- in Production by Bobby Owsinski
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New Music Gear Monday: United Plugins FireEQ Plugin
I know what you were thinking when you read the title. “I have plenty of EQ plugins already. Why do I need another one?” I think all of us feel the same way, but if a plugin does something faster (especially) or better than what you have already, then it’s worth checking out. And that’s what you get with United Plugins FireEQ, an equalizer plugin with a familiar interface with a few new tricks up its sleeve.
If you’ve ever played with a graphic EQ, you know that it’s fast and easy to get what you need, mostly because of the visual nature of the individual frequency faders for the bands. FireEQ centers around 8 bands of graphic equalizer, with each band variable in frequency. Plus there are additional High and Low Shelf bands, also with variable frequencies. That’s where the similarities to a typical graphic EQ end.
Unique Features
At the top of the plugin are three large controls, Depth, Dark/Bright, and Magic, that set this EQ plugin apart from the rest.
Depth controls the overall amount of processing and acts like a dry/wet control while controlling the phase shift that equalizers incur. Dark/Bright is a quick-use control that adjusts a filter that allows you to make the sound brighter by amplifying treble and attenuating bass (values above zero), or vice versa. The Magic control is interesting because it adds dynamic processing that acts like a multiband compressor to even out the level of a signal.
What that means is that with just these 3 controls you can get a lot of quick EQ love out of this plugin before you even touch the other parameters.
But There’s More
That said, there are more parameters as well. There’s a Low Cut filter that’s adjustable from 0Hz to 500Hz, a Side-Kill control that adjusts the low-cut frequency of a filter on only the “side” portion of the mid-side signal to reduce any problems on bigger playback systems, and a Slope control that adjusts the slope of both Low-cut and Side-kill filters.
Top that off with an AGC (automatic gain control) that activates the automatic gain compensation so that the plugin can automatically match output loudness to the input, and you have an EQ plugin that’s very unique in its utility.
Probably the best part is that the FireEQ is now available at an introductory price of just $16USD (normally $108USD). It will work on Mac and PC, is 64 bit compatible, and utilizes sample rates up to 192kHz.
You can find out more here, or watch the video below for more details.
