ViatorDSP releases Radiant Q, a freeware Pultec equalizer plugin emulation for Windows and macOS.
If you’re like me and recovering from the financial shock of too much money spent during the UAD sale, a freebie could be just what you need.
And this freebie is of the sort that everyone likes, namely a passive equalizer based around a true classic of audio engineering.
ViatorDSP’s Radiant Q wears its influences on its sleeves quite proudly, and you’ll get two guesses as to which classic piece of studio hardware has inspired it. Controls are extremely familiar if you’ve used one of the many clones, and emulations, or you’re lucky enough to have one in a nearby studio.
That’s right, folks, it’s a Pultec, but this one is a bit different. Now, I’ve noted before when covering ViatorDSP’s stuff that the releases don’t seem to impart any harmonics.
You’re getting the linear behavior but without that vaunted saturation. Radiant Q is much the same, but I think it is worth a look if you lack one of these in your arsenal.
You can readily do the Pultec trick on kicks, sweeten busses, and do just general broad-stroke tone shaping with the Radiant Q. It lacks the mid-frequency filter, which is a shame. However, what it does have is pretty familiar to any user.
You’ve got a low boost, low attenuation, high boost, high attenuation, and a bandwidth selector. So far, so good, right? I will say that I do love the gentleness of Radiant Q, especially as a general tone shaper.
I cut my teeth ages ago mixing my band’s demos on a clone unit and the worst Behringer 8-channel mixer you’ve ever seen. I digress, this is a fun little tool and one that has quite a wide variety of applications.
It’ll work just fine for shaping out the grunt and warmth of a bass guitar, adding heft to kicks, air to vocals, or easing off the harshness of hats and cymbals. If you’re new to mixing, you’ll likely want to play with Radiant Q.
Radiant Q is available for Windows and Mac computers. Supported plugin formats are AU and VST3. Radiant Q is Apple Silicon compatible.
Download: Radiant Q (FREE / Name a fair price)
More:
3 Comments
Neytcev
onThank you!
Lucas
onIf anyone’s interested, ViatorDSP’s Radiant Q isn’t the only Pultec emulation that foregoes the saturation/harmonics in its design, with another stand-out plugin that has a clean Pultec design being Bettermaker’s EQ232D. I understand that the draw of ViatorDSP’s emulation is that its free, while the Bettermaker is paid (though it’s pretty easy to catch it for $30 or even less, depending on the sale,) but I thought it deserved a mention for those who might want a clean Pultec with a more extensive feature set.
Tomislav Zlatic
onThank you, Lucas! Very helpful comment and thank you for the Bettermaker plugin reminder.