Thanks for your reply Dave.

The knobs as previously mentioned, are just somehow easier for the eye instead of having a "fader" thing as on Multiplicity, TrackComp etc.
I much prefer Compassion's way of setting the main values of the compressor.
On a knob you can center your eyes and quickly see the changed amount of processing (especially when comparing between A/B states). Also when knobs are bigger, they can be grabbed more quickly. And when mapped to an encoder they kind of synchronize and make sense visually as logically in my eyes when turned.

The routing thing is best explained with competitor products (unfortunately). in Pro-Q3 or Kirchhoff now (and many others) the frequency dot selector (or an openly displayed setting for it) easily lets you change between Mid/Side/Left/Right for any dot on the curve.
In Equilibrium it is quite different. You have to globally switch the routing for the whole session, so all dots are either L/R or M/S.
If implementing a panning function additionally, wouldn't it be possible to also be able to select the routing mode for the dots in a similar manner?

This may not help you, but there's a workaround to set a Mac's display color profile to sRGB IEC61966-2.1 in order to improve drawing performance in U-he plug-ins and some DAWs like Renoise. I don't know if M1 Macs are affected or if it would benefit DMG plug-ins, but it's something I've had to do since Mojave to be able to continue working. Urs said they saw a big performance difference on their machines.

Dynamics are pretty well covered in Multiplicity.

A well done EQ matching function would be really good though, like the Pro-Q.

What I miss most when using EQuilibrium is the ability to just click and drag to the top or bottom of the spectrum and automatically get a hpf/lpf. Defaulting to peak automatically can be annoying. It's a very useful feature in other well-known EQ's that lead me to just grab them (most notably SSL X-EQ2) for filters when I need one quick

You could add them to the default preset and disable by default. The workflow is very similar.
Also this way you can set up the slope and bump that you like for each filter.

Why stop there? Add some shelves at good starting frequency points so that you only have to double click the band and drag up and down - very quick.

Good point, thanks!

Check the manual and prefs. You can set it so double clicking to left of the graph (the lows) creates an HPF, slightly higher up the spectrum a low shelf, in the middle a bell, and to the right a high shelf, and further up still an LPF.

9 times out of 10 I prefer EQuilibrium to Pro-Q, but the dynamic mode with sidechaining and ability to see which frequencies are clashing for other instances is a super useful and cool feature.

Thanks for your comments here in the forum, Dave.

Can you tell when we'll see an updated version of EQuilibrium that supports M1 native compatibility?

All DMG plugins have been M1 compatible for more than a year already.

I'm really happy with Equilibrium. If I did have a feature request, it would be support for stepped frequencies and/or gain for vintage EQs that had such behavior.

I meant to ask this for quite a while, and finally I managed to remember it while browsing GS. Does anybody else have an issue in the graph area, double-clicking to enable/create a band, then click to adjust frequency but instead it disables the band (because it's reacting as triple clicking). If i wait for a few seconds between double clicking, and the click and drag it works perfectly, but that isn't very convenient.

It drives me mad from time to time, I try to avoid that workflow of using the graph area, but it feels the most natural way for me.
This happens in any DAW, and various OSX systems.

IMHO the entire interface is archaic in comparison to other EQ software. Now Equilibrium may be great n all but I make better decisions with Kirchoff because of how effortless the UI is. Equilibrium is way behind on the UI. My mixes sound better with Kirchoff because I can use it so easily and intuitively. Spend ten mins in Kirchoff in full screen and then go back to Equilibrium.
I still have to use Equilibrium for the parallel mode. If it were not for that then it would get put on the bench.

I cant rotate the phase when in parallel mode (+ free phase), the visualizer is not working, is this normal?

Equilibrium is still my go to! I have Kirchoff and plenty of others but I always came back. The UI might be old but it still sounds the best to me especially in parallel with 8200 or Sontec curves. Version 2 would be nice and I hope the DMG saturator comes out at some point.

You can't freely adjust phase when in parallel mode, only when in serial mode.

By the way, I wonder how Dave's been doing? He mentioned last year that he was involved in the development of Serum2 though, is there still no update(beside bug fix) or no new product on the DMG products this year?

Yeah, its been awfully quiet around DMG past year or so...
I hope Dave is cooking something special for us and that we will try it soon.

Popping in to say that after many years, Equilibrium is still king - cleanest high pass and low shelf I've heard to date, there's so much clarity it's incredible.

Is there a particular way you set it up (mode) to get the best results for the shelving? Do you have presets saved that help you move faster when using it? I've owned it for years and use it here and there, but the complexity often makes me hesitant to use it. I need to develop better workflow with it.

I feel you, in my initial years of using Equilibrium I fell into similar haunts - it was hard not to reach for intense FIR settings in render mode because well, more processing/CPU? That means it’s GOT to sound better right?!? Nope, and especially not if you’re just looking for a clean cut / removal of frequencies.

For most tracking and mixing (and especially if you’re just high passing) IIR is plenty (it states this directly in the manual). If I’m low passing or messing with the highs Digital Compensation + can sound better (use your ears and turn up the compensation slowly until you don’t hear a difference [Dave says this in the manual], and you’ll only need to reach for this for tracks where you need a bit more edge).

