Frequency 2 is a really great addition overall! I’ll be using it all the time. But the way the “Gain” and “Start” knobs work is a bit confusing and a bit hard to work with. As far as I can tell, the Gain knob changes meaning if you toggle dynamics mode on/off. This means you can’t really A/B the effects of the dynamics for that band. You can disable the Side Chain for the band, but it isn’t clear what that does. It seems like it reverts back to using the internal source as the side chain, but that is an option in side chains, so it doesn’t really make any sense. Either way it doesn’t seem to defeat the dynamics processing. It also means you can’t use it as an EQ and Dynamics processor for the same band.
It seems like if the Start and Gain meanings were switched it would be more straightforward, would allow previewing of on/off states of dynamics, and would allow it to be used as both EQ and dynamics at the same time.
So for example: You set your Freq, Q, and Start… this gives you a normal EQ (and should always affect the sound the same whether dynamics is enabled or not). Then you can optionally add dynamics on top of it, either adding or subtracting to the baseline EQ adjustments. This would be more straightforward because if you’re doing EQ you’d only use the knobs under the EQ section. If you’re only doing dynamics you’d mainly use the knobs in the Dynamics section.
Then maybe remove the ability to turn off the side chain per band? I’m not sure what dynamics does if it’s not using some reference source.
Hi noyearzero,
Dynamic mode in Frequency 2 does need a reference signal, you are correct. By default it is the normal track signal going through the plug-in (internal). This is how you do the set-up to compare dynamic mode on or off:
- Set your Freq, Gain, Q, values for one band. Leave Start at 0.
- Now, switch on Dynamic mode and adjust threshold, so that the eq-curve reacts to the signal.
- Now, toggle Dynamic mode on/off for comparison
Start is more like a gain offset. Say, your EQ is set to +6dB. Depending on your Threshold and Ratio setting your EQ would go from 0 to 6 dB. What, if you don’t want the whole range ? Maybe your gain should go from 2 dB to 6 dB. That’s when you want to set a Start value (+2 dB).
Side-Chain section offers you the possibility to use a filter for the signal to be analyzed. Its Frequency and Q values are either taken from the EQ settings (Auto), or set manually. And you can choose to use an external signal for side-chaining, of course.
Hope that sheds some light.
Regards,
Andreas
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Thanks for the quick response. I finally did figure out how to get the dynamics to do what I wanted. But it still seemed less intuitive and useful than it could have been.
I’m still not clear on what defeating the Side Chain section does if Dynamics is still enabled. It sounds like its the exact same as leaving it enabled and choosing Internal as the source. If that’s true I’d recommend removing the ability to defeat it since it’s not clear what it does or what settings it uses and because it doesn’t seem to have any purpose. Maybe also rename that section to “Reference Source.”
When you say “Now, toggle Dynamic mode on/off for comparison”… I don’t agree that doing that gives an accurate comparison. If you set the Gain to +6dB with dynamics off, your baseline is +6dB, but if you enable dynamics it switches your baseline to 0dB. So if you have a silent reference source, toggling dynamics on/off switches from +6 to 0. Which isn’t a useful comparison. Essentially if you toggle dynamics when there is a silent reference signal, your output signal should not change.
Currently each band is a dynamics OR EQ prcessor. With a few tweaks it could be a dynamics AND EQ processor… and be a lot more straightforward and easy to use.