Hey folks, here's the deal: I'm looking for a great sounding, versatile, linear phase EQ. This will be used on a track by track basis, so low CPU overhead would be a plus, but I am running this on a dual 2.8 GHz eight core Mac Pro with currently 6 GB's of RAM, later to be expanded, so sound quality is more important to me than anything else. Cheaper, of course, is better, but I don't really want to miss out on quality to save a buck either. I already own two UAD-1 cards, and bought the Precision EQ, and while I like it, it's really mainly for mastering and not for finely tuned mixing work. I also own the DDMF EQ's, and enjoy them. I also own T-Racks 3, and use the linear phase EQ's with that, still, I am looking for something else for some reason. I am mainly using Logic Pro 8, and the linear phase EQ with it as my go-to channel EQ at the moment, but I also own Ableton Live 5, Digital Performer 5.13, and Pro Tools M-Powered 8, so I have access to the EQ's in those. But Pro Tools is only just for getting projects and audio out of Pro Tools, I can't use it well with the rest of my system, so that's that. Ableton is great, but not really what I use anymore, although I wish I had more time to get down with it.
Anyway, here is what I'm mainly considering, although I could go with any other idea at this point, so please make any suggestion you feel fit.
1) Ozone 4. (
iZotope Ozone 4 Complete Mastering System)
I like the company a lot, and it's going to be inexpensive for me due to a student discount. I probably will buy it sooner or later, my thoughts are though that it largely duplicates what I already have with T-Racks 3, and I can't see using it necessarily as a channel EQ for some reason, although I probably could. I don't know how it sounds really either, I imagine pretty good, though.
2) Nugen Audio SEQ 2 Master Edition (
SEQ2 Mix & Mastering EQ – Linear Phase Equalizer plugin VST & AU)
Again, not expensive. I do really like the 10 Hz-30kHz possibilites with this guy. I own their Visualizer and other plug ins and enjoy them. I've downloaded the demo and liked that too, but you can't really measure how much you like the sound in a week or whatever. I mainly didn't hear any sound, which is probably good. The interface is less than beautiful, but then again, I'm not buying art here.
3) RNDigital Unique-lizer. (
http://www.rndigitallabs.com/Plug-ins/U ... lizer.html)
I have their D4 compressor and absolutely love it. I have demoed their Inspector XL and loved that. I think they've got some killer plug ins going, and again, will probably get this sooner or later, likely as part of a package with the Inspector XL and the other EQ (the FirEQ), and a limiter or something. I really like the visual aspect of this plug, it would probably be helpful in isolating a troubling frequency in a snare hit, say.
4) The UAD Cambridge EQ. (
Universal Audio | UA Online Store ... index.html)
By now you are noticing that I want a more graphically styled modern EQ, and not a vintage emulating plug in. I intend to add some of those at some point (I guess I have some already with T-Racks and whatnot) but for now I want a super clean and versatile modern plug in style EQ that I would feel comfortable using on every track for it's uncolored sound. This is probably my least consideration, I think I would get much more processing power out of my native processing rather than my two UAD-1 cards, frankly, especially if Snow Leopard performs as promised. I am thinking the UAD-1 cards will turn out to be more of a processing liability more than anything else, I'm new to them though, but that's what it's looking like to me. I am unlikely to want to go to UAD-2 at the moment either, and am suspicious of the limitations of it's processing power vs. native as well. And this seems like an older offering of UAD's, and seems to want to be a "classic" console style EQ as well as the more neutral style version I am looking for... but then again, I don't know much about it compared to most.
That's the big ones- I have looked into URS, which seems like more vintage emulating stuff to me, as well as Sonalksis, which seems good. Waves is always there. TC Powercore and the Liquid Mix are possible (well TC Powercore unlikely, that's big time money) but I am sort of unwilling to add another Firewire bus PCIe card and am using a Firewire interface.
If anyone is still awake after this, I'd love to hear your thoughts! I'll be posting this on a few forums so let me know what you think please, thanks, L