Mel’s myth
The notion of auditory masking phenomena first emerged in 1933, when Bell Labs’ Harvey Fletcher demonstrated that for humans to discern two simultaneously audible frequencies, they have to be a certain distance apart. That distance depends on the paired frequencies in question, but for practical purposes, the 0-20kHz range can be divided up into 26 very specific bands, within each of which we can only hear one sound at a time. If you play the centre frequency of every band in sequence, a listener will perceive them as equidistant from each other. This series was eventually formalised as the Mel (‘melodic’) scale.
By applying the Mel scale to the field of audio signal processing, theoretically, you’re playing perfectly into the, er, hands of the human ear, eliminating what it might hear as clutter – even if only at a subconscious level – and slotting everything into its comfort zones. In EQuivocate and Elevate, the Mel scale is adhered to by having every one of their tightly defined bands operating entirely independently of those on either side. Newfangled describe it as “each slider directly tickling a different section of your inner ear”. It’s a novel, ingenious approach that – perhaps unexpectedly – works brilliantly in the real world.