First off, it is pretty awesome. The gui is slick, styled well, and original. Also, the concept of Spline EQ is fairly amazing. I have always had a blast playing with Vector Graphic programs like Illustrator and Inkscape where you can drag nodes easily and fluidly, and to be able to control eq levels that is way is seriously fun - it opens up possibilities that - while the techniques to produce the sound in question were never not there - suddenly reveal themselves with astonishing ease. The differences are extremely noticeable as well - there is no need to be concerned with whether or not something is too subtle for the equipment you are using. This is not to say subtly cannot be achieved here, it is just not the only game available. All in all, the sound are interface are a 10/10, and are of the level of professional quality plugins (the few that I have used anyway).
Why I will likely never use this in a true production situation:
The latency is a killer. Something like 49ms on my computer (my very fast and powerful computer), and the compensation required just isn't worth it. I don't know enough about DSP production to have any sense of what the source of increased latency is, or why it might not matter as much as think it does, but until that gets fixed, this is essentially unusable for me. I've only used two plugins in my life that caused latency that was immediately, and unmistakably audible, and they were both great plugins; but they damaged the mix so much that I can't compensate for it in my listening.
Bottom line: Killer plug-in. Too much latency.
Developer edit: Have you noticed the knob called Delay? You can use it to bring the latency down to about 17 ms. If you're willing to compromise on resolution you can even bring it down to about 6 ms. Every linear phase equalizer introduces delay, at least SplineEQ allows you to adjust how much you get as a trade-off between CPU usage, latency and frequency resolution (and it remembers your settings permanently). It can't get much better than that for linear phase equalizers, which makes your comments and rating sound like a misunderstanding. Furthermore as someone else pointed out the main use for linear phase equalizers is in mastering and final mixing.
User Edit:In taking the developer and other user responses into consideration, I have revised my rating. I do think this is a d*mn good eq. However, I have used linar phase eq's that don't introduce noticeable latency, Voxengo and Electric-Q to name a couple. I am no master in the music production field, and as I said, I don't know why the latency is introduced or why it might not matter, but it still is what it is. I will play with the delay some more. When using it the first time, I found that the latency was not improved by as much as you say, but I can't remember exactly. Still, if I can get it below 10 or maybe even 15ms or so, for sure it would be at the top of my stack.
Read Review@myk: I haven't used SplineEQ, but as I understand it, EVERY linear phase EQ introduces latency because of the way linear phase adjustments are computed (the signal must be delayed a bit, kind of obvious if you think about it). That's why they're typically used for mastering and final mixing, as opposed to tracking. Seems kind of unfair (if not dead wrong?) to mark it down for something that's inherent to its way of working.
@myk Just locate the latency knob and adjust it for lower latency, you should be just fine.
The reason why you want to be able to change latency, is for rendering purposes. If you are really anal about getting the best possible sound, you should increase the lantency when you render, and that will give you an even sharper sound. As you might have noticed with the "dotted real processing" line that shows up on the lower frenquencies,
it will become more accurate with higher lantecy settings, this is something you can't escape when processing audio the way linearphase eq's does it.
It's not fixable, it's just something you have to learn, with ALL linearphase eq's :)
just a little thing to say I tried this out on a audio cleaning project i had and it kept the tone of the voice but got rid of the noise I mean whistling right next to the vocal frequency. no other eq i had was doing it right and this baby kicked ass.
i use this for sound design and it is awesome
yea its a great plugin i love it
Really nice free EQ, very tweakable, efficient and colorless. Perfect for cleaning, mixing and mastering.
I agree. the paid version is even better to. I use this for cleaning and mastering
Yep, i discovered what the free is by itself capable of on a sample design purpose and after that i'll certainly by the full version ASAP ...really excellent tool !
You know what is awesome is if you set it to minimal delay and stuff right to find something like if there is this annoying hum then you cut the hell out of it swap back to max mode and render you will be amazed on how high the quality of the eq its like you never did anything but the hum is gone. its very non destructive
well i currently experience narrow bandpass (rather than bandstop) to isolate locust's stridulation at almost a precise frequency then rendering, not much different technique as you know, that what made me amaze about spline eq
I know some people complain because its super latency ridden but that's what i think makes it so good the quality of the eq is so high that it has to be
@feng:
Great review. I like how you brought out more information about the unique graphically-driven features.
Brilliant mastering EQ. Top quality.
TOP notch EQ plugin right here..
Best delivered in final mixing master bus and mastering.
Why no hpf/lpf filters?
You have to make them yourself. Place a control point high and another low.
Please log in to join the discussion
Submit: News, Plugins, Hosts & Apps | Advertise @ KVR | Developer Account | About KVR / Contact Us | Privacy Statement
© KVR Audio, Inc. 2000-2024