KILOHEARTS CARVE EQ

How to claim and use this month’s incredible free plugin worth $79

See p82 plus instructions at File Silo (p81)

When we talk about EQ, invariably it’s a parametric, and in issue cm289 we furnished you with possibly our greatest giveaway yet, a full copy of Swedish developer Kilohearts Slice EQ. This month, Kilohearts return for the next installment and we’re very excited to bring you a full version of their graphic EQ, Carve EQ.

Graphic EQs tend to get used for overall shaping of stems, submixes and master mixes. However, Carve EQ is no ordinary graphic. The 31-band design is very easy to use and the curve-based interface is highly intuitive. In fact, with plenty of mouse tools to help you create the shape you want, it’s easy to forget you’re using a graphic EQ at all. Throw into the mix both stereo and mid/sides modes, and a handy mix blend that allows you to scale the overall gain, and you have a powerful, flexible EQ.

But Carve gets a whole further layer of functionality via its EQ reference and EQ matching capabilities. Basic options include simply referencing a curve from either source audio or over 50 categorised presets. More powerful features include full-blown match EQ of your current audio to the reference curves. And of course you can easily tweak the resulting curves to taste. Awesome stuff.

In this tutorial we’ll pull together these various aspects and show you how easy it is to do it, and there’s a bunch of tutorial files to follow step-by-step. All told, we think you’ll be impressed and ultimately it’s free, so what have you got to lose? Finally, if you like what you see, head over to www.kilohearts.com and check some of their other fantastic plugins.

MENU BAR Select additional tool-specific features including reference curves and tool size TOOLS Use the three main tools - Sculpt, Select and Pencil - to create and edit the EQ curve REFERENCE OR MATCH Select these icons to switch to one of these two modes STEREO Select between left/right and mid/sides modes TARGET CURVE The dotted curve is the currently selected target or reference curve FREQUENCY ANALYSER A line or bar graph, colour-coded to match the stereo mode ANALYSER SETTINGS Choose from line and bar graph options as well as decay speed MATCH SETTINGS Use these controls to adjust how detailed the match curve is and how much of it is applied EQ CURVE This shows the overall EQ curve created by the 31 band settings FINAL CURVE This curve shows the final output curve based on all the parameters including the Mix setting MIX Control the overall gain of the EQ curve