MAAT thEQred

Think of thEQred as LP PEQ Red 2.0…we’ve taken the fundamentals of Algorithmix’s exemplary LinearPhase PEQ Red, and given it a MAAT makeover. There is no other æsthetic equalizer like thEQred. With its ability to invisibly provide spectral counterweight to mixes that lean one way or another, thEQred excels at straightening up biased content. Add crystalline air without stridency to a dark mix, or beef up lower mids and bass without bloat or loss of focus. With twelve bands or Sections of precision, linear phase parametric equalization featuring unique shelving filters, mastery of complex mixes without changing their overall sonic character is just a few clicks away.

A little backstory…An idea was born to reissue this masterpiece, along with the other legendary Algorithmix EQs, and make it available as 64 bit in all common formats and (finally!) for macOS. As a power user, our visionary Friedemann had some ideas in mind regarding the improvements. Specifically, he wanted to make the user interface, the UI, more flexible and faster to use because there is no other tool in the mastering chain that receives as much “seat time.” The result: Our thEQ UI and feature set. The UI affords super fast setup and includes a number of unique features which help to speed your work: The positive & negative Contribution function including absolute difference, the highly adjustable sonogram which makes detecting problem spots easy, and the possibility to play a note on the keyboard that you have in your head and then snap a Section to that respective frequency with one click. Also, having all twelve Sections visible simultaneously, not to mention the SORT button function.

Frequency Forward

thEQred works in the frequency domain. That is, the input signal is first transformed into a spectral representation. Then, that spectral equivalent is operated upon. Special measures have been taken to ensure high resolution at critical low frequencies while keeping time resolution untouched. Unlike other frequency-domain filters, this avoids drums or other instrument containing strong transients from being blurred. In addition, extremely high compute resolution has been used to avoid any cumulative truncation effects typical in complex frequency transforms. This results in unblemished sound quality.

There are other plug–ins on the market using frequency–domain techniques. Most of them apply relatively low frequency resolution and then claim that frequency response mathematically interpolated between a few set points or that freehand drawing is the best solution. This may be true for some industrial applications, but such filters simply don’t sound musical. We’ve worked hard to insure that filter shapes in thEQred exactly match the best analog references. The result is sonic quality that is undisputed, even at baseband 44.1 and 48 kHz rates.

Unobtrusive Power

“An equalizer should have no, ideally, should have no distortion of its own. It’s almost impossible to do it without some distortion but, that’s the aim. So, if you can do that…Now there are a lot of equalizers about, where people have just taken a circuit out of some reference book and hoped for the best and they’ve never really succeeded because they haven’t taken into account all these other things.” — Rupert Neve on EQ in Rupert Neve: The SOS Interview on YouTube

thEQred was designed to deliver the highest possible linearity down to subsonic frequencies. This and other powerful features hide behind its clean and simple UI. Eye candy is great for newbies, but thEQr isn’t your typical filter: thEQred packs all the advanced features you need into one resizable window that’s easy on the eyes. Not only does the UI “get out of the way” so you can be more productive, we’ve incorporated industry–first features that speed your workflow, neatly packaged to make thEQred easy and intuitive to use.

Better By Design

Whether you’re looking for gentle rehabilitation, colorless correction, or simply baggage–free spectral contouring, our proprietary, precision algorithm delivers on the promise of linear phase EQ. Bring the power and purity of thEQred to bear for all your critical equalization tasks.

As Friedemann says, “It’s all about the curves.” Along with all the features of our thEQ family, thEQred incorporates a unique and proprietary filter technology allowing you to adjust any slope between nearly 0 and 24 dB/octave. Almost any filter needed or desired can be dialed in quickly and easily, from broad shallow strokes to cascaded deep cuts.

Linear Phase Royalty

Most all parametric equalizers or PEQs are implemented via phase shift. That is, the incoming dry signal is mixed with a phase–shifted version. Because the amount of the phase shift is frequency dependent, some cancellation or reinforcement occurs at the desired frequency. It gets the job done, but with a major disadvantage: the different signal components of the resulting audio become spread out in time, so time relationships between harmonics in the filtered output is heavily altered. The result: a nice sharp attack becomes slurred and muddy or worse, strident and brittle.
thEQred changes all that, providing profoundly punchy lows and airy, silky smooth highs like no other. It preserves the time relationships of harmonics, which translates into a smoother top end, sweeter and bigger midrange, and a clearer, more distinct bottom when compared to phase shift–style EQs. The resultant sound seems less processed, more like what should have naturally been captured by the microphone. You won’t get those punchy transients and silky highs with analog outboard or any ol’ IIR digital.

Versatile VariSlope

In addition to all the user–centric features that MAAT brings you, like Panorama mode and Contribution controls, thEQred features VariSlope™ technology, proprietary to thEQr. With VariSlope, shelving and cut filters offer continuous adjustment of any slope in the range from near 0 to 24 dB/octave. Unlike other EQs that let you define or draw the curve, VariSlope offers unique versatility while preserving the sound quality MAAT EQs are known for.
The exclusive VariSlope filter technology lets you dial in continuous slope filters that emulate any critically damped shelf in the range from 1st to 4th order, including all imaginary filters in between. “Imaginary” because critically damped filters offer only slopes in discreet 6 dB/octave steps per “order”: 6, 12, 18, 24 et cetera. Our continuous slope low and high cut filter performs similarly, yet you can continuously change its slope from a critically damped 4th order equivalent, through 3rd, 2nd, and 1st order down to zero. The critically damped VariSlope high cut mirrors the continuous slope VariSlope low cut.
Such “in–between” frequency-response filter characteristics, especially with slopes less than 6 dB/octave, are absolutely impossible to implement with classical filter technology. The only workaround would be to cascade many 1st order filters with specially weighted amplitudes to get the overall amplitude envelope lower then 6 dB/octave. Such kludgy filters, however, deliver a wavy frequency response characteristic and are tainted with nasty phase shift and group delay. Quite the opposite, our VariSlope filter affords very smooth, controlled spectral changes without any phase shift.

thEQred works strictly in the frequency domain, while sounding a bit softer than her linear phase sister, thEQorange. Performing at up to 384 kHz, which extends resonant frequency settings up to 80 kHz, it’s perfect for high resolution DSD, DXD and game audio post–production. Its calculations are stored at 80 bits of precision, way more than 32 bit commodity EQs and more than what even fancy 64 bit EQs manage. The result: the construction of your composite filter is impeccable, with vanishingly low THD and without loss of very low amplitude detail.

Features