More apQ feature requests

[parodyse]

After having used apQualizr for a few months now, I've gotta say this is a great product. The modularity, design, and performance have led to me using this instead of EQs, compressors, and much more. This is definitely one of the best purchases I've made for making music outside of my DAW itself.
Through my use I've thought of a couple additional things that would really help workflow and I hope they actually wouldn't be too difficult to implement.

• When selecting nodes, it would be nice if apQ grouped or only showed what's selected (along with anything it's connected to) in the bottom area. Right now it just shows a highlighted outline which is decent, but for instances with more than 5 modules this gets pretty confusing to navigate.
• It would be awesome to be able to "insert" a preset into the current instance, instead of replacing the current settings with the preset. For example, if I already had some filters set up and wanted to add the preset Dynamics->Transient Exciter, it could just add those modules in addition to what I already have. This seems exciting because I feel like this concept would only work with something as modular as apQualizr. Then you could start saving smaller presets that are "building blocks" like a single band compressor, and just insert it into the chain whenever you need it.

Also, a note to Adrian -- I feel bad that I'm just asking for new things so in case you ever need any help (or want to open up some kind of way to add scripting), I'm a developer as well and would be more than happy to contribute.

Cheers
 

[Pflugshaupt]

Hi Parodyse,

Don't feel bad for asking for features. In my opinion, it is one of nicest forms of feedback I get as I shows people do care about the plugins. Sorry about a delayed answer. As you might have seen I was busy getting apQualizr v2.4.0 out. Hopefully it does help a bit with your first request. It's now possible to show multiple rows of modules for large patches. While I could make it display only what's selected, I think this would lead to confusion as the idea is to show everything all the time both at the top display and the module row at the bottom. There isn't really a dominant display and I'd like to keep things this way. If you have a patch with two logical groups, maybe you could just create two instances of apQualizr2 and get the grouping and selective display from that. Or you could at least reorder the modules using drag and drop to sit next to each other if they are connected/grouped.

Your second request gives me a simple idea. I could/should just implement copy/paste for the selected modules. The code is already there for the duplicate functionality and internally it's all just xml. And a "merge preset" function would be the same thing for the full data.

[parodyse]

Just updated to 2.4.0 -- yes this multi-row mode is great. Definitely understand what you're saying about showing everything. This is a huge improvement and you're also right about being able to split logical groups into two instances, especially since CPU use in apQ is so low.
With these new multiple rows, I'm finding myself using the "cable dangle" mode more but now I understand your note about it obscuring some important info. I don't know how it works for this but when coding graphics in CSS it's possible to change what element appears on top when multiple items are stacked using the "z-index". Is it possible to use something similar so even when dangling cables cover up a parameter, if you hover over that parameter (which already makes the parameter text bold) it could also make that value visible on top of the cable? Not a perfect solution but it would provide a way to see covered up info in this mode.

Your second request gives me a simple idea. I could/should just implement copy/paste for the selected modules. The code is already there for the duplicate functionality and internally it's all just xml. And a "merge preset" function would be the same thing for the full data.

Yeah I think this would be a huge workflow advantage and allow for a lot more reuse of module chains across different projects and instances.

Double-click-drag creates and edits a new filter band in one mouse gesture.

Also in regards to this feature, it would be great if double clicking near the very left created a high pass and clicking near the very right created a low pass instead of a peak.

Thanks again for your work, I've tried all the new updates and they're great.

[xalama qo]

Hey Adrian, tx for putting in all that bug hunting effort for my Live 8 issues. You know who I am And the new preset cycling behaviour mode. I love how responsive you are as a dev and can only recommend your plugins highly to anyone who cares to listen (to me... hehe).
I totally second the copy/paste suggestion above, and even having module-level presets. Copy/paste would work great imo if you could have two instances open and copy the relevant modules and settings from one instance to the other. Using ctrl+click to select multiple modules at once.
Regarding dangling cables it would be great if there was a slightly more elegant look to it. Personally I like how u-he Ace and Bazille cables have that semi-transparent mode with no outline. I think it's called x-ray. You can see the patching clearly and also whatever parameters are under the cables. Customisable colour-coding of cables would be luxury.
Tx again for the great plugins and generosity for ancient apQ1 customers like myself

[durachok]

fantastic and very underrated EQ
but need linear phase mode

[obeycelestia]

OH MY GOODNESS THIS EQ KICKS ASS. The simple filters are great as an EQ that is easy to dial in and the module system is so creative, intuitive, and powerful... I was getting crazy sound design with 60s of loading it up and -- I can't believe I haven't heard of this thing before!

