Dmg Audio Equilibrium Parametric Equalizer

  • Sound Quality
  • Ease of use
  • Features
  • Bang for buck
  • Overall:
Parametric

Apr 25, 2019  To celebrate the release of the Get That Pro Sound Ultimate Guide to Equalisation, we’ve put together this run-down of the very best EQ plugins available in the world. The equaliser is one of the longest-serving and most fundamental sound processing tools. As soon as it became possible to record and transmit audio electrically, and then electronically, engineers and music-makers also began. Dec 05, 2018 The list goes on and on. In short, DMG Audio’s EQuilibrium simply offers more functionality than most of its competition. It doesn’t come cheap, but there’s a reason. This is an all-purpose EQ tool for those who know what they want and know what they’re doing. FabFilter Pro-Q 2 ($179).

Dec 24, 2017  Parametric equalizer, sometimes known as graphic equalizers, are like fancy bass and treble controls. Are they harmful to the purity of the system? Necessary in. Oct 29, 2015  Home The Forums High End Dmg equilibrium or Weiss eq Gearslutz is part-supported by our visitors. When you buy products through links across our. DMG Audio EQuilibrium v1.54 Free Download. Click on below button to start DMG Audio EQuilibrium v1.54 Free Download. This is complete offline installer and standalone setup for DMG Audio EQuilibrium v1.54. This would be compatible with both 32 bit and 64 bit windows. Click on below button to start DMG Audio EQuilibrium v1.54 Free Download. Oct 31, 2016  This test is not conclusive but rather a good way to compare some of the Best EQ's in the business and also to see what key features benefits each of the EQ's tested may have.

Sound Quality:
Made by renowned designer/engineer Dave Gamble (Sonalksis, Focusrite, Brainworx) and his partner Krzysztof Oktalski, Equilibrium is a big step forward from their previous efforts (which already sounded great) in every aspect one think about. Equilibrium takes the equalization game to a whole new level not just because it offers superb quality - it offers superb quality in a great amount of quantity as well. There is a lot to be found here and I really mean a lot.
The user gets the chance to set a comprehensive set of equalization controls and a variety of curves. Equilibrium boasts ten different types of bells, seven shelves and nine filters. Some of the curves were modeled after the usual suspects (SSL 4k, Pultec, API 550) but the guys at the DMG Audio also managed to bring new and unique curves to the table, such as their brand name's curve. Other highlights are the handy tilt curve, some eccentricities such as the flat-top curve and the harmonic filters and also the great sounding curves from a very special classic parametric EQ. You can also to choose to run the peaks and shelves in parallel or serial fashion according to your taste.
It is worth mentioning that there's no distortion modelling here. There's just pure EQ curve modelling, to the point that even deep interactions between gain/Q and gain/frequency were modelled. Everything was handmade by the DMG Audio guys from very careful observation and deep analysis of the hardware pieces, all translated into a fine piece of code. No convolution was involved in the process of recreating the magical classic curves.
The curve options are definitively the star of the show here, but one other feature that sets EQuilibrium apart from other digital EQs is the fact that you can deeply tweak its processing modes. Both IIR and FIR modes are offered, and the FIR mode opens up a whole new set of parameters so you can adjust the phase response of the EQ according to your taste and CPU capabilities: Equilibrium can go from very light to extremely demanding on CPU depending on how you set it. Even when working on its most humble processing settings you'll have an equalizer that sounds very impressive, but if you want it to get even more impressive it will gladly make use of every bit of power you have available.
Having so much curves and processing options at our disposal leads us to the fact the EQuilibrium is not only a great sounding equalizer, but many great sounding equalizers. This is an extremely versatile plugin, that is great sounding on basically any situation. Great for mixing, mastering, creative sound design, post production or anything where an equalizer is needed.
Ease of use:
The fact this plugin is so huge and offers so much makes it feel a little overwhelming in the first few sessions, but once you set a routine and a basic template you'll get things get done very quickly. You'll have to do a bit of digging through the many menus and adapt the plugin to your tastes and needs by going through a considerable set of options. Once you've done it, the usage is as good as it gets with easy access to everything you want from an EQ.
The good thing about the big array of customization options is that Equilibrium can be both very easy or extremely complex. It just depends on how much time you're willing to spend on its many menus, which I must say are very well organized. You can easily have a 3 band channel EQ with basic processing and level metering or set up a huge 10 band monster with custom phase response, spectrum analyzer, dedicated m/s level controls and K-14 metering. You just have to configure it.
Considering the fact that some users don't like to go through a lot of configuration menus to get things working, DMG was kind enough to implement a 'setup wizard' so the user can quickly set the most crucial stuff through five simple steps. There's a nice option that saves the current state of the plugin as its default setting, so once you load a new instance those particular settings are readily available.
In order to make things more accessible, EQuilibrium comes with a good number of presets which are nice starting points that can actually make life easier. The documentation provided is very good, with a 28 page manual which is a nice read. Besides its potential complexity, EQuilibrium manages to organize everything in very neat ways and it can be accessible to the novice users while still offering many things under its hood for the most demanding and seasoned engineers.
Features:
Equilibrium has the most extensive feature-set ever put together in a equalizer, both analog and digital, and it is hands down the most comprehensive equalizer made until this day. Period.
Tons of curves, routing options with L/R and mid-side adjustments on each band, surround capabilties, custom interface, phase response adjustment, variable quality settings, comprehensive metering and level controls, six types of analyzers, parallel and serial modes and basically any number of EQ bands you might want...EQuilibrium has it all. There is so much to tweak here that I won't even bother going through everything, so the best advice is to get the demo and check out for yourself. A 30-day fully functional demo can be easily obtained at DMG Audio's Website.
Bang for buck:
Outstanding value that goes way beyond the not-so-cheap price tag (175 British pounds/around 200 euro-270 usd). No EQ has ever gone so far and offered the user so much as EQuilibrium. This is the new horse to beat at the moment when it comes to digital equalizers.
I'll also add the fact that DMG is constantly updating their product, and not only solving bugs but also implementing new features. The last EQuilibrium update (1.0.5) brought curves from a classic british console EQ and from another very expensive, sough-after mastering parametric equalizer. So you'll likely get even more bang for your buck as more EQ curves and other features are added, not to mention the great support.

