No love for Crave EQ?

[bk]

The Crave dev is very responsive. I asked for cursor readout of frequency and boost/cut values. It appeared in the next version. He's added a ton of features to it since I bought, and there's never been an upgrade charge.

I have TB EQ4 and Voxengo GlissEQ, but unfortunately the high end is cramped on both of those. In this day and age, I don't see any reason for that to be the case.
edit: sorry, it's TB EQ3, not 4

Crave is really just insane value.

[NeonNightflyer]

I have TB EQ4 and Voxengo GlissEQ, but unfortunately the high end is cramped on both of those. In this day and age, I don't see any reason for that to be the case.

I have TB EQ4 and don't detect anything out of the ordinary in Plugin Doctor, unless I'm missing something obvious?

[bk]

I have TB EQ4 and Voxengo GlissEQ, but unfortunately the high end is cramped on both of those. In this day and age, I don't see any reason for that to be the case.

I have TB EQ4 and don't detect anything out of the ordinary in Plugin Doctor, unless I'm missing something obvious?

Yeah, just checked. I have TB EQ3, not 4. I'm glad he's fixed that, then.

[audiot]

Final decision: I will buy Crave EQ.

I think it´s a good decision. I was testing Equality and Pro-Q for a workhorse-Eq at the time Equality was the first product of DMG Audio. Equality was very slightly better sounding so I bought it. Later came the CraveEQ and it was even better - and cheap. Workflow was much better than either had. (I didn´t bother with Equilibrium as it was about the same soundwise and more expensive, and I didn´t like the GUI). CraveEQ is criminally low priced - for our benefit and if you want better you probably need to buy Weiss or something.

549 euros for Weiss EQ This must be a tool for mastering engineers who work on hollywood soundtracks. I dont think that I need that for my edm stuff. I'm perfectly happy with Crave And you are absolutely right - Crave EQ is underpriced. Maybe the developer could boost the attention of Crave EQ by increasing the price to 549

He should reskin it to make it look like a hardware unit, give it and a pseudo company for it esotheric names that sound the business and sell it for $1000.
At least on GS it will get attested of sounding twice as good as the Weiss

THIS IS GENIUS Increase the price even more! Let's say 10000 bucks and then do a super-crazy-99%-off-deal every 4 weeks, so that it gets affordable at 100 bucks. Seems to be an established marketing strategy (PA, Waves, iZotope ...) I can already imagine the headlines in the music magazines: "The 10.000 Dollar EQ plugin! Do yo need it?"

[FapFilter]

I was half joking of course, there are many very knowledgeable people over there with skills and knowledge i could only dream of.
Still there seems to be some tendency in these regards. Only what's in nearly unobtainable price ranges can be awesome, the rest, even still pretty expensive stuff is merely some consumer level crap one could begrungingly get by using until you can afford a real sound card / eq / compressor / reverb, north of 5000 bucks.
And still 99% seem to fail in blind tests, which sometimes even include very affordable stuff that's put against some holy grails.

[Ghost Dog]

I for one like Crave Eq. For those that can't afford DMG Equilibrium (which I consider the best software EQ), Crave is the best alternative.

I'd like to offer my take on why Equlibrium might be worth its premium price, since this is not strictly a Crave Eq thread and people are sharing their opinions on different EQs (I am not endorsed by DMG audio, they .... tolerate .... me, with my requests for GUI improvements and, OTOH, they've been courteous, professional and forthcoming when it comes to resolving some GUI bugs).

I got Equilibrium last year, after demoing it for the second time. The first time I demoed it, five or six years ago, I couldn't really tell the difference between it and Pro-Q2 (which came out back then) TBH, and I (TBH #2) sort of fell for the "ultimate workflow" hype thing that surrounds Pro-Q (it's not like I was expecting the Eq to turn me into Vangelis or Michael Cretu, but I guess hearing literally almost everyone praising it to high heaven did have an impact on me).

I was using Pro-Q over the following several years but it absolutely NEVER clicked with me and the sound never impressed me. It also never really hindered me (I guess I'm already sort of not-too-young and definitely old school, and my personal attitude and the way I was raised is to make do with that you have ad concentrate on the work (music production is not my work, BTW, just a beloved long time interest) and not worry about tools that much), but it made me rather indifferent, which is not a good trait for a music production tool, IMHO.

FF (no pun intended) to September 2019 ....