Calling it an EQ is a disservice-- realizing the output volume was pluggable with the dynamics module makes it a wide band compressor in addition to a dynamic EQ filters... and that's the tip of a very deep iceberg.

I'm going to dump my wish list down here because this plugin made me excited enough to join a forum just to throw down the ideas it inspired in me to like a kid on xmas:

- Dynamics Module additions
> External Sidechain in addition to internal sidechain
> Sidechain Filter (low pass/high pass-- listen mode to hear signal after dynamics filter to be able to dial it in, eg. isolate the kick of an external signal to dip the low end in a shelf filter for a synth or something)
- Filter drive
- Exclusive Solo for bands (hear exclusively what the band is filtering instead of just the solo band on the whole signal)
- Scale percentage on Output module to scale gain on all bands (starts at 100 and lowering the values lowers the gain proportion of each band relative to 0)

I think this thing is seriously going to replace a half dozen plugins for me as is, anything more like external sidechain and linear phase will just replace almost every single EQ I have and may very well be the first thing I reach for when I need to compress something.

I have not been this excited for a plugin since the Vital synth release and subsequent open sourcing.

AAAH! Sorry... just REAL enthused.

EDIT: So I bought the whole bundle, every single one of these plugins is too damn cool and sound amazing. I played around with apQ2 a lot more and looking through how some of the presets worked and aux mode clicked-- so feeding a filter into a dynamics module in aux mode takes it out of processing the output signal and just processes the internal sidechain to the dynamics module.

All this to say-- what I want is maybe a Multi Channel module to fit into the flexible architecture of the plugin? So external audio signals can be used to drive the dynamics modules, etc.

Or, if I'm being entirely greedy, to be able to process multichannel audio and have support built into the input/analyzer and the filter bands themselves which would allow you to roll your own creative dynamic EQ stuff from multiple simultaneous sources.

[hamayame]

As much as I loving the really little phase error apQ has compared to other EQ dynamic/natural phase mode in my toolbox, I would love to see the linear phase mode in apQ.

I almost thought from the demo that this is a linear phase EQ after listening to how good this beast handles the low-end and high freq transient and just surprised it isn't.

[Pflugshaupt]

It's in the works, but modulation makes this very tricky.

[hamayame]

It's in the works, but modulation makes this very tricky.

I forgot the main apQ feature is the modulation. I ask it as a traditional parametric eq before since 90% of the time I use apQ is for correcting rather than creative stuff considering how natural it sounded to my ears. I need to remind myself to use apQ more for creative works.

Please pardon my ignorance..

[Pflugshaupt]

no worries. I want that linear phase as well . It will come, it just takes more work than I expected.

[spoontechnique]

I'm sure many people would appreciate linear phase EQ even if it couldn't be modulated.

I don't particularly need linear phase EQ, but I do like the idea of external sidechain. It'd also be nice to have an input gain knob.

[Pflugshaupt]

fantastic and very underrated EQ
but need linear phase mode

It's here in version 2.5. Just released now. And you get extra hybrid mixed and analog phase modes which in my opinion are far more useful that the added linear-phase mode.

[Jonathan Shepherd]

A quite awesome update, thank you very much man---

[parodyse]

Your second request gives me a simple idea. I could/should just implement copy/paste for the selected modules. The code is already there for the duplicate functionality and internally it's all just xml. And a "merge preset" function would be the same thing for the full data.

Just wanted to follow up and see if this is something you're still thinking about. Cheers