Kirchhoff EQ Better Than Fabfilter Pro Q 3

[Tim Smith]

I seen this on YouTube and wondered if anyone has experience using this EQ? Looks interesting.

Looks like Kirchhoff has a demo. Maybe I'll give it a try.

 

[Jacques Boileau]

And there others, 3 or 4, that have poped up on other channels, that have the same message.

But it does seem like a great product. Kinda swiss army knife with even more blades added! 

[Quick Math]

I have this EQ and sound wise IMO Kirchhoff EQ is better than Pro Q 3.

I actually don't really think the sound of pro Q is that good. Functionality and dynamic EQ function of Pro Q is great, so without a doubt it's great EQ. However, Pro Q's output is 32 bit floating point and you actually get low level noise.

You can test it with sine wave and use Span analyzer with widest dynamic range so you can actually see very low level noise when you use Pro Q. It's possibly a transaction noise, which Kirchhoff EQ doesn't have.

First I was using Pro Q and then found Prime EQ  and bought it but then found Kirchhoff EQ and I felt Kirchhoff EQ was even better and bought it. The sound different is probably neglegible at the end of the day and it could depend on the source, but if I have to compare, Kirchhoff EQ sounds marginally better to my ear. 

The thing I like about this EQ is that it has various EQ types. It doesn't have the non linearity of the hardware but it's interesting to try different kinds of EQ types. Pro Q doesn't have this.

I saw other YouTuber's video where he mentioned that he was asked to review the product. That said, I also think this EQ is one of the best digital EQ out there.

I haven't experimented the dynamic EQ function that much but as you can set attack and release, it's more complicated than Pro Q.

Edited April 27, 2022 by Quick Math
32 bit as in floating point

[Tim Smith]

Thank you @Quick Math for your comments in the Kirchhoff EQ. In my search for the best plugins, I attempt to buy the best, then another better one comes along. Such seems to be the case here. For master work I most often use Fabfilter Pro Q 3. I believe Pro Q 3 is 64 bit VST 3.

Have you used any of the Melda EQs ? I rate them a close second to Pro Q. Pro Q has some ground breaking features no other EQ had making the process of EQ easier. Can't say how Kirchhoff competes here so far as GUI. 

 

 

[bats brew]

Waves F6 plug does it for me.

 

[Starship Krupa]

On 4/23/2022 at 7:37 AM, Quick Math said:

Pro Q is 32bit

I'd hit that installer again. I don't have it, but there's no way that a premium industry standard plug-in like Pro Q is only available in 32-bit in this day and age.

[Tim Smith]

4 hours ago, batsbrew said:

Waves F6 plug does it for me.

 

Wasn't aware of Waves F6. I checked my Waves collection and I don't think I have it. Did some research. It's a very reasonable way to get into a dynamic EQ at Waves 29.00 asking price at this time. 

Has anyone mixed with Eiosis AirEQ?  Many report it being a fine EQ. I don't believe it's dynamic EQ though.

 

[Quick Math]

1 hour ago, Starship Krupa said:

I'd hit that installer again. I don't have it, but there's no way that a premium industry standard plug-in like Pro Q is only available in 32-bit in this day and age.

Well, that's not about installing 32 bit vs 64 bit plugin. I'm talking about 32 bit as in floating point vs 64 bit as in double precision. It's about how the plugin handle the incoming audio data and out put the audio. Pro Q, according to a forum comments, uses 64 bit DP calculation internally but the output is 32bit data.

 

 

[scook]

The number of channels and precision are indicated just below the plug-in in the FX rack.

For more info see the images midway down this page.

 

 

[Quick Math]

8 hours ago, Tim Smith said:

Thank you @Quick Math for your comments in the Kirchhoff EQ. In my search for the best plugins, I attempt to buy the best, then another better one comes along. Such seems to be the case here. For master work I most often use Fabfilter Pro Q 3. I believe Pro Q 3 is 64 bit VST 3.

Have you used any of the Melda EQs ? I rate them a close second to Pro Q. Pro Q has some ground breaking features no other EQ had making the process of EQ easier. Can't say how Kirchhoff competes here so far as GUI. 

 

 

I have MdynamicEQ and their free EQ. Functionality wise, I do like MdynamicEQ and I use it on every project on drums for harmonic dynamic EQ. I boost consonants of the key of the song, or attenuate dissonances dynamically. It's like tuning the drum set, like let's say you tune it to G and then enhancing frequencies of G, the multiplication of 49hz for kick, or 196hz for snare. I can easily add harmonics with Melda EQ.

MdynamicEQ is an indispensable tool for me but I don't really use dynamic EQ for mastering. I used to use EQ and multiband compression of Ozone. 

Kirchhoff EQ is like a lip off of Pro Q in terms of the GUI, so adding high pass and low pass can be as easy as Pro Q. Grabing peaking frequency is also easy. 

