By Dave Crane
With the release of the Helios Type 69 EQ, the UAD boasts five different vintage EQ recreations: Neve 1073, Neve 1081, Pultec EQP-1A, Pultec Pro (which adds the MEQ-5 midrange EQ to the EQP-1A), and of course, the Helios Type 69. Some people wonder why we’re so obsessed with vintage EQs. Well, first of all, we like to use them on our own projects, and so do the thousands of UAD customers who have bought our vintage EQ plug-ins. And then there are the thousands of people who buy hardware vintage EQs, or re-issues of vintage EQ units. Many engineers like to have an assortment of EQ colors (or flavors) on hand to add their unique personality to different tracks. If a client wants their album to sound like '60’s rock, you could restrain your EQ choices to the Helios and Pultecs. If they are going for a '70’s sound, try sticking with the Neves.
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UAD Helios Type 69 EQ |
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UAD Neve 1073 EQ |
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UAD Neve 1081 EQ |
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UAD Pultec Pro EQ |
But another way to look at vintage EQs is that they work best in a specific frequency range, or on certain instruments. Audio folklore suggests that the Helios Type 69 EQ is great for enhancing bass frequencies, the Pultecs are great for mid range, and the Neve 1073 and 1081 have an unbeatable high end. This is of course subjective, but in my research I found this to be true to an extent, with both the original hardware, and the UAD vintage EQ plug-ins.
But I wanted to know how the other EQs fare when used in a range for which, according to some, they are not ideally suited. For this article, I used the Helios Type 69 on a bass guitar, the Pultec Pro on an electric guitar, the 1073 on a vocal, and the 1081 on a drum buss. (I skipped the Pultec EQP-1A because it is part of the Pultec Pro.) I designed a preset for the track, and then I tried to match that preset with the other plug-ins by ear. I got pretty close, but I was not satisfied.
Audio folklore suggests that the Helios Type 69 EQ is great for enhancing bass frequencies, the Pultecs are great for mid range and the Neve 1073 and 1081 have an unbeatable high end.
I wanted to see how close we could get by analyzing the EQ curve created by the target preset, and replicating that curve with the other EQs. So I asked our algorithm guru Dave Berners to design presets for the other three vintage EQs that sounded as close to the target preset as possible. He used a computer program that could create a graphical EQ curve from our EQ plug-ins. He first generated an EQ curve from the target preset, and then, by eye, created very similar EQ curves for the other plug-ins. This program then generated EQ presets for the other vintage EQs from these EQ curves.
The results are in the movies below. You can also download the presets and hear for yourself on your own tracks. Or, you can go one step further, and take the UA vintage EQ challenge: load the target preset on a track, and then try to match it with the other three vintage EQs, and then load the “Analytical” preset to see how you did against Dave Berners and his computer!
You might notice in some of the Helios and Neve presets that some gain is added via the gain control. We did this because the Pultec Pro has no gain control, and sometimes a Pultec Pro preset that sounded close to the target preset EQ-wise was actually louder. So in order to match the Pultec Pro’s output, we had to add a little gain on the other plug-ins.
If you’re in a hurry, you can watch the movie on our Universal Audio You Tube Channel.
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| Download the Presets | |||