Graphical EQ

Something that’s in development at the moment…

http://www.linuxdsp.co.uk/screenshots/pictures/ardour_new_eq_screenshot.png

Its passing audio and making the right kind of sounds, I hope to have it finished sometime soon…

that looks SO cool, and I know I could really use it (as the calf graphic eqs suck up a lot of cpu). Can’t wait to use it! (it will be an LV2, right?)

@tbonedude: Thanks - yes I’m running it as an LV2 in Ardour at the moment, there’s still quite a bit of work to be done, at the moment it passes audio and dragging on the graph controls does what it should, I’m still doing the automation stuff and I suspect it will be possible to optimise it to use less CPU for the graphics - which is the most intensive part at the moment. So far the specification looks a bit like this:

10 Bands - each band switchable between low pass, high pass, hf shelf, lf shelf and bandpass / notch

Input and Output gain adjustment

Interpolated EQ and gain parameters - smooth changes when dragging the graph.

Nice, but please, give it more contrasted colors on the visual “balls” and curve, on hi res screen, it’s hard to get it

@linuxdsp that’s exactly what I need. I’m looking forward to it.

Neat, Mike. I look forward to its release.

dp

Ha, that’s a chance! Just checked the LinuxDSP page, and there it is released!
Already made a donation, waiting for key and looking forward to testing it out!

Best
Benjamin

Very cool! I have to test it more deeply, but the first impression is very good. Very good sounding, control is pretty intuitive, the drawing very fast!

More contrasted colors would be one thing, like phdemartin said, but then again you learn to handle everything within a minute. Just drag the balls, adjust Q with the scroll wheel, as well as the function (notch, low/high pass etc.) with the mouse scroll wheel at the bottom.

Best
Benjamin

linuxdsp, I really like the eq, but I would like to suggest an improvement to the gui: would it possible to draw how many db the signal is raised or lowered in the upper right (when the gain adjustment is used), where the kHz and bandwidth of each curve are also located?

PS Do you have plans to make a multiband compressor with visible compression curves? I have ALWAYS had trouble even finding one in any native linux format, and the only one I happened upon was the newer calf multiband compressor in SVN. In any case judging by how well all of your other lv2 plugins work and look, I think you could make a better one!

@tbonedude: Thanks for the suggestion, that would certainly be a worthwhile thing to add. I think the way that this is likely to go is that I’ll make a note of all the various comments and suggestions and assuming there is nothing ‘fundamentally wrong’ with the plugin then I will do a free update to it at sometime in the near future and incorporate the changes. This is the first time I’ve done a UI quite like this so I guess I’m learning too.
As to whether it will be any better than anything else - well, I just make these things the way I like them to be, and whether that’s necessarily better or worse than anyone else’s plugins is not for me to say. I certainly think there is already some very fine work from some of the other developers - maybe one or two small problems to smooth out but that’s true of most of these things and it’s the way things evolve.

+1 for the multiband compressor. Linuxdsp plugins are SO good I wish them the brightest future, the fact that they distort like analog gear when overdriven is an amazing plus and just sounds great.

@tbonedude

Jamin already has a linux native multiband compressor with frequency response, but of course having one from linuxdsp would make the cpu-hungry Jamin almost useless (except for the fact that it has an all-in-one mastering interface and it’s still a great software, sadly a bit outdated).

well, I did use jamin for a while, but it just didn’t sound as good to my ear. I’m currently mastering with a template I made for ardour, using GRAPH-EQ2, Calf Multiband Compressor, Barry Satan Maximiser, VC2, and an LADSPA Hard Limiter. Though I hope to soon replace the calf multiband compressor with something from linuxdsp soon (SVN Calf plugins always hog up WAY too much CPU)!

yes I also think linuxdsp plugins sound better than jamin. Does the satan maximizer sound good too?

yes, as long as you don’t over do it!

Cool Mike!!! Mono version? I’ll ask that of everything, because I like to use mono channels in the mixer and stereo for my busses or auxes. Thanks as always, you know I love your stuff.

Thanks, yes there are plans to do a mono version - a few people have now asked for that and its relatively easy to do. As I said previously, I think the way this will go is that I’ll make a note of the various comments and suggestions and do a free update at some time in the near future. That way, assuming there is nothing fundamentally wrong with it at the moment, people can still use it or try it out and then upgrade later once the new features or fixes have been added.

@linuxdsp

Looks like linuxdsp is not on kvraudio.com, that would be a big and free way to spread the word of how great your plugins are…

@vervelover - yes you’re right, but I’ve always thought of forums / sites such as KVR or Gearslutz etc as not really the places where linux users hang out, they tend to be Windows / Mac. There is a real problem with publicising the fact that this stuff exists (which is why I’m very grateful to Paul for putting a link on this site) and one of the problems is that other than this site I don’t think there is a central place where linux users go to get information e.g. about a minority pursuit such as pro-audio.

In my experience it tends to be that people either stick with what came with their distro - And sadly a lot of ‘standard’ distros still seem to ship Ardour 2.8.2 (and probably JACK 109 !) which means my plugins won’t work to full effect.

On this subject, I know there are good reasons why pre-compiled linux binaries of Ardour are not provided on this site, but I know that having to compile it is a major barrier for a lot of people - especially if they are coming from another OS such as Windows. They just don’t get the whole thing of trying to track down all the dependencies etc - even though Ardour is one of the more ‘friendly’ applications to build! For what its worth, I sometimes struggle to put all the pieces of the jigsaw together first time (probably because I normally use a Mandriva distro) - on my last Ubuntu install I just grabbed the pre-built version from dickmacinnis.com - something like that on this site would ease a lot of pain I suspect… But I digress.

The other way to publicise my work would be to include it in another distribution - many thanks to Gmaq for his help in this respect since inclusion in AV linux has helped reached a lot of people. However the inevitable ‘downside’ of inclusion in any distro is that people have no need to come to my site and are therefore not necessarilly aware of the need to donate - and I can’t stress enough how important it is that the site generates some income, since at the moment this is full-time work for me (and on a good month I can just about make a minimal living from it, but if I’m honest, it is a ‘subsistence’ wage and I’m fortunate that there are a few other people involved in the project who kindly give their time to help with testing etc for free) - There are some opportunities to improve this ‘on the horizon’ so we’ll see how that pans out over this year, but the truth is there is just not much revenue going to anyone in this business at the moment.

Sorry for the long post - but it seemed like a good opportunity to point out some of the difficulties (and practicalities) of making this stuff - programming is often the easy part! :slight_smile:

This EQ is awesome.

agreed