For mastering, LP10 by DDMF might be one of the most transparent EQ plugins out there as well, at least in the past, although it crashes on cakewalk so you need a wrapper plugin to load it, such as maybe element or mini modular host. I have CM Version of LP 10 and I have used it in the past.

 

Edit.

I actually have used MdynamicEQ on mastering to make the drum sounds stronger.

But I don't necessarily think it's a transparent EQ. So I don't know if it's great for mastering. I haven't really used other dynamic EQ plugins on mastering. But as I have Kirchhoff and Ozone 9 dynamic EQ now, I might first try them over MdynamicEQ. But to be honest I don't know.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 27, 2022 by Quick Math

[bats brew]

15 hours ago, Tim Smith said:

Wasn't aware of Waves F6. I checked my Waves collection and I don't think I have it. Did some research. It's a very reasonable way to get into a dynamic EQ at Waves 29.00 asking price at this time. 

Has anyone mixed with Eiosis AirEQ?  Many report it being a fine EQ. I don't believe it's dynamic EQ though.

 

yes, the F6 is a well built, more 'modern' plug by waves....

it's able to add color, OR be transparent.

i'll use it as the front end on mastering sometimes, tho i try to NOT need eq on the mastering end of things.

it has nice hpf and lfp abilities, but the dynamic eq is the dealio.

[bats brew]

the other great thing about F6,

is the side chaining.

[Tim Smith]

13 hours ago, Quick Math said:

I have MdynamicEQ and their free EQ. Functionality wise, I do like MdynamicEQ and I use it on every project on drums for harmonic dynamic EQ. I boost consonants of the key of the song, or attenuate dissonances dynamically. It's like tuning the drum set, like let's say you tune it to G and then enhancing frequencies of G, the multiplication of 49hz for kick, or 196hz for snare. I can easily add harmonics with Melda EQ.

?

13 hours ago, Quick Math said:

MdynamicEQ is an indispensable tool for me but I don't really use dynamic EQ for mastering. I used to use EQ and multiband compression of Ozone. 

I  use Mdynamic EQ or similar on master in mixes where the mids in the 300-500 hz range are overpowering.  A common problem with mic'd acoustic guitars. Of course I try to eliminate this at the track level but sometimes these freqs build up on the master and need taming. An EQ with low cpu load is ok on track channels too. I have no problem attempting to catch some of it at the track level. This is usually my first thing to do if it's necessary. I'm in the habit of going for Pro Q 3 even on tracks in a small mix for anything with accentuated mids. If it's a larger more demanding mix, then I'll use an EQ with less demand on the cpu. I find most of the other frequency issues are easily dealt with using almost any decent EQ. Sometimes an overly aggressive pluck or drum hit will need a dynamic. If I have a bass clash problem I'm attempting to side chain to knock down one of the offending  tracks.

13 hours ago, Quick Math said:

Kirchhoff EQ is like a lip off of Pro Q in terms of the GUI, so adding high pass and low pass can be as easy as Pro Q. Grabing peaking frequency is also easy. 

I'm guessing you mean they are similar in this way? I think the large GUI and monitor functions aside from the dynamic functions are what makes the Pro Q one of my favorites.

14 hours ago, Quick Math said:

I actually have used MdynamicEQ on mastering to make the drum sounds stronger.

But I don't necessarily think it's a transparent EQ. So I don't know if it's great for mastering. I haven't really used other dynamic EQ plugins on mastering. But as I have Kirchhoff and Ozone 9 dynamic EQ now, I might first try them over MdynamicEQ. But to be honest I don't know.  

 

I agree it Mdynamic isn't entirely transparent as an EQ. And you bring up a good point here. This is the reason I looked for a better EQ, especially on the master- Transparency. I think it's hard to design an EQ that's totally transparent. In what way would you say it isn't transparent? Can you hear distortion or fudging between the filters? My ears might not be quite that good.

[Tim Smith]

7 minutes ago, batsbrew said:

the other great thing about F6,

is the side chaining.

I'm going to kick myself if I try F6 and it's as good as the Pro Q LOL.

[bats brew]

i believe it is.

 

use the RTA version.

 

[Tim Smith]

Darn my foot won't reach around there.

[Quick Math]

Well, with good digital EQs I feel it's difficult to make it sound bad, or ruin the sound. It's like simply naturally boosting certain frequency rather than making it sound harsh or noisy.  With most of 32 FP EQs, you could have more noise depending on the input level. Also when you boost, the noise is boosted as well. 

Also the filter structure apparently does matter to the sound and the transient, and that's probably one of the reasons why I often felt some EQs were better (more natural, smooth transparent, etc.) than others.

