Any of you who came to see us at Plasa in September will have probably had a sneak preview of an early beta of the DEQ running on a tablet, but things have come a long way since then.  The version shown at Plasa had three bars showing gain reduction (or expansion) superimposed over the centre frequencies of the inputs DEQ frequency response.   

Whilst it was cool to see these react to their individual bands’ settings as far as envelope and threshold etc. go, everything still had to be ‘dialled in’ by hand at this stage (up/down spin buttons by parameters – not really quite as interactive as we might like these days…)

It was never intended that things would stay like that – anyone who has played with a SiDD will remember the ability to drag the threshold point on a transfer function window with a bouncing ball showing the closeness of the input signal to the threshold, and how intuitive that made setting the threshold.  This has been incorporated into the DEQ (and compressor) windows for the DP548, but the DEQ has gone well beyond that.   

The individual bands of EQ are now draggable just as they are in any main EQ editing scenario, with the bandwidth (or ‘Q’ depending on which you prefer to think in) adjustable with your mouse scroll wheel.  The gain adjustment meter mode is still in there, with the transfer function drag point allowing the ideal threshold to be easily worked out.   

More conventional display with gain reduction (or expansion) meters centred around each band of DEQ.

 A right click on the curve display allows you to change to the real time individual curves which move in real time showing each band’s response with the shadow showing the maximum permissible response change that has been set.   

Each separate band's EQ contribution is shown superimposed on the shadow curve which represents the maximum allowable effect level.

These curves moving about in real time is cool enough to watch and soon the operation of the DEQ becomes even more intuitive, especially as far as adjusting the attack and release times go – suddenly you can ‘see’ how the band is cutting or boosting in response to the audio, and how fast you want it to react.   

However – the masterstroke is the combined response mode.  Selected again from a right click on the display, this works out the interaction of each band with the others and displays an overall response curve, again in real time!  This truly is brilliant to watch and I can honestly say I’ve not seen anything like it elsewhere.  If you have – let me know and I will call you a liar, or a very efficient plagiarist  ;)   

You won't have seen anything like this before! DEQ bands interaction is shown in real time including the effect of the attack and release times of each band to show how the EQ is responding to the incoming audio...

The static images don’t really give you a good feel how this is working so below is a quick video showing the different modes – the bargraphs, the individual curves and the combined response mode.  Notice how the sections of the curve move at different speed due  to the different attack and release times set on each band, especially the yellow midrange band.  If you watch carefully when the track stops you can see that this band must be set to ‘boost below’ with a long release time – as the bouncing ball drops below the threshold,  the EQ band slowly boosts up to it max level.   

I would post some screen shots of the compressors and the matrix, but I think that’s enough of a lesson for one day!  More on them on the website when we go live with the DP548 product info    

UPDATE:  Rather than this end up in a different post, I decided to add the hints and tricks about the compressor and matrix here so it’s all in one place.  

Threshold is draggable in real time on transfer function window, and bouncing ball shows input level relative to this.

When editing the compressor, each output can be cycled through 1-8 then back to 1 by pressing F8 on the keyboard.   This will also cycle outputs on the matrix editing screen, and inputs on DEQ editing.  

The threshold can be dragged in real time on the transfer function graph by holding the mouse over the “knee” and left (normal!) clicking and dragging.  A right click on this graph also allows you to enable/disable peak hold for the ball. (Same on DEQ).

The ratio can also be adjusted by clicking and holding the mouse as if you are about to adjust the threshold, and turning the scroll wheel (if your mouse has one).  Page Up/Dn also achieves this.  

The knee can be adjusted by by clicking and holding the mouse as if you are about to adjust the threshold, and the pressing the left or right arrow keys.  

To get the unit into Matrix mixing mode, it’s accessible from the dropdown list you’d normally use to choose a crossover template (2 x 4 way, free assign etc.):  

Select matrix mixing in the list alongside "Free Assign" mode and the other routing templates. Accessed from "Device > Modify".

Once in Matrix mixing mode, you’ll see that the routing shown in the device window is replaced by a large rectangle mysteriously labelled “Matrix”.  What could that possibly do…? 
Well, as with all the other processing blocks in the device window, clicking on the “Matrix” block will bring it up for editing. 

Sliders set the "send" levels from each input to your chosen output.

As with the compressor editing, and the DEQ editing,  F8 will cycle round all the outputs allowing you to set up the mix send levels quicker and compare output settings. 

DP548 - New dynamic applications