For mastering, see this post (Equilibrium Window Settings)
From Dave himself:

There are no de-facto best settings for mastering. As a rule, I'd probably stick it in FIR mode with a Kaiser window (with the tuning at 0.5, which I set as default deliberately), with an IR length of 65536, in Free Phase mode, and maybe some padding if I was doing anything crazy. If your mastering is gentle, then these settings should be sane enough, and it'll be diminishing returns increasing from here.

Also, I would suggest using minimum phase for low frequency stuff and linear phase for mid and highs, which is achieved with Free Phase by having the control handles start at the bottom of the screen and end up in the middle.

If you have something a bit nasty to deal with, using higher settings should make your plight that little easier. The deal is that you can buy your way out of problems by spending CPU, and if you've used EQuilibrium for a while, you'll know what I'm talking about.

Specific answers:
FIR vs IIR - FIR allows you to dial-in the phase response, and give you a lot more control generally. For mastering, /try/ IIR, but 9 times out of 10 you'll likely end up FIR just because it gives you more to play with.

Phase - for mastering, start in Free. If you find you always prefer the sound with the bands in the middle, just use Linear. If you prefer the bands at the bottom, just use Analogue. If you prefer bands all over the place, stay in Free! (=me)

Window Shape - Kaiser all the way. Seriously, that guy did some very clever maths. Use it! It's parametric so you can play with it and get a feel for what it does. So, the window shape trades off between tightness in the time domain+ smoothness in the frequency domain vs slow decays in the time domain+sharp edges in the frequency domain. If you're notching something, you need the latter. If you're mastering, you most likely want the former. As you sweep the parameter around, you trade from one to the other. The other shapes do the same thing - they give you a specific balance between tight time-domain response and definition in the frequency domain. For high IR lengths, this stuff is all pretty subtle, so test it with a short IR. I included the full set of common window shapes, because it was easy, nice to be able to explore, and I suspected someone would ask at some point.

Padding - quite a fun trick this one. When it designs the filter, it will use a "virtual" IR length of padding * ir length (so, with padding x4 it'll design an impulse response four times as long). This dramatically reduces the (this is already too technical, I'm going to smudge language a bit) 'wrap-around' of the impulse response, because it gets unpacked into a bigger box. Then we take the part where all the action is, window /that/, and use that as the IR. So, you trade off spending CPU for computing the IR (which is every time you adjust the EQ) in exchange for a more accurate calculation of the IR.

Thank you that amazing answer. I’ll dig back in and try to start using it more again. Much appreciated.

Has anyone noticed the new Shelf type called Basic in Equilibrium? It sounds very nice; better than the first order, where gentle boosts are needed.

It's not in the manual as of today.

I was wondering the same thing.

It's a Baxandall if you set the Q to 0.5. I just matched it to some other Bax EQ's in Plugin Doctor.
(Or you can call it a BAX with adjustable Q, or whatever)

Its been there for a while I think. I used it to match some other EQ curves some time ago.

Yeah, it's been in for a good while. Gives a lot of flexibility for shaping at low q values

How should I configure DMG for general EQ work in mixing

- vocals
- drums
- parallel effects
- melodic instruments
- mixbus

Should I do my EQ work in IIR and then render it to FIR? Or should I always be in FIR?

Very uneducated about this tool, I know people sing its high praises and I want to know how to effectively utilize this thing. In its default, out the box settings, it clearly sounds better to me than Pro Q3.

you need to compare.
As a producer/mixer I use it as following on channels:
I go IIR 128+ on Kickdrums for tightness. Actually IIR is quite good with a high Phase compensation with at least 64+
FIR is good for synths and other instruments with less bass / sub-bass. Or you need to go high on the impulse length for it to sound proper in the low end. (you also need to check for pre-ringing on some settings)
Linear Phase I use mainly on minimal tweaks, but usually I don't use it. It's better for mastering generally.

What I recommend though, test different settings on your material. When you "hear" the implications of the settings you can make yourself a better picture. Until you "can" hear it I'd advise you to use IIR as mentioned above.
That's how I did it. When I was starting I'd put FIR and Linear Phase always on, until I heard the pre-ringing in the low end. Was some kind of A-Ha effect for me, then I went back to IIR and used FIR/LP only when there really was an advantage.

If latency is not an issue, setting IIR+512 as the default should be fine. With modern CPUs, there won't be any power shortage problems.

For linear phase processing, I recommend referring to common tips though, in FIR's free mode, you can make specific points linear phase.

In FIR's Analog mode, setting the Impulse length to the maximum allows for "analog" frequency and phase characteristics across low and high frequencies, which is why many people use it in a mastering context. (Note: FIR analog has mysterious ringing at the beginning and end, but I personally don't feel any adverse effects.) Even if the Impulse Length is not at its maximum, you can still achieve analog phase characteristics for high-frequency processing. Conversely, if you are only processing low frequencies, selecting FIR's Full Minimum is also a good option.

However, I believe that selecting IIR+512 as the default is generally the best choice. Especially in the context of mixing, I personally feel that the phase distortion near the Nyquist frequency (a digital-specific issue) does not significantly impact the sound output.