8 Native VST EQ Plugins Shootout

[headrheum]

Hi Guys, it's good to be here

I was working on a mix last week when I saw this thread, and thought about this shootout while mangling the recordings
I tried to use every EQ plugin I bought, including the ones which were not used for ages. It was fun to install, try and compare them. Some of them will be uninstalled, because I have better options (since some of them are pretty old technology for now anyway)

I used these EQ Plugins, in no particular order:
Kjaerhus GEQ7
Sonalksis SV-517Mk2
Sonnox Oxford Native EQ
Waves Q6
URS S MIX
BX Digital
Nuendo 2 (Stock) Channel EQ
Cubase 4 (Stock) Channel EQ

It is a string quartet recording done with a pair of Neumann KM 184s. I placed the microphones in a spaced XY position as seen in this photo:



I pushed the EQ settings a little bit harder than usual to be able to hear their characters and/or their weakest points (if available), and included the raw track which is not processed in any way.

Because almost each plugin has its own way to dictate settings and has different buttons/behaviour, I rounded the initial settings I chose for the center frequencies, to adapt to the knob increments, characters of each EQ plugin.
Other than that, every single parameter and setting is identical for each 8 EQ plugin (including the stock channel EQs of Cubase and Nuendo).
I use 2 workstations and 2 sequencers time to time. Because the new channel EQ in Cubase4 works on a newer VST engine (VST3), I decided to include its stock EQ plugin too. More of that can't hurt

Here are the settings/parameters for ALL 8 EQ processors in this shootout
LF (Shelf): 168Hz / +4.4dB Boost
MF: 1400Hz / -14dB Cut / Q:12.0
HMF: 4300Hz / -3dB Cut / Q:5.0
HF (Peak): 11600Hz / +8dB Boost / Q:0.5

(Yeah, strings needed some polishing )
In order to avoid unfair treatment, I haven't applied any LF / HF filters, and it didn't look like the sound would benefit from cuts anyway. Almost each of plugins has a different way of cutting the low and high end frequencies.

I hope you will like this shootout and make use of it somehow...

Ilter


PS. Here are the approximate prices of these goodies (I used an online Currency converter, because some of the list prices were different than US Dollars):
In NO Particular order
Cubase4 Channel EQ - N/A (Comes with the Sequencer)
Nuendo2 Channel EQ - N/A (Comes with the Sequencer)
Sonnox Oxford R3 EQ Native ~ 285$ (200 GBP)
SV-517Mk2 Equaliser ~ 267$ (210 €.)
URS S Series - 160$
Waves Q(10) Native - 150$
Kjaerhus GEQ7 (Windows Only) - 98$
BX Digital Native ~ 427$ (335 €.) * Worth to mention, this processor has a M/S Encoder built in (it can process mono and stereo channels seperately and I use it sometimes during mastering process)

[headrheum]

... and here are the wave files.
I recommend checking them out, as the subtle details can be heard in wave files better than mp3 files.

[sparqee]

Of these EQ's the only two I'm familiar with are the Sonnox & the Sonalksis. I have Cubase but I never use the integrated EQ.

One thing I'd like to add (as thoroughly subjective as it may be) is my feelings on the user interface. I don't claim to have golden ears and honestly the sound difference between most EQ plugins is so minor that I don't really care. What draws me most to a particular EQ plugin is how well I can understand the user interface. When I say "understand" I mean being able to use it without thinking. Being able to accomplish my goal without having to "figure out" which knob to turn. If I have an EQ that I can fire up and intuitively use with success then *that* is my idea of a great plugin. Admittedly, there are certainly "problem solving" situations where I need to figure out the thing to do, and once again the usability of a plugin is at least as important as it's functionality.

Both the Sonnox and the Sonalksis are extremely detailed and feature laden. Each with LPF & HPF and multiple bell & shelf filters they can handle most EQ tasks, but.... for whatever reason I find the Sonalksis far easier to use. I'm not saying that the Sonalksis is *better*, I'm simply saying that I find it far easier to use. Someone else would likely find the opposite. In truth I do use the Sonnox quite often for it's wonderful HPF but that's it for me. It sounds great but it takes me too long to accomplish things with it.

I suppose the reason I'm posting this is to promote that people always demo plugins for themselves and spend time getting friendly with a plugin as well analyzing it with a critical ear. Perhaps it's a right brain/left brain thing. Perhaps I'm just lazy, but I've come to recognize that plugins without scroll wheel support aren't for me. Eq's with the high frequency bands on the left, aren't for me, and of course, plugins that don't sound good.... aren't for me.

I feel very fortunate that I can afford to have the tools that I like and that work for me. I also feel fortunate to be able to spend more time creating than constantly shopping for the next great gadget or plugin.

Blessed be the content.

[brandondrury]

Interesting shootout! I'm glad you posted it.

First off, the dry track sounds excellent! These musicians are excellent!

I'm actually disappointed. Sometimes I don't hear things on my computer speakers that I do on my monitors, but the difference between these EQs is much smaller than I had figured.

I thought that #6, the URS, sounded boxy. (I love their compressors, by the way).

I thought that #7 sounded a little cheap. That was the Waves Q6.

Other than that, I thought they were all pretty much equal.

What draws me most to a particular EQ plugin is how well I can understand the user interface. When I say "understand" I mean being able to use it without thinking. Being able to accomplish my goal without having to "figure out" which knob to turn. If I have an EQ that I can fire up and intuitively use with success then *that* is my idea of a great plugin.

