New Music Gear Monday: FabFilter Pro-Q4 Equalizer Plugin

FabFilter has a stellar name in audio processing, with so many of its products central to the workflows of mixers all over the world. Probably foremost in its offerings has been its Pro-Q equalizer, which has steadily improved feature-wise with every version. Its new Pro-Q4 may be its best design yet, boasting so many new features that it’s almost impossible to cover them here.

Major New Features

Like its predecessors, Pro-Q4 has an outstanding user interface, enabling you to see the frequency spectrum of the input source as well as the EQ curve on top. If you thought it was easy before, that interface has now been improved. Its new EQ Sketch allows you to draw in the EQ curves and bands in one motion. Even better is that you can easily modify or start again with no problem at all.

In the new Spectral Dynamics mode, Pro-Q 4 allows you to trigger specific frequencies within a band when it exceeds the threshold, leaving other frequencies untouched. This is a more precise version of dynamic EQ that we’ve all grown to love.

And if you’re struggling with mix element masking, Pro-Q 4 can show every other instance of the plugin in one interface. You can even control them all from this single interface, easily navigating the list by filtering, pinning and zooming as desired.

And The List Goes On

Like I said, this plugin has a load of features that are more than I can detail here, so here’s a list:

• Professional mastering-grade EQ plug-in with up to 24 bands, a huge range of filter types, 6-96 dB/oct slopes for all filter types, plus Brickwall slopes for the High Cut and Low Cut filters 
• New: Draw response curves directly into the display with EQ Sketch
• New: Target problem frequencies with Spectral Dynamics
• New: Control all Pro-Q 4 instances in a session from a single interface with the Instance List
• New: Bring analog-modelled color and warmth to sounds with Character modes 
• New: Copy and Paste EQ curves between plug-in instances 
• New: Full-featured preset browser, with tags, favorites, search and filter functions, plus new factory presets 
• New: Fractional filter slope settings, so, for example, 3 dB/oct Low Cut or 14.2 dB/oct Bell filters can now be created 
• New: Apply phase adjustments with the All Pass filter type 
• New: Parameter editing directly in the EQ parameter value display via dragging or mouse wheel scrolling 
• Improved: Fresh new design, with resizable GPU-accelerated graphical interface and full-screen mode 
• Improved: Context-sensitive curve creation previews 
• Improved: Attack and Release controls for Dynamic EQ curves 
• Improved: Fine-tune Dynamic EQ response with sidechain filtering 
• Improved: Greater precision for Linear Phase mode 
• Improved: Better analog matching in Zero Latency and Natural Phase modes 
• Dynamic EQ option for every band 
• Natural, Zero Latency, and Linear Phase processing modes
• Per-band Stereo, Left, Right, Mid, or Side mode
• Surround support, supporting up to Dolby Atmos 9.1.6 with flexible surround channel linking
• EQ Match for imposing the tonal characteristics of one signal on another
• Spectrum Grab: grab and adjust filters directly in the spectrum analyzer
• Intelligent multiband selection and editing, and band solo mode
• Powerful real-time spectrum analyzer with separate mastering (3/6 dB) and mixing (12/30 dB) display ranges
• Piano Display switches the frequency scale to musical note values
• Plus: All the usual FabFilter features: perfectly fine-tuned knobs and controllers, interactive MIDI Learn, undo/ redo and A/B switch, Smart Parameter Interpolation for smooth parameter transitions, an extensive help file with interactive help hints, sample accurate automation, NEON and SSE optimization, and more

FabFilter Pro-Q4 costs $179, but there’s an upgrade discount if you own a previous version. It’s available for later operating system versions of PC and Mac, with a 30 day trial period.

You can find out more here, or watch the video below.