Acon Digital Equalize

[stian]

hmm interesting Stian. I wasn't thinking about the nyquist warping but more of aliasing. I guess i don't understand code at all but it was after reading about the massenburg EQ and apparently it is so perfectly "clean" because it upsamples to 192 khz.

There's no aliasing in Equalize, so I'm afraid it won't help for that either. I don't think aliasing is an issue in any of the common equalizer designs nowadays, so that puzzles me a bit.

Best,
Stian

[ObsoleteAcc99]

hmm interesting Stian. I wasn't thinking about the nyquist warping but more of aliasing. I guess i don't understand code at all but it was after reading about the massenburg EQ and apparently it is so perfectly "clean" because it upsamples to 192 khz.

There's no aliasing in Equalize, so I'm afraid it won't help for that either. I don't think aliasing is an issue in any of the common equalizer designs nowadays, so that puzzles me a bit.

Best,
Stian

well it's probably just massenburg and uad BS speak then to make them think the EQ is special when it's actually not. The features are far more limited than acon equalise that's for sure but they almost had me fooled with the up-sampling "pure cleanliness" speak.

[stian]

well it's probably just massenburg and uad BS speak then to make them think the EQ is special when it's actually not. The features are far more limited than acon equalise that's for sure but they almost had me fooled with the up-sampling "pure cleanliness" speak.

Thanks, Theo! Upsampling does improve the filter shapes in biquad filter designs (which Equalize doesn't use), though...

Best,
Stian

[jam92189]

So I just noticed there is a thread dedicated to this eq awesome. I own this eq and the restoration suite love em all.

[stian]

So I just noticed there is a thread dedicated to this eq awesome. I own this eq and the restoration suite love em all.

Thank you very much, I'm very glad to hear that!

Best,
Stian

[jam92189]

So I just noticed there is a thread dedicated to this eq awesome. I own this eq and the restoration suite love em all.

Thank you very much, I'm very glad to hear that!

Best,
Stian

oh and the reverb. I Love your reverb I use it as my go to Room and outside style reverb now when mixing.

[bill45]

The multiply chorus is amazing too.

[stian]

Thanks guys!

Best,
Stian

[fese]

Hi Stian,
just giving Equalize a test drive and the first thought that came to my mind was: If there is a already a tab with the current EQ band, wouldn't it be practical to have all EQ band on tabs so i can switch between them easily just like browser tabs? As I prefer the knobs, now in order to switch to another band i have to move the mouse up the the display and then back again (or use those little arrows to step through them, I know, but that is no direct access). That sure puts some mileage on my mouse
Just an idea.
Another thing that would be nice: activating/deactivating a band with a right-click on the EQ point.
And just for the completeness: the german tooltips for bypass band and master gain are still in english. Which i prefer anyway despite being german, with all other plugins usually being in english it is actually kind of irritating to suddenly have "Anhebung" and "Steilheit" instead of "gain" and "slope":). So i always delete the localization file with all your plugins...
Else, this seems like a nice workhorse plugin and i like the no-nonsense, clear UI.

[ObsoleteAcc99]

You mean to have what ever amount of tabs (ie according to the amount of created bands) permanently displayed so one can click them? I disgaree with that sorry. Unless you can show a rendering of how that would look with 12 bands going, and make it looks sensical, i far prefer the lean mean interface the way it is now. Acon gives you two ways to navigate as you said. The arrows is a flawless way, IMO.

I'd much rather see a few extra features on this than Stian wasting time coding in tabs to the GUI.

You can activate and deactivate with a double click.. what's the big deal vs a right click?

[mutantdog]

I agree with fese. There is space to the right of the tab which is there currently, the other tabs need not be full size, a simple icon to indicate which band it is would suffice.

In general i often feel that double clicking a parameter in any plugin runs the risk of accidentally adjusting it, a right click feels more distinct and separate.

Surely, adding more usability features is a good thing with regards to appealing to more people.

[stian]

Hi!

Hi Stian,
just giving Equalize a test drive and the first thought that came to my mind was: If there is a already a tab with the current EQ band, wouldn't it be practical to have all EQ band on tabs so i can switch between them easily just like browser tabs? As I prefer the knobs, now in order to switch to another band i have to move the mouse up the the display and then back again (or use those little arrows to step through them, I know, but that is no direct access). That sure puts some mileage on my mouse
Just an idea.

Thanks to all of you for sharing your thoughts! I've read all the comments and thought a bit back and forth. Adding a tab is not a big issue in terms of coding, but if implemented I'd like to get it as intuitive as possible. One issue is space as Theo commented and another issue is how to establish a relationship between the band index and the coloured bullets in the curve. I think colour coding would be the way to go here. The tab text could simply show the index of the band (1,2,3, etc.) in the colour of the corresponding bullet point. There should be enough room for that in the UI and the colouring would establish the relationship. I'm only thinking loud now...