Last edited by Diogo C; 30th June 2013 at 04:43 PM..Reason: Fine-tuning
EQ Plug-in For Mac OS & Windows

Whatever you look for in an equaliser, you'll find it in DMG Audio's astonishingly comprehensive Equilibrium.

In a world awash with plug-in equalisers, what makes us choose one rather than another? For some people, everything else comes second to the way an EQ sounds, whether that means accurately recreating some treasured piece of vintage gear or imposing the most transparent possible tonal correction. For others, it's the user interface that is of primary importance, enabling them to get the right results as fast as possible. Still others prize flexibility above all, seeking tools that can do everything from super-narrow notch filters to obscure resonant shelves.

DMG Audio's aim with Equilibrium is to satisfy all of these users, and it could be argued that this is a plug-in that offers unprecedented riches in every department. You don't need more than a quick browse of the manual to realise that Equilibrium is unquestionably the most heavily featured and the most flexible equaliser ever made, and not by a small margin.

Mix & Match

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Following the likes of Waves' H-EQ and Sonoris's Parallel EQ, Equilibrium permits you to freely mix bands that use different EQ shapes and algorithms, but the menu on offer here dwarfs that available in any other plug-in I know of. Each instance can contain up to 32 shelving, filtering, notch or peaking bands, operating in series or in parallel. They can employ accurate models of vintage hardware EQ circuits, a wide range of digital algorithms, and idealised circuits that suffer none of the compromises inherent in analogue implementation. Up to eight channels can be processed simultaneously, in a variety of stereo configurations. The plug-in as a whole can operate in linear-phase, minimum-phase, analogue modelled and 'free phase' modes, with a variety of different trade-offs between ultimate sound quality, CPU consumption and latency on offer. In 'free phase' mode, you can configure the phase response on a per-band basis, and even manually adjust the shape of the impulse response that is generated for an individual EQ band. In 'free phase' mode, you have control over the phase response of each EQ band, as well as various options allowing you to adjust the impulse responses that are generated. Oh, and each instance of Equilibrium supports not only A and B settings pages for comparison, but C, D, E, F, G and H too!

There is also a great deal of flexibility about how all this power is accessed. You can have Equilibrium present itself as an old-school equaliser, where everything is controlled by knobs, you can enter precise values in text boxes, you can see your EQ bands as notes on a musical scale, and they can be displayed as graphical curves. Not only do these have the usual centre points that can be picked up and moved around using the mouse, but also floating tooltips that appear when selected, allowing you to change their shape, algorithm and so on. The same graph that shows the EQ curves can simultaneously display a wide variety of spectral analyses showing the input or output signals, or both, and can be zoomed to focus on a particular frequency region. There are also comprehensive metering options. From a visual point of view, the only thing you can't do is make Equilibrium into a simulacrum of a hardware rack unit or channel strip, which is fine with me.

