Silk Vocal: Why is the HP not linear phase in Studio Mode? Shortcuts

In the Studio
1

As above

I usually use eg an Ozone for HP as after extensive testing and the vocal in acoustic cases benefiting from ultimate transparency on every level, why is the HP not linear phase in Silk? in keeping with the rest of the filters?

The HP should also corroborate the male/female choice as pretty much there is no female fundamental below 120hz and male below 80 (although there is eg Geoff Castellucci but unlikely you are doing a lot of work for the likes of ‘Song Of Durin’)…?

Just a small one…why is there no shortcut to apply mouse moves to all filters at the same time?
eg Once I have a general adjustment in place, it would be convenient to hold qualifier and move 1 dial to move all 3 vs wet dry ie maintaining a visual feedback when learning the plug

2

As a guess, most likely it’s so that Silk Vocal can be used live.

Linear Phase algorithms introduce too much latency to be able to use them live. Ozone clearly wasn’t made to be used live so iZotope has bit more freedom in how they design their filters.

It’s to do with the mathematics involved. It needs to look at values “ahead of time” to be able to do the necessary calculations. That translates to extra latency.

3

Yep…totally get that…but they have a live version separately. The filter they are using absolutely mangles the phase

1 Like
4

Oh yeah, I totally forgot about the live version, thanks for pointing it out.

So yeah, to do a 180 and almost contradict myself hear, but you know, they could have added a linear phase filter, at least as a choice.

I will add though, I don’t often use linear phase filters. Not that I don’t like them, it stems from years of writing and tracking into a computer, adding some processing as I go, but also trying to not to add to latency as I build the track. So by default linear phase eqs were just someone. I never thought about alot, despite having a couple.

The trick I find with working with non-linear phase eqs, commonly known as minimal phase, is to not park the filter where it “looks” like it should go, but where it “sounds” like it should go. Not to confuse this wth an annoying and unhelpful “use your ears” passive aggressive statement.

What I actually mean is that because of it being not linear phase, where you place the filter or a crossover in a a multiband compressor, is obviously going to do a bit of shaping to that sound.

So you just take advantage of that aspect and park it in place where it’s actually helping to carve out some unwanted frequencies, in the case of a crossover. In the case of a LPF I’m placing it where it 's removing enough of the unwanted frequencies, but isn’t having a negative impact on the fundamental. That is unless I think the fundamental does need a bit of toning down, in which case I place it higher.

This all regardless of what the visualiser looks like. After all, the visualiser isn’t the thing that people will be listening to. It’s there as a guide and really shouldn’t be treated like gospel.

5

Sure…I agree its not what it looks like but in context, its the cumulative effect and phase is generally about the combination of elements as well as the focused solo. Often have vocals here from live recordings in the stereo and whilst I can usually manage bleed with f8 mics eg r84/92 I dont need to guess that a HP will be needed.
Anyway over the last year, esp getting client jobs, I have taken a diff route and stop the complexities by offline processing HP (linear phase) basic loudness and eq and baking it all in with tape and soft limiting. This forces me to commit, simplifies the mix in orders of magnitude and finally feels how mixing use to ie tape does most of the deal that we all chase now, harmonics, soft limiting etc
I still use SV as a live plug but its not really important anymore in the above context

Great chatting!

PS I cant fault the Ozone eq and generally I only use Linear Phase for filtering as mentioned, there is no degradation of any kind when used like this…well…measurable or audible that I can tell…thats confidence