Belles Ondes : Creative Engineering

EQ1979 is a Reaper JSFX Plugin providing frequency accurate modeling of a Neve 1073 filter stage combined with an input gain-compensated saturation.

Designed by cascading ~40 peq/butterworth filters to reproduce frequency response, EQ1979 models all the sonically appealing bumps and drops that shape the sound of these original console strips. Those analog filtering stages with many capacitance/inductors resonances are reproduced, including input transformer contribution.

It also includes an input saturation stage that provides smooth saturation with automatic gain compensation. The first two third of the control range add slik-smooth arctan based starutation, whereas the last third adds some DC bias error just like in a real class A analog console strip. Input can be trimmed after saturation upon preference thanks to the Trim control.

• Neve-inspired GUI was designed by Steph at Fluidshell Design. Many thanks for his kind contribution to the project.
• All signal processing methods are derived from the excellent CookDSP library by Olivier Bélanger.

• Drive: Input saturation from 0 to 100% : Mouse left Click - vertical drag
• Trim : Input gain trimming from -24 to +24 dB : Mouse left click - Vertical Drag OR Mouse wheel
• High : High shelf shaped filter Gain from -16 to +16dB : Mouse left Click - vertical drag
• Mid : Mid Bell shaped filter Gain from -18 to +18dB : Mouse left Click - vertical drag
• Mid Frequency : Mid Bell center frequency, “Off” means inactive : Mouse left click - Vertical Drag OR Mouse wheel
• Low : Low shelf shaped filter Gain from -16 to +16dB : Mouse left Click - vertical drag
• Low Frequency : Low shelf corner frequency, “Off” means inactive : Mouse left click - Vertical Drag OR Mouse wheel
• HPF : High pass filter corner frequency, “Off” means inactive : Mouse left click - Vertical Drag OR Mouse wheel
• EQ : Enables/Disables EQ : Mouse Left Click
• Phi : Enables/Disables phase inversion : Mouse Left Click

On all controls, Right Mouse Click resets to default value. Notably, Drives comes back to 0%, Trim to 0dB, Filter Gains to 0dB, and Frequency settings to “Off”.

Github : https://github.com/D4p0up/eq1979

- Beta 0.95

• Improved modeling of HPF and Low Shelf filter responses
• 10Hz parameter smoothing on Low, Mid and High frequency gain parameters for automation-safe operation

- Beta 0.94 - internal bugfixing stage never released - Beta 0.93

• HPF frequency response tuned with expected bump
• Testing parameter smoothing on HPF
• Correcting minor GUI bugs on switching to +-16dB for shelfs

- Beta 0.92 :

• GUI : Added mousex lock on control change, no more control swapping when adjusting parameter
• Lowered low and high shelf EQ max gain down to 16dB as per original 1073 design
• Added EQ On/Off and Phase buttons as per original 1073 design
• minor tweaks

- Beta 0.91 - Low Shelf GUI Fix and Sat mouse speed increase by 25% - Beta 0.9 - First release

This was developped by analysing datasheet and pulling out in a retry-on error fashion an “equivalent” frequency response. This using both plugindoctor and ear tests VS the latest UAD 1073 emulation plugin. Filter methods are derived from Oliver Belanger's COOKDSP library - Copyright © - 2014 - Olivier Belanger

Here are some of the final comparison diagrams, orange/blue curves are UAD Neve 1073 native plugin L/R channel, pink is EQ1979:

Raw static with mid engaged (with typical 1073 mid bump)

Typical Neve “Air” 14dB high boost (with its mid drop)

Typical Neve Mid “front push” 14dB 1.6k boost

To Do : - Implement parameter smoothing to avoid glitches during automation, - Low shelf filter bumps - BLower high pass input filter to ear accurate model

VST emulation of an analog channel strip gain stage and eq with soft saturation.

Beta Version 0.2 eq1979.zip

0.2 - Low frequency rumble fix

1. Added low frequency smoothing
2. Added 20k lowpass

0.1 - Inital Release