TritoneDigital.. hydratone, Voxengo and Kjaerhus, Fear it!

[Kingston]

CPU shouldn't really be an issue now because there is freeze. Focus primarily on the soundquality of the plugs.

On the contrary. If you can only run about 10-15 of these plugins on the fastest of todays CPU, it's a big issue.

Especially considering it is first and foremost a channelstrip EQ!

[007]

midclass????

You know that other ir's will be included?

And to what class do you think the other software eq's are?

Channel eq? Well then a very good one, with 3 parametric. low and hi shell with variable filters.

I agree with Putte, this is an euphoric (channel)eq.
CPU is not a problem for me.

[Forever Sun]

This thing sounds sweeeeet !
Way too many good plugs released lately. I'm going bunkrupt.

It's not funny.

I didn't care for the Fire treatment - maybe a greater boost would persuade me otherwise, but the EQ example was like a hot chocolate cuppa on a cold sunday morning.

[Forever Sun]

I've just done more tests. Well....Voxengo's HarmoniEQ sounds just as sweet ! and it's not based on convolution.
I've also managed to get a nice copy of that sound with CurveEQ's snapshot feature. I had to bring the overall volume down , but it did sound extremely close.
We really need to get a demo of this thing asap.

[Poni]

for the first time ever i´m euphoric about an EQ .. hurrayhajha!

wow, what a plug. i already loved their valvetone, and now this. first i thought "okay, another EQ", but now i´m just impressed.
transparent and very warm, thats it for my ears.
at the moment i´m comparing to the pultec from my uad-1 .. and hydratone wins. (gonna get pultec pro early next week, and will compare again).

top stuff tritone! thanks a lot .. .. ordered my copy

putte

I was just wondering if you had todays software options (Tritone,Sonalksis,Voxengo...) and a screaming fast CPU would you still go for the Uad1.

[bmanic]

The reason I said midclass is because it sounds like midclass hardware (ie better than mackie mixer channel EQ). It's, of course, the first plugin to do this. It's just not good enough as there's better sounding digital EQs around, just not many (gliss and harmoniEQ).

To my ears when testing midclass hardware vs. harmoniEQ(although they're not directly comparable soundwise), and I'll take harmoniEQ anyday.

That still puts hydratone to top3 in my chart.

If they can fix the awful beta UI(lag) and make it more CPU efficient it might even work as a track EQ, which is what it's trying to be

I kindly disagree with you here. I don't want to compare hydratone to hardware (albeit it has a certain 'hardware' tone to it) but as a plugin, soundwise, it's in the top 3 for me too.

The highshelf is most definately not harsh at 96khz.. It's just DIFFERENT to HarmoniEQ and GlissEQ which you are comparing with. It works for different tasks and variety is a GOOD thing. Try cooking a nice bolognese sauce with only 1 kind of spice to make it hot.. it'll taste "2 dimensional" .
Remeber that setting glissEQ or HarmoniEQ at a steep slope (which the hydratone shelf is hardwired to) will make it sound similar (but still very different.. eh if you know what I mean ).

Cheers!
bManic

[bmanic]

One more thing. One instance of HarmoniEQ with 3 bands parametric, 1 low shelf and 1 high shelf takes 13% CPU on my system. Hydratone is always a steady 6.2%. It has 3 parametric bands, 1 'preset' treble and bass band and the high and low shelf. So saying that hydratone uses too much CPU puts the HarmoniEQ in the "unusable" range, no?

Also, at 96khz, hydratone still uses less CPU than HarmoniEQ. Just FYI.

EDIT: so if tritonedigital can fix that thing with saving CPU per band which is turned off then hydratone will be a very nice little channel EQ indeed. Would stand at around 1% cpu per band, about the same as the sonalksis EQ on my system.

- bManic

[007]

It's just not good enough as there's better sounding digital EQs around

Do you have some soundfiles, so we can hear what you mean?

I really tried to reproduce it's glance with the 3 Bombfactory's pultec's, the URS and the 2 focusrite eq's. To my ears that was not possible, although these are standard studio eq's.
BTW the 2 focusrite eq's are also very good to my opinion.

[bmanic]

Just try the voxengo GlissEQ and HarmoniEQ demos from voxengo.com. However, I quite strongly disagree with Kingston. HarmoniEQ and GlissEQ are definately NOT "better" they are just simply different sounding and actually COMPLEMENT each other. I made some tests today with HarmoniEQ setting it's shelf "shape" to similar steepness that the hydratone EQ shelf is and it became quite shrill and much more 'harsh' than hydratone. This is of course not a fair test as harmoniEQ needs the shelf to be 'gentle' and not steep. It excells at these kind of high shelf boosts. HarmoniEQ really is the best right now for gentle air boosts.

Cheers!
bManic

[Kingston]

I'll resign myself from this thread and won't touch the plugin until it's out of beta, not riddled with bugs, usable GUI and more CPU friendly and that's quite the handful!

Yes, channelstrip quality EQs need to be efficient and bombproof, no matter how "different" or good!

my top3 (or two and a half)

1. HarmoniEQ
2. GlissEQ2 (dyn0)
(3. Hydratone when it's finished or working bombproof)

I won't touch anything else because no other EQ quite comes close to that combo, mostly due to oversampling.

[putte]

I was just wondering if you had todays software options (Tritone,Sonalksis,Voxengo...) and a screaming fast CPU would you still go for the Uad1.

i consider my g5 to be a "screaming fast" CPU, and beside the Voxengo i tried the ones you mentioned. (and more).

still, plugins like the uad-1´s fairchild and pultec are special ..

putte

[RAYA]

And why not Curve EQ? this is the most complete/impresive EQ i've ever seen.

[Kingston]

And why not Curve EQ? this is the most complete/impressive EQ i've ever seen.

every single linear phase EQ generates an artifact called preringing instead of the less noticeable phase shift of normal EQ. This destroys the transients of audio material, and only over my dead body will any preringing sound on my channels or masters. Properly tuned and designed non-linear phase EQ will always sound better to my ears.

There's also a cross between the two called optimal phase (depending on designer/manufacturer), which can be useful sometimes.

[brianbrian]

Pre-ringing in linear phase equalizers usually isn't apparant unless you are using steep bands or shelves. I'm with you though, I like minimum-phase/analog EQs way more than linear phase. For me, linear phase is only useful in mastering, and only for making very small adjustments (to prevent ringing). I like using colorful EQs in mastering too though, anything that adds a comlimentary character to the tune. This usually ends up being a UA Pultec or now HarmoniEQ.

[kylen]

CurveEQ has minimum phase - does that help with the ringing issue - or is it still quasi linear phase in sheeps clothing for practical purposes?