I demoed Equilibrium more closely and, this time, it somehow just sounded right! The GUI felt a little weird and "dated" at first but it sort of clicked with me right away and it took no more than few hours for it to fully click with me and for me to realize that this thing's GUI (which is not without its flaws mind you) is far better than PRo-Q's GUI. FAR better!

Compared to Equlibrium, Pro-Q is just pretty. And it sounds slightly worse (at least to my ears)!

It's the little things I guess (with Equilibrium):

-You can see the text displaying all the frequencies, factors and other info, if I want to, or none of it, if you don't (Pro Q only displays one band and you can't make it display all the frequencies; I absolutely agree that you should mix by ears, but sometimes you need to make a quick glance at the parameters and the option should be there IMHO);
-You can arrange the GUI in many ways (more on this later);
-Dragging the LP or HP filter marker in the band strip display changes just the frequency (but, you can change the slope with mousewheel);
-The analyzer is actually quick and precise and the important commands are actually accessible (the analyzer in Pro-Q is not that bad, but some important options are obscured by the GUI);
-The displayed keyboard doesn't mask the axis displaying frequencies (sorry Pro-Q)

And a few more (but they could be described as entirely subjective, so I won't list them) ....

That, to me, is a good GUI.

Now, as for the "datedness" of Equilibrium's GUI, to me personally (and this is a very subjective thing of course), it is a nice mixture of cartoonishness and professionalism. It is cartoonish enough to not draw attention to itself and absolutely professional looking in every other way (save for one I'll mention next).

As for the things I perceive as shortcomings:

-I wish they went FULL nerd with adjustment options (FFT resolution for the analyzer (although the one they chose is the optimal one, IMHO as well), fully adjustable colors for the bands, freely resizeable GUI, fully customizable mousewheel precision etc);
-I wish there was an option to choose the slope for bells and notches, like there is with LP and HP filters and I wish there was a flat tilt filter (I can live without those options, but I'd rather live with them .... so I guess using Equilibrium kinda feels like driving an old 80's Ferrari or Lamborghini, with some idiosyncrasies and lack of some modern features)
-I wish there was an option for user names on the GUI to display UNICODE characters, not just ASCII (I have some non-ASCII characters in my last name and I think we're not in 1997 any more)

There were two issues I had with the plugin, but they were resolved by the guys at DMG Audio.

[Ghost Dog]

As for Crave Eq itself ....

It's the second best option, IMHO, and when it comes to quality / price ratio, a much, much better option than Pro-Q (and it also sounds better than Pro-Q, IMO, and just slightly worse than Equilibrium).

It does not induce latency (as someone mentioned earlier), at least not in its digital mode (the linear modes do, as with all the other eqs).

I was among those who thought of it as a Pro-Q clone, but it easily convinced me that it's not. It is also, unfortunately, not a great improvement in terms of GUI / workflow, so, Equilibrium remains a favourite for me.

[Passing Bye]

Yeah, Equick/Equilibrium GUI is really the best, so pleasing to the eye.

[codec_spurt]

tgg

[Passing Bye]

... so pleasing to the eye.

And that's all that's really important in an EQ, right?

So funny

[plexuss]

I for one like Crave Eq. For those that can't afford DMG Equilibrium (which I consider the best software EQ), Crave is the best alternative.

I'd like to offer my take on why Equlibrium might be worth its premium price... [snip]

Did you work with the DSP parameters in EQuilibrium - IMHO this is worth the price of it because it allows you to really dial in the quality for specific configurations.

[Ghost Dog]

Did you work with the DSP parameters in EQuilibrium - IMHO this is worth the price of it because it allows you to really dial in the quality for specific configurations.

Yes, I have.

But even thought it shines in that department you mentioned, I mostly use it as a mixing / "makes everything sound better" eq. For me, the "makes everything sound better" part was the real reason I decided to buy it.

Luckily and thankfully (regardless of some, not too important but not really negligible, flaws I mentioned), that impression is still very much alive and well!

[trmupstage]

I have way to many EQ's but last year before mixing an album, I picked up Crave EQ. It quickly became my go-to EQ when I need more surgical stuff done. It's low on the CPU and sounds very good. The top doesn't get harsh or biting. I use it a lot and think it's the best at what it does. I love the GUI, though it's not really breaking any new ground.

[v1o]

The dev was expecting to put out Crave EQ 2 in November if it all goes well.

[ScrLk]

Infinite band EQs intimidate me a bit... I like SlickEQ GE and M a lot for being able to just use the knobs.