In total, there are literally hundreds of configurable parameters affecting both the sound of the EQ and its user interface. This is a plug-in that can be modified on an unprecedented scale and level of detail. To give you an idea, the 'Graph' submenu of the GUI preferences alone contains 19 options, including minutiae such as how the background should be rendered, 'whether un-bypassing a group of bands can start a group drag”, whether the EQ bands are shown filled or outlined, and if the former, how transparent the fill should be!This is just a small selection of Equilibrium's GUI preferences.

Wizard Ideas

As you'd expect, the provision of configurability on such a level has the potential to intimidate users, but DMG Audio have put a lot of thought into making sure this doesn't happen. Equilibrium is thus the first plug-in I've ever seen that has its own Setup Wizard. This enables you to make broad-brush settings by answering a short series of simple questions such as whether you are expecting to run lots of instances in a busy mix, or whether you want ultimate sound quality for mastering. The settings the Setup Wizard determines can then be fine-tuned later through the plug-in's preferences. The Setup Wizard takes nearly all of the hard work out of setting up the plug-in to your taste, and in practice, there were only a couple of times when I found myself struggling to track down the correct preference to deal with some bit of user-interface behaviour I wanted to change. Equilibrium has its own Setup Wizard.

I can imagine that many people would want to employ different Equilibrium configurations almost as two or three different plug-ins, for different applications. You might, for example, want one set of display and DSP preferences for mixing and another for mastering. This is made possible by the ability to load only selected aspects of a preset: you can, for instance, recall the display configuration from a saved preset without recalling its actual EQ settings.

Every EQ In One

Dmg Audio Equilibrium Parametric Equalizer Software

In short, then, Equilibrium leaves all other EQ plug-ins in the dust when it comes to features and flexibility, and DMG have done a good job of packaging this power in an interface that makes it accessible and reasonably straightforward to use. So how does it sound? Well, the only real answer is that it sounds like you want it to sound. Even in its least CPU-intensive mode, it's hard to fault the audio quality, while mastering engineers and other obsessives can tweak it to the point where its accuracy approaches the limits of what is theoretically possible in a digital algorithm. If character is what you want, its recreations of classic analogue hardware EQ curves seem very plausible to me, although, of course, there's no modelling of non-linear factors such as transformer or tube distortion, as you might find in a dedicated emulation of a hardware unit.

As an example of what's possible within a single instance of Equilibrium, one of my test tracks was an acoustic guitar recorded through a cheap DI box. Some sort of interaction between the pickup and the DI had resulted in an almost complete null at 800Hz; there were several nasty resonances in the 10kHz region; the low end was boomy and ill-defined; and, as is usual with piezo pickups, the mid-range was honky and in need of overall tonal correction.

The high-frequency resonances were very narrow, to the point where they wouldn't show up on the analysers built into some EQ plug-ins. Equilibrium's zoom controls made it child's play to exclude everything below 8kHz and focus in tightly on the problem region, whereupon I could introduce notch filters at the offending frequencies. At the other end of the spectrum, Equilibrium gave me a huge range of high-pass filter and low-shelf shapes to choose from, making it straightforward to achieve exactly the right degree of control. To address the hole at 800Hz, I had the option not only of numerous conventional peak or bell bands, but of DMG's 'flat top' shape, which can be adjusted to behave almost like a band-pass shelving filter. And, of course, I was equally spoiled for choice when manipulating the tonality of the mid-range.

But that's not half the story, and I could have gone much further. For example, a well-known side-effect of linear-phase EQ algorithms is 'pre-ringing', which tends to be more audible at lower frequencies. In Equilibrium, I could have set my high-pass filter to operate in conventional minimum-phase mode, to avoid audible pre-ringing, while using the other bands in linear-phase mode. Had there been a need for more gentle and musical tonal shaping in the mid-range, I could have combined a high-pass filter in series with peak and shelving bands run in parallel. And if one particular bass note had been boomy, I could have used Equilibrium's musical keyboard to track it down. I could even have set up multiple bands targeting the fundamental and the harmonics, and grouped them to be moved up and down with one swoop of a mouse. The possibilities are truly endless, and the only real down side to Equilibrium's unparalleled flexibility is the endless temptation to persist in tweaking settings, in the hope of making it sound even better!

Pros

Dmg Audio Equilibrium Parametric Equalizer Free

  • The most comprehensively featured equaliser ever made, bar none, and by a very long way.
  • Highly configurable user interface and Setup Wizard do a good job of making its power accessible.
  • Full support provided for surround formats up to 7.1.

Cons

  • With this much flexibility on offer, you need to exercise a bit of self-discipline to know when to stop fiddling with EQ bands and make some music!

Summary

DMG Audio's incredibly comprehensive plug-in is far more than just an EQ: it's every equaliser you can think of, rolled into one.

information

Dmg Audio Equilibrium Parametric Equalizer Download

Audio
£174.99 (approx. $274).

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