Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1203636
61 S P R I N G Q 1 I S S U E T E C H N O L O G Y T E C H N O L O G Y Mac Smith 3 interface. "The spectrum analyzer helps me carve through sounds very quickly, which is essential when you're working in a room full of impatient clients," he said. The Pro-Q 3 offers some innovative features that are a step ahead of other EQs. For instance, there's the Dynamic EQ feature, which adapts the amount of EQ applied to a band depending on the level of the input signal. And there's the EQ Match feature, one of Babcock's favorites. "About three times a year, I fish Pro-Q 3's EQ Match out of the trick bag as a last resort. It has helped me keep my job as a mixer when some weird off-axis dialogue angle had to match another weird off-axis angle that seemed against the laws of matching sonic physics," Babcock said. B o r d e r s a d d e d , " T h e E Q M a t c h feature is impressive, and it's a great first-step to getting dialogue to match." Whether mixing music, dialogue, or effects, these mixers have named Pro-Q 3 as a go-to EQ. "The bottom line is I love the way it sounds, and it's the first plug- in EQ that I've used that makes me NOT miss a traditional film console so much," Borders said. But what about on the editorial side? What are sound designers and dialogue editors looking for in an EQ? Supervising sound editor/sound designer/sound ef- fects recordist Mac Smith, who's worked on films like "The Birth of a Nation," "The Secret Life of Pets," "Avengers: Endgame," and "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes," looks for an EQ that is easy to intuit. "You don't want an EQ with a steep learning curve. You want to find something that is straightforward and that can help you get a job done quickly," he said. Smith likes being able to see what he's hearing, to identify and reduce/ remove any problems very quickly. Smith also prefers Pro-Q 3. He said, "I love the graphical interface on Pro-Q 3. I love the pre/post analyzer option so you can see what you are doing to the sound and what frequencies you are boosting or attenuat- ing. I can grab anywhere on the line and pull out those problem frequencies very quickly, or boost up the frequencies that I want to hear more. That's why I go for the Pro-Q 3." A n o t h e r m a j o r f a c to r f o r S m i t h , especially when preparing sessions for the dub stage, is choosing an EQ that the re-recording mixers will want to use in the mix. "I don't want to put in an EQ across every track in a giant session if it is something that isn't their favorite. So I almost always defer to the mixer. Some of them like the Pro-Q 3 and other mixers like to keep it super-simple and use something like Avid Channel Strip, which is cool too," said Smith. Although it's not necessarily an EQ, Smith finds Audio Ease's Indoor reverb plug-in to be very helpful when trying to get disparate sound sources (effects pulled from libraries or recorded by different people at different times in different environments) to all feel like they're happening in the same space. "I put them through Indoor, and even if I'm only adding a very subtle reverb it makes them all feel like they belong together because in addition to reverb it's also doing quite a bit of EQ," he says. "Sometimes processing the sounds like that very lightly — in a very simple space with the virtual microphone and speaker very close together — is a quick and easy way to make them gel." Smith used that technique often while designing sounds for "Haunt." "I was creating different sounds for the coffins opening and closing using different door sounds and different wood creaks. It totally worked. Still, I do keep all of the original sounds muted in the track below just in case the mixer thinks I went too far. But if I can get it close and we're un- der a tight deadline, nine out of 10 times it just goes right into the mix." In terms of dialogue editing, you'd think EQ would be an essential tool for that job. But Emmy-winning dialogue editor Paul Bercovitch — who cut the complicated and often challenging dia- logue on "Game of Thrones" — says he doesn't "really use EQ in the traditional sense. I find that work is better handled by the mixers on the dub stage." Bercovitch does make extensive use of iZotope's RX7 though, which like Audio Ease's Indoor is not an EQ per se, but it does modify frequencies within a sound's spectrum. "As a dialogue editor, I am approach- i n g E Q m u c h m o r e f r o m a ' r e p a i r ' standpoint, mostly notching out hums and whines. I prefer RX to the notch filters I used to use because often the 'problem' frequencies are not constant. RX allows you to easily see the problem and correct it," he said. " Fo r my p u r p o s e s, a go o d EQ re - moves 'problem' frequencies without sacrificing the integrity of the dialogue. I am not here to make the dialogue sound beautiful. My job is to make it as easy as possible for the mixer to achieve that goal," Bercovitch concluded. ■ Jennifer Walden is a freelance writer.