I'm with you, dude. Even with the same engine and features, the GUI has a huge effect on the way a person works. I find myself usually gravitating towards knobs as I don't want to see what I'm doing.

Brandon

[sparqee]

Originally Posted by brandondrury

I find myself usually gravitating towards knobs as I don't want to see what I'm doing.
Brandon

Yeah, when I'm doing "character" work on a track I love using the UAD Pultec because it's just (virtual) knobs without any kind of graph/display but when I'm problem solving I really like have the wave form display in the Sonalksis. Helps me to more quickly focus in on whatever frequency I'm after, though after I do find the freq I often times close my eyes and sweep back and forth a bit just make sure.

[headrheum]

Originally Posted by sparqee

...What draws me most to a particular EQ plugin is how well I can understand the user interface. When I say "understand" I mean being able to use it without thinking. Being able to accomplish my goal without having to "figure out" which knob to turn. If I have an EQ that I can fire up and intuitively use with success then *that* is my idea of a great plugin...

I definately agree that a plugin should not force you to re-invent America, but if you have experienced the 'beginnings' of the plugin era, you'd agree that a moving graph doesn't always lead to a precise change that we're after.
We've seen soo many Graphic EQ plugins with great interfaces doing particularly nothing or whatever they do sounds harsh and 'digital sounding'. THAT was the reason many old-school engineers HATED DAWs and plugins at those times. Including me. When I expressed my feelings and views about Waves EQs version 1.x, everyone said I'm old-fashioned.
Things have changed a lot since late 90s, fortunately But not me, the way the things sounds, lately. Including the sound quality of some plugins.

Admittedly, there are certainly "problem solving" situations where I need to figure out the thing to do, and once again the usability of a plugin is at least as important as it's functionality.

Again, agreed. But there are some situations (i.e. Mastering) that we just can't get away with the best parametric EQ plugins available, and best linear EQ plugins might not be too easy to use. Maybe they aren't supposed to be easy, I don't know.

Both the Sonnox and the Sonalksis are extremely detailed and feature laden. Each with LPF & HPF and multiple bell & shelf filters they can handle most EQ tasks, but.... for whatever reason I find the Sonalksis far easier to use. [...] I'm simply saying that I find it far easier to use...

That's a bit odd to me, because I find Oxford EQ much easier to use.
It [Sonalksis] was the 1st good sounding plugin I'd seen that didn't need you to master the rocket science, until I got Oxfords with Powercore.

I suppose the reason I'm posting this is to promote that people always demo plugins for themselves and spend time getting friendly with a plugin as well analyzing it with a critical ear...

Only thing I could add to that, would be just emphasizing that "critical ear" part
The differences between these plugins in this shootout may not appear to be vast, but in a big mix, subtleties added one on another prooves that "criticial ear" while choosing your own set of plugins is very crucial thing that we should never omit.
To me, how the things sounds has a bigger impact than how I achieve it, but I agree with the most of the things you wrote.

[headrheum]

Originally Posted by brandondrury

First off, the dry track sounds excellent! These musicians are excellent!..

When I work in Poland (which is not my home country), I'm also impressed. These are the fresh graduates from Warsaw Conservatory, and they didn't even practice (for budget reasons again, *sigh*).
But yes, there are cool musicians in here. It must be the weather conditions

Originally Posted by brandondrury

I'm actually disappointed. Sometimes I don't hear things on my computer speakers that I do on my monitors, but the difference between these EQs is much smaller than I had figured...

Same.
Though I think it is worth to mention, setting the same parameters on each EQ plugin and expecting to see a big difference is not very elegant of me to make a shootout. The real difference lies in a bit of forcing each, within their own character.
Because of the differences in their algorithms, some of them start shining after a certain sweet spot. URS EQs I've tried, and the ones I bought has a different character, and I wouldn't use the S Series in my mixes, but rather "Fulltec" for different reasons.
I used S Series instead for this shootout, because I could set same parameters as in the others.

But there are the ones I wouldn't like to use in my mixes for serious EQ work, whatever/however the differences are. And those are #1,3,6 and #7

[headrheum]

... and these are the screenshots of the EQ plugin interfaces used in this shootout:

Nuendo 2 stock


Cubase 4 stock


Waves


Kjaerhus


(Half of the) BX Digital (duh, the interface is BIG)


Sonalksis


URS (S)


Sonnox


Most of the screenshots are resized to 620 px wide in order to keep the forum page in shape.

[brandondrury]

Would you say the character of each EQ comes through less apparently when the EQ is used more subtly? For example, are you going to hear the character of the EQ as much with 1dB of boost as you would 10dB of boost?

Brandon

[cboyer1951]

This is the 'strange' difficulty that I'm having getting into 'Mastering' or 'Mixing' from having been a musician for the past 40 years... The live example; 'Raw Track' is the only one of the ones' listed that sounds 'natural' to me. All of the others sound like they've been put into a box. The Raw Track is outside of the box, much, much wider sounding and more natural. So, that's always been my problem. As soon as I place a mix on it, it all begins sounding unnatural to me from there on. Luckily for me, just adding spatial or Modern Mixer boots to it always helps and changes everything to sound 'more' alive for me. Shrugs. Just my beginners two cents.

I Wish you well,
Chuck