and the VSL

[KMuzzey]

Hey gang,

I'm curious -- do you find much need to EQ your VSL tracks, or do you find that they're ready-to-go right out of the box?

I continue to try to wrap my head around EQ'ing but it seems like the VSL sounds are already optimized in every way. Anyone have input?

Also -- just got Altiverb for OSX the other day, and WOW -- suddenly things sound so much more real! Of course, it was just 2 days later that emagic announced their own reverb plugin... oh well, one more thing to ask for for Xmas. [:)]

Kerry

[Dietz]

Hi Kerry,

it depends! :-]

No, I'm not making bad jokes. Of course we have tried to make any instrument as pure and realistic as possible - in this sense the answer has to be: yes, all our sounds are optimized.

OTOH, I have no dogmatic feelings for this sound and wouldn't hesitate to do any EQing the piece you're working on demands. As a matter of fact, our Library takes a _lot_ of adjustments, be it soundwise, dynamically or in respect of room-settings.

... and I happily admit that I even like a tad of "good" distortion when I mix VSL-based pieces (like tape-saturation or tube-like harmonics). :-]

All the best,

/Dietz - Vienna Symphonic Library

[Simon Fox]

Depends on what you're doing!! Depends a lot on the scoring. You can use EQ to 'thin out' congestion, or if an instrument doesn't 'cut through' enough you can boost the frequencies that would - it's more about EQ-ing to get things to mix together the way you want them than actually improving the original sound of individual instruments. Having said that I find there are one or two resonances that can 'ring' in the reverb if you don't remove them. That means pinpointing the exact frequency and zapping it (if you miss it can cause more problems than not doing it at all). Again though it may depend on the music and doubling of particular notes, etc. There are too many factors - which reverb for eg. - to be able to say anything precise.

I discovered though something useful - if you need muted trumpets (conical mute), try drastically reducing everything up to about 1500 Hz and slightly increasing above 4000 Hz. Horns are similar, but you need more fundamental, ie don't remove too much in the lower-mid range.

You can make a real mess with EQ, but it can transform things too...

Have fun experimenting!

Simon

[Dietz]

LOL!

Seems as Simon and me were writing the same word at the same time :-]

/Dietz

[KMuzzey]

Thanks for the input Dietz & Simon -- I love that VSL has already done the hard part and all I have to do is EQ the mix instead of the actual instruments.