SplineEQ is a linear phase EQ with an innovative GUI which combines spline curve editing with visual feedback and just a handfull of the most essential features, plus a few generous extras.
Firstly, I'm no expert on EQs, but it sounded very transparent to me, even in the treble end. I'm ready to believe that when I push the treble up with this EQ, what I'm getting is simply a louder version of those frequencies I've chosen to accentuate with the curve profile. This makes it perfect for corrective EQ or other situations where surgical precision is required. Bands can be as narrow as you like, have any steepness at their transitions, and you can boost, or completely take out an exact band of frequencies to silence.
The plugin will introduce latency (which I believe is a neccecity due to the time-critical nature of linear phase EQing), which was automatically compensated for by my DAW, but could lead to problems in a live situation. But then who EQ's stuff in realtime? The latency can be traded off for less filter accuracy, which doesn't degrade the sound quality, but does degrade the resolution of the filter curve. Where the curve deviates from your programmed profile, a dotted line shows what's really happening. In most cases I've found it's low frequency resolution that is lost with the trade-off, but unless you're doing surgical bass work, this isn't going to be much of an issue and moderate settings give good results.
Creating and modifying curves in the GUI is a breeze, and the visual feedback really makes this EQ stand out. The input material's frequencies are shown under the curve as pulsing beams of colour-coded light, and as they pass through the curve, they get brigher or dimmer, or completely disappear, depending on how much the curve deviates from the neutral setting. Not only is this a really intuitive concept visually (and quite pretty), but the way the frequencies are depicted is somewhat different to the norm, and I found it very natural and a good way to picture the frequencies in my music.
Finally, the extra bonus functionality here is the option to shift the filter response up and down the frequency range - right off of the screen if you want - and alter the magnitude and even polarity of the curve, so that peaks become troughs, etc. This feature allows the creation of some serious creative filter and phasing effects, and the brickwall resonant lowpass filter I constructed sounded very fat and dare I say 'punchy'. Seriously, I couldn't stop squelching my mix with it :)
I can see this getting some serious use as a creative filter as well as surgical EQ.
For the low price, there is quite a bit of functionality and usability packed into SplineEQ. If you've never tried a linear-phase EQ (as I hadn't) I recommend you give the demo a shot.
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@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.
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