Another thing that would be nice: activating/deactivating a band with a right-click on the EQ point.

Thanks, but I think that is already covered with the double click and it would be good to reserve the right click for other functionality in the future.

And just for the completeness: the german tooltips for bypass band and master gain are still in english. Which i prefer anyway despite being german, with all other plugins usually being in english it is actually kind of irritating to suddenly have "Anhebung" and "Steilheit" instead of "gain" and "slope":). So i always delete the localization file with all your plugins...
Else, this seems like a nice workhorse plugin and i like the no-nonsense, clear UI.

Thanks reporting the missing translation in the tooltips. I guess it would be a nice feature to offer some kind of preferences where users can choose the UI language. We're considering to skip the localization of plug-in in the future, though, since most customers seem to prefer English. The situation is quite different for our stand-alone applications, though.

Best,
Stian

[fese]

Hi!
Thanks to all of you for sharing your thoughts! I've read all the comments and thought a bit back and forth. Adding a tab is not a big issue in terms of coding, but if implemented I'd like to get it as intuitive as possible. One issue is space as Theo commented and another issue is how to establish a relationship between the band index and the coloured bullets in the curve. I think colour coding would be the way to go here. The tab text could simply show the index of the band (1,2,3, etc.) in the colour of the corresponding bullet point. There should be enough room for that in the UI and the colouring would establish the relationship. I'm only thinking loud now...

Or maybe put a bullet of the band color on the tab and next to it the number, maybe not even in color as dark blue or violet text on dark background tends to be a bit hard to read.
I agree though that it wouldn't make sense unless you manage to fit all twelve bands in tabs without sacrificing legibility and handling.
ReaEQ e.g. adds extra arrow buttons if you have more than 10 bands, which may be the convention for tabs, but isn't optimal imho.

Another thing that would be nice: activating/deactivating a band with a right-click on the EQ point.

Thanks, but I think that is already covered with the double click and it would be good to reserve the right click for other functionality in the future.

Oh, misunderstanding. I meant to write bypass/un-bypass band with a right click. Kind of like TB_Equalizer does.

[stian]

Or maybe put a bullet of the band color on the tab and next to it the number, maybe not even in color as dark blue or violet text on dark background tends to be a bit hard to read.
I agree though that it wouldn't make sense unless you manage to fit all twelve bands in tabs without sacrificing legibility and handling.
ReaEQ e.g. adds extra arrow buttons if you have more than 10 bands, which may be the convention for tabs, but isn't optimal imho. .

Thanks for the input! We'll see if and how this would be best implemented. Avoiding arrows would be crucial since there are already arrow buttons in the tab content itself.

Oh, misunderstanding. I meant to write bypass/un-bypass band with a right click. Kind of like TB_Equalizer does.

Now I understand! Yes, that could be handy, but it would be great to allow for a context menu in the future. Maybe right click could open a pop-up menu where the bypass is easily accessible?

Best,
Stian

[ObsoleteAcc99]

i finally devoted the time to doing a MASSIVE cpu test today, and it took ages. Cause what I did was, i created a new song just for this (8 tracks worth) using au instruments, then added 24 audio tracks all playing a unique audio file. 32 stereo tracks total, all playing unique things. Logic buffer set to 64, playback buffer to small (512 internal).
Machine:
2.8ghz quad i7 haswell macbook pro 15" 2014 build, 16gb ram, 1TB on board SSD, On board sound driver

OS: Yosemite 10.10.5

DAW: Logic X 10.2.1

Acon Digital EQ zero latency mode, 12 bands active
Fab filter ProQ2 zero latency mode, 12 bands active

See the pics for yourself. Basically the acon uses a tad more. I mean check even the realtime cpu meters via istat on the menu bar. When you are talking 480 instances, the obvious per instance difference is miniscule or not noticeable in real world projects. When i can be bothered, maybe tomorrow, i will do the mixed phase or linear test. IF i could be bothered and anyone cares.

This is consistent playback, no dropouts, no core audio overloads.

480 instances of either eq per project. I know logic's meter, i would be able to get both to minimum 800 instances, possibly 1,000.

So so much for the guy that said no way to get more than 200 acons no matter what, or that it uses more than proQ2. I wanted to do this before my proQ2 demo expired.

That said, ProQ 2 project loads back twice as fast and causes no lag in logic's display.

Even with all the acon eq gui's closed, logic's playhead gets unreliable and for the first couple times you press playback, everything is out of time! This is a big deal. Logic adjusts after you stop and start a couple times and that's it till project close and reload, but that's not good...I have to talk to Stian about this. It started happening even after just 32 acon instances.

Anyway, i can take videos if you *really* want, otherwise you can just believe my pics: