Vertically Aligned EQ plugins?

[fcamp]

Kush Electra?

[El°HYM]

Louder Than Liftoff - Chop Shop; just for the record.

[concealed identity]

Not sure where an EQ ends and a channel strip begins, but Arturia has three in their "Pre-" series: basically just an EQ with a pre-amp.

If you have Windows, Variety of Sound BootEQ is great and free.

And although IK Mixbox itself is basically a modular channel strip plugin, it's very low on CPU and you can choose to load only one instance of a good selection of vertical EQs. It's at least worth looking into imo.

Someone already pointed out the SPL Ranger series, but I'll point out that one of them, Free Ranger, is free. It sounds good and is easy to use imo, but the expanded version is much more versatile and is on sale for $10 right now on Plugin Alliance and Plugin Boutique.

[kraster]

I don't get the mental jump using horizontal layouts being "uncomfortable".

Many Frequency/Pitch related things are horizontal. e.g pianos and the fretboard on a guitar. Bass on the left/treble on the right.

The convention of having EQs laid out vertically is just down to ergonomics on consoles.

[QCGroove]

I don't get the mental jump using horizontal layouts being "uncomfortable".

Many Frequency/Pitch related things are horizontal. e.g pianos and the fretboard on a guitar. Bass on the left/treble on the right.

The convention of having EQs laid out vertically is just down to ergonomics on consoles.

A lot of people including myself think of height in a mix from top to bottom. Left to right is usually reserved for the stereo image. Then front to back is for perceived depth/distance.

[kidslow]

I don't get the mental jump using horizontal layouts being "uncomfortable".

Many Frequency/Pitch related things are horizontal. e.g pianos and the fretboard on a guitar. Bass on the left/treble on the right.

The convention of having EQs laid out vertically is just down to ergonomics on consoles.

A lot of people including myself think of height in a mix from top to bottom. Left to right is usually reserved for the stereo image. Then front to back is for perceived depth/distance.

That's how I think about all those aspects of a mix, so thank you for offering your perspective.

Comfort and discomfort are not the precise words to describe it. That's why I went Marie Kondo with the concept of sparking joy. One last analogy in terms of shopping for shoes, since I try on plugins like some women try on shoes. The last time I bought cowboy boots, went to the store with a pocket full of cash. Money was no object and the Lucchese boots looked so so nice and were on sale. The only obstacle was that when I tried on the Justin Ropers they felt like I put on a slipper. The Lucchese boots just didn't feel nearly as good. Sure, wear them often enough and they'll break in and the comfort level will grow ... after the blisters do. Off the shelf there was no comparison. One pair just felt so much more natural on my feet. I went with the Justins. Which one do you buy?

[pekbro]

Oh, I'm not a good example heh. I like effects, for me there is no such thing as a goto plugin.
I have many and go back and forth amongst them. My vst3 plugin count is 2104, and I dont
even have all of them installed. I don't sell stuff except the occasional dupe. Of course, I
can't use them all, all of the time, but I have my various plugins that I like to use together
dependent on the task, my mood, focus, level of sobriety etc. it's rare that too many of them
will sit idle for too much of an extended period, believe it or not.

I find the way other people work fascinating, because we are all different. How do you keep track of them all? In your head? I keep prodiguous notes and even then it's been an iterative process to develop knowledge and a personal knowledgebase.

So how about if I ask this. The Purafied SLP 538 and the Sonimus StonEQ 4K are still, of those suggested in this thread, the most interesting to me. Where have you last used those?

Had to count how many plugins I have installed. 706. Doesn't include Waves or any other plugins that use their own loader architecture. I really sandbagged my earlier estimate. So it'd be 1400 or more that I've looked at since I started. Maybe as many as 2000, especially if you count all the airwindows. Chris has that many in his collection alone. I am actually just fine with the interface on them although the Airwindows Consolidated is a welcome improvement ... maybe because it's vertically oriented. Hmmm.

I just keep track of them by developer. One of the biggest reasons I have so many is that
I tend to favor developers, e.g. if I like their work, I tend to collect all of it. So I own many
complete product lines. Also a few large bundles, ie. soundtoys, eventide etc. I've been
collecting them for nearly 20 yrs as well. Some I am still working on collecting, like u-he
for instance, there's still a few I don't have after 15 years of waiting for opportunities to
purchase them. By opportunities, I mean sales pretty much. Another thing is that I like
sets of stuff, I consider many plugins to be part of a set, of which I will want them all
and quite often use them as a set, the Fabfilter plugins are an example, I'll often populate
my master bus with them or something.

Anyway, I see them all as unique tools which shine for particular situations, so I just go from there.