Three Body Tech has a blog artcle explaining these things, so you can hear the difference of filter structures as they provide some demos.

https://blog.threebodytech.com/127.html

One day I was demoing various EQ plugins and I was really surprised how good prime EQ was. So, maybe you can demo Prime EQ or Kirchhoff EQ against Pro Q and maybe, probably you can feel the difference as well like I did. 

 

 

[Tim Smith]

Great little article there. Thanks! It is interesting to see the thinking that goes on behind some of these plugins. I'll be giving these demos a try. I need to look for material that brings the differences out best.

While EQs  like the Pultec are often emulated for good reason. Mainly the great characteristics that old hardware EQ had especially in mid range focus bringing out detail with just the right amount of distortion in a positive way.

To take  EQ into the future I think we need to get away from emulations and look at just making a good accurate EQ or maybe an EQ  with several characteristics if the user wants them, such as the Kirchhoff. After using a dynamic EQ I would never want to go back.It seems designing one in the linear fashion is the best way.

There are some wonderful EQs out there still using lots of knobs in the GUI. Many of us use a mouse to control if we don't have a controller, so in the DAW world these more recent GUIs make a lot more sense to me. We can grab control easier by grabbing a point on the EQ plane and simply moving it around.

I'm not saying I don't use the older EQ emulations occasionally, but I much prefer the other ways. While I'm  not a preset user, I will use presets to get close. As music and frequencies don't change outside of what we know and can hear, once a system is understood, there is no need to keep toying with it for me. In that case a slightly modified preset on a knobs based emulation might be ok.

I would rather color things myself instead of relying on baked in tube or distortion color in a plugin, but that's me. So clean filters are my preference. I can always add console emulation, tube saturation, tape saturation later. The color was generally never there originally by intention in that older hardware but it proved to be beneficial.

[Quick Math]

Yeah, Kirchhoff EQ offers various EQ types of analog hardware, such as Pultec. But It's clean linear EQ, so you can add saturation later. 

But I am not sure if that's the easiest or simplest workflow for everyone.

I make music completely in the box without any external instruments nor hw. I feel I need to use whatever I can to optimize the sound. So, clean EQ is actually good for surgical tasks.

While Profession mixing engineers could probably use professionally recorded audio sources so they probably don't need to fix in the mix so they could rather stick to analog emulations with few nobs rather than digital EQs that offer millions of choices which might be more time consuming.

I usually spend a lot of time and use various kinds plugins for mixing, so I feel like trying mixing with only a few analog emulations to see how it sounds... 

Btw, I was comparing the sound of Kirchhoff EQ against Crave 2 yesterday, by using hofa blind plugin, on a synth lead sound with one bell boost in analog setting in both EQs. I actually almost always picked Crave 2 over KH but then I changed the setting regarding the filter structure of KHEQ, which was added on newer version and set to checked by default, to unchecked, I picked KHEQ over Crave EQ all the time.

When I bought KHEQ there was no such setting(=unchecked) and tested it against other EQs including crave EQ and liked KHEQ and that was why I bought it back then. So I was a bit surprised when I first preferred Crave EQ to KHEQ yesterday, but now I again liked KHEQ over Crave EQ.

 

 

[Tim Smith]

On 5/1/2022 at 10:27 PM, Quick Math said:

Yeah, Kirchhoff EQ offers various EQ types of analog hardware, such as Pultec. But It's clean linear EQ, so you can add saturation later. 

But I am not sure if that's the easiest or simplest workflow for everyone.

I make music completely in the box without any external instruments nor hw. I feel I need to use whatever I can to optimize the sound. So, clean EQ is actually good for surgical tasks.

While Profession mixing engineers could probably use professionally recorded audio sources so they probably don't need to fix in the mix so they could rather stick to analog emulations with few nobs rather than digital EQs that offer millions of choices which might be more time consuming.

I usually spend a lot of time and use various kinds plugins for mixing, so I feel like trying mixing with only a few analog emulations to see how it sounds... 

Btw, I was comparing the sound of Kirchhoff EQ against Crave 2 yesterday, by using hofa blind plugin, on a synth lead sound with one bell boost in analog setting in both EQs. I actually almost always picked Crave 2 over KH but then I changed the setting regarding the filter structure of KHEQ, which was added on newer version and set to checked by default, to unchecked, I picked KHEQ over Crave EQ all the time.

When I bought KHEQ there was no such setting(=unchecked) and tested it against other EQs including crave EQ and liked KHEQ and that was why I bought it back then. So I was a bit surprised when I first preferred Crave EQ to KHEQ yesterday, but now I again liked KHEQ over Crave EQ.

 

 

Thanks for this info. Yeah a blind test is certainly the best. Hofa blind plugin? I didn't know this existed. A handy way to check what you really like for sure.

Did you find this for  a better price than it normally is? I would love to see a 50% off sale on this.