MadBee Audio has released Q-meleon, an interesting free equalizer effect in VST plugin format which allows the user to fully customize the EQ model under the hood.
This plug-in allows you to design your own equalizer by acting on parameters that change the curves behavior.
So, the idea behind behind this rather unusual freeware equalizer is to provide complete flexibility to its users. Once you load up the plugin, you can tweak various parameters under the hood in order to make Q-meleon behave as different types of equalizers. It’s sort of like an EQ chameleon, hence the name.
See also: Free Parametric Equalizers!
The current version of the plugin features a handy factory preset library which includes emulations of various well known equalizer models. Of course, it’s almost impossible to emulate a hardware equalizer perfectly, however Q-meleon can offer a nice approximation of the actual EQ model. Here’s what the developer has to say about this:
The sound of an EQ is not only attributable to the behavior of its curves, but also (including but not only) to the dynamic and harmonic response. So Q-meleon will never exactly like the gear it is trying to replicate, but you can have a really nice approximation. You can play with the type and amount of saturation to even get closer.
The download archive features two different VST plugins. One is used to create the actual equalizer models and save them as presets for later use. The other version of the plugin works as a standard EQ, based on the provided curve presets. Things could get quite interesting here, provided that someone will get busy emulating different equalizer models and sharing them with the rest of us as presets.
The plugin also features two different saturation modes (soft clipping with odd harmonics and tube emulation with even and odd harmonics) which serve the purpose of emulating the non-linear behavior of analogue equalizers. A very useful built-in help window will help you along the way of getting familiar with all the different curve editing parameters.
Q-meleon is actually MadBee Audio’s entry in the KVR Developer Challenge 2014, so good luck to them in the contest! I can’t wait to see what all the other developers have prepared for use this year, too.
Many thanks go out to BPB readers Thales F. and Irion Da Ronin for letting me know about this freebie. Seriously good stuff, cheers guys!
Download
Q-meleon is available for free download via MadBee Audio (15.6 MB download size, ZIP archive, 32-bit VST plugin format for Windows, made with SynthMaker/FlowStone).
Last Updated on July 31, 2014 by Tomislav Zlatic.
