Recording - August 2015 - 40

PLUG-IN OUTLET
Eiosis AirEQ Premium
by Paul Vnuk Jr.

In this review, we will be looking at a unique new take on equalization from the
mind of Fabrice Gabriel and his company Eiosis.
Fabrice is one of the world's foremost plug-in designers and circuit modelers. He
is responsible for the design of all of the Slate Digital plug-ins such as the Virtual
Tape Machines, Virtual Buss Compressors (reviewed in our October 2012 and
2013 issues respectively) and the new Virtual Mix Rack.
With his company Eiosis (don't worry, kids, he still works with Slate as well) he
has moved away from analog circuit modeling to design a plug-in equalizer that
uses digital to move beyond the limitations of analog. This EQ was a labor of love
and we at Recording saw three years of demos at NAMM and AES before Fabrice
felt it was ready for prime time.
We're actually going to be reviewing AirEQ Premium, which is the only commerciallyavailable version of AirEQ. It can be bought as is, or as an upgrade from AirEQ
Standard, a simplified version marketed solely for educational use.
The interface
AirEQ is a single screen interface, with a live updating EQ and Frequency spectrum on the top half, represented in a nice clean blend of vibrant yet gentle, wispy
colors. The lower half of the window contains all of the controls; if it was hardware,
it would remind me of classic 1970s home hi-fi gear.
A quick glance reveals a 5-band parametric EQ where the two outer bands offer
the option of Low/Hi shelving. There are also two adjustable filters, low- and highpass. Each of the five bands has a range of 30 Hz to 30 kHz and can be boosted or
Delivery: Web download
Formats: Mac OS X 10.7+ or Windows Vista/7/8, 32- or 64-bit; VST2, VST3,
AudioUnit, AAX, or RTAS (32-bit only).
Copy Protection: iLok hardware license key
License: Multiple installs, one active at a time with use of iLok
Documentation: PDF manual available for download
Price: $149 (upgrade from AirEQ Standard, $49)
More from: Eiosis, www.eiosis.com
40

RECORDING August 2015

attenuated ±18 dB. They have fully adjustable
Q ranges and you can even change the bell
from regular to steep. Additionally you can
name each band to help you conceptualize
what you are adjusting, for example setting a
1 kHz band to tweak string definition on a
bass guitar and labeling it "Strings."
An elemental EQ
In addition to these conventional controls,
AirEQ also sports a pair of sliders labeled
Character and Strength, as well as a pair of
controls next to the filters labeled Earth and
Air. The parameter choices on the Character
control are labeled Water, Neutral, and
Fire... hopefully by now it should be obvious
that a theme is emerging!
We will not spend much time on the standard EQ controls of the AirEQ, which do
function like a good EQ should in regard to
boosting, cutting, filtering, and so on. Instead
we will focus on the "elemental" functions
and how they make AirEQ stand out from the
pack, as well as a few other intuitive extras.
To get the full picture I would recommend
downloading the free demo and the full manual from Eiosis web site.
Earth and Air, Water and Fire
Earth and Air look like typical low and high
shelves, and they are hard to describe without
hearing them. Paraphrased from the manual,
the Earth setting is akin to adding the feel and
weight of a good transformer to your sound,
and Air adds an open naturalness to the top
end. I really like how these functions work in
tandem with the normal high and low shelving,
as well as the high and low cuts on the EQ.
The Water and Fire settings are even more
unique. They, according to the manual, "disassociate bandwidth and resonance." Let that
sink in! Now you can alter not only the typical bandwidth of an eq band, but its resonance as well.
The Water setting flattens out the curve
and is a very wide, natural sound for those
times when you want to add EQ, but not
hear EQ. Fire, on the other hand, adds a
very sharp resonant peak to any sound. This
is great for thrusting a snare out of mix with
a nice harmonic edge, as well as enhancing
acoustic guitar, electric guitar and more.
Don't even get me started about what this
range of controls can do as a sound design
tool on synthesizers... which interestingly is
what adjusting the Character curves reminds
me of. Also, in addition to controlling the resonance/peaks of every EQ band, the manual points out Shift/click/drag ways to assign
the Character control to individual or even
groups of bands.
Additional features
Speaking of Shift, clicks, and drags, there
are a lot of hidden extras to AirEQ. I have
already mentioned band renaming and
Character assignment per band. Another


http://www.eiosis.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - August 2015

Contents
Recording - August 2015 - Intro
Recording - August 2015 - Cover1
Recording - August 2015 - Cover2
Recording - August 2015 - 1
Recording - August 2015 - 2
Recording - August 2015 - 3
Recording - August 2015 - 4
Recording - August 2015 - 5
Recording - August 2015 - Contents
Recording - August 2015 - 7
Recording - August 2015 - 8
Recording - August 2015 - 9
Recording - August 2015 - 10
Recording - August 2015 - 11
Recording - August 2015 - 12
Recording - August 2015 - 13
Recording - August 2015 - 14
Recording - August 2015 - 15
Recording - August 2015 - 16
Recording - August 2015 - 17
Recording - August 2015 - 18
Recording - August 2015 - 19
Recording - August 2015 - 20
Recording - August 2015 - 21
Recording - August 2015 - 22
Recording - August 2015 - 23
Recording - August 2015 - 24
Recording - August 2015 - 25
Recording - August 2015 - 26
Recording - August 2015 - 27
Recording - August 2015 - 28
Recording - August 2015 - 29
Recording - August 2015 - 30
Recording - August 2015 - 31
Recording - August 2015 - 32
Recording - August 2015 - 33
Recording - August 2015 - 34
Recording - August 2015 - 35
Recording - August 2015 - 36
Recording - August 2015 - 37
Recording - August 2015 - 38
Recording - August 2015 - 39
Recording - August 2015 - 40
Recording - August 2015 - 41
Recording - August 2015 - 42
Recording - August 2015 - 43
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Recording - August 2015 - 46
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Recording - August 2015 - Cover3
Recording - August 2015 - Cover4
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