There’s no way around it: Blue Eq sounds fantastic. It is hard to judge the actual effect of equalization as the gain jumps up or down when going to bypass. I do think one thing is missing though: I would really like to have output gain adjustment. In addition there is a GDRIVE control that introduces some subtle but wonderful harmonic distortion.Īs you can see there aren’t many controls, but it has all been very carefully designed. It’s worth noting that all of the controls are stepped. The bell is purposely set at an even wider Q than mid section for smooth gentle highs. It is also switchable between bell and shelf for flexibility. There is 18db of boost and cut available on eight frequencies.
The high band is an active control designed in the British tradition. The High band can cut and boost, and can be switched between shelf and peak filters. 12 have medium Q while 4100, 62 are wide for smooth brightening of tracks.
300, 500 and 800 have a sharper Q to make removing muddy mid range areas more effective. The twist to our mid control is that each frequency is tuned with a specific Q or width to make it most effective in areas where it will normally be used. The Mid band is a peak that can cut and boost. It is especially beneficial in the low end in my experience, because the low end is very vulnerable to distortion and phase issues. It helps maintain the natural fullness and tone of the source material. The Pultec along some other very classic equalizers operate in this way. Rather, all of the other frequencies are being brought down. You can select between shelf and peak filters. The low band is a passive design which (to simplify a bit) means that when you boost, you aren’t really boosting the chosen frequency. There are three bands: Low, Mid and High. The Blue Eq has very straightforward controls. The passive low frequency section is selectable between “Pultec/Lang” interactive curves and more standard low frequency with pass filter for maximum flexibility, while the high and mid bands are active and designed to sound like your favorite British eqs from yesteryear. All bands use inductors for the fattest smoothest tone possible. The Blue Equalizer uses active and passive eq circuits in combination with the amplifier based on vintage germanium semiconductors. Here is how the plugin is described in the manual: Acustica say the Blue Eq is a detailed emulation of vintage-revisited semiconductor equalizer, inspired by legendary British devices. It is not a direct copy of anything, but it seems like they have been looking at (and sampling) the Chandler Germanium Tone Control unit. That is their mission, and I think that’s very important to understand when evaluating the plugins.īlue Eq is an analog modeling character EQ. The downside to all of this is of course that the Acoustica products use up a lot of resources from your computer.Īcustica have been clear about that all along: they want to push the boundaries and put the emphasis on quality over CPU resources. Acustica are working with some extremely dedicated people on that arena – in the case of Blue Eq they have worked with Analog In The Box. The end result and quality of a particular product depends very much on the actual hardware units used for sampling, as well as the quality of the sampling itself. It allows harmonic distortion and dynamic behavior for example. The biggest difference in VVKT compared to traditional convolution technology is that Acustica’s engine isn’t static.
Blue eq software#
It’s a very different approach to algorithmic software (=most other plugins out there). Acustica’s technology allows very precise sampling and reproduction of tonal qualities (including phase) of all kinds of analog equipment. VVKT is an advanced form of convolution that is based on multisampled impulse responses. They call it “V.V.K.T.” (Vectorial Volterra Kernels Technology). This is simply because their entire operating concept is different to most of the other stuff out there.Īcustica have been developing their unique software engine for a long time (I think their original Nebula plugin came out in 2006). That same engine is being used throughout the entire range of their plugins. I have given it a good spin – here are my thoughts.īefore we go further with the review, I think it’s important for you to know some background about Acustica and their software.
Blue eq series#
They sent me the Blue Eq plugin from their Acqua series to try out (thank you very much). The Italian company Acustica Audio are known for their quest on uncompromising sound quality and accuracy in emulating analogue sound and equipment.
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