I tend to use those 2 eqs on individual instruments for sculpting. I generally use others on busses
and whatnot. The Sonimus eq, I consider pretty clean and smooth, the panda eq, more rough
and dirty. Last thing I used them on was drum/bass.

Anyway, in the end I would say my collection stems more from idiosyncrasy than pragmatism.

[kidslow]

Pekbro, thank you for sharing some more thoughts on your plugin usage. I found it informative.

Not sure where an EQ ends and a channel strip begins, but Arturia has three in their "Pre-" series: basically just an EQ with a pre-amp.

Good disctinction. I have the Arturia fx collection and a generally positive feeling about Arturia effects. Have used them on projects. I would classify those three PRE series as channel strips. They are wide plugins. Less so in mono. Sure with any plugin, shrink it down small, automate it, add macros, those all help to make the interface less an issue but at the expense of usability or time invested to set that up. Another piece of this is working on a laptop, all else equal, the less space on my screen anything takes up when active and open and the easier to use OOB, the better.

With those Arturia pre-amps mostly it's that Fuse's alternatives just sound so much better to me, so I don't use them for the pre's anymore. And then the eq is grafted onto this bloated interface. I wish more devs followed the Lindell 80 model and separated the pieces. I liked Arturia's Trid A Eq when I first got it but less & less over time. Analog Obsession's TREQ is a simpler, better design. Even horizontal, Softube's Trident-A-Range is more elegant, though I don't have it. I don't want to make any of those a regular driver. Just finished a project with the Arturia EQ Sitral 295 on the mixbus and it sounds good and did what I wanted. Made it work but the layout of that is exactly what drove me to think about horizontal vs vertical.

[WackyZoundz]

I don't get the mental jump using horizontal layouts being "uncomfortable".

I can relate to some degree because I perceive diagonal knobs as uncomfortable (Like in Pultec EQs or some channel strips). My "mixing muscle memory" prefers horizontal or vertical controller alignment.

[art&sound]

UADx Helios?

Channel strip...

(A pretty good EQ though, especially the top end.)

Just barely though!

[concealed identity]

I don't get the mental jump using horizontal layouts being "uncomfortable".

I can relate to some degree because I perceive diagonal knobs as uncomfortable (Like in Pultec EQs or some channel strips). My "mixing muscle memory" prefers horizontal or vertical controller alignment.

One of my pet peeves is hardware-modeled EQs and channel strips where the freqs and associated gain knobs are diagonal or laid out in a way where my eyes have to work out which is which every time. The NI Solid EQ just color-codes each band, and it's orders of magnitude easier to use for me.

[WackyZoundz]

Color codes help a little. But some alignments are just weird. Once I had to work with a channel strip that had the Q factor closer to gain than frequency and next to frequency the filter type. That is just bad design.

[art&sound]

Here we go, Lindell PEX-500

https://www.plugin-alliance.com/en/prod ... x-500.html

[t.o.t.s.]

Here we go, Lindell PEX-500

https://www.plugin-alliance.com/en/prod ... x-500.html

I think the GUI on that one might be pretty small as it hasn't been updated in a bit.

[kidslow]

Updated my Original Post with a more comprehensive list. Thanks for the ideas. Took some for a trial. The switch between stepped and continuous dials on P422 and SLP 538 is a workflow winner.

I give Pulsar Modular credit for a very well-designed equalizer in the P422 Fairuz. UI is very well thought out and pleasant to interface with, but feels almost too cluttered with so many little bells & whistles. Are they all necessary? Also don't like the way the Q-control is implemented. Overall I found it a bit overkill. Too many subtle options. Not my best sounding results, but I appreciate the craft of it.

The Purafied SLP 538 EQ was hoping would be my favorite. It hit a lot of positive notes. Adds prominent harmonics. Offers up to 16x oversample, but I could see harmonics bounce back from nyquist when I ran a sine wave through. Also can see a small bit of cramping when working below 96kHz. Can't say I heard aliasing or cramping, or will ever hear it in this. But even with THD dialed all the way down as far as it will go, added harmonics are quite prominent. Those can be heard, and I assume impart most of the flavor. The Q control switch is binary, so not much nuance to it, but good enough.

Sonimus StonEQ 4K was my favorite. Simple, dare I say intuitive equalizer. Lacks a resizable UI but casts a small footprint and clearly visible even at one-size-fits-all. Too bad the knobs are not stepped. Those are my complaints. I could consistently dial in better sound (A:B:C wise) out of this than the other two. Q-control dial on the middle bands is somewhat unique (Neve Portico 5033 also had). When the drive knob is set to 0, there are minimal harmonics, which I prefer. On my buy list.