Developer Little Audio has released Little EQ, a new free tone-shaping EQ for Windows.
Little Audio designed the plugin to provide clarity, balance, and impact without harshness.
While Little EQ is clean, and the built-in saturation is typically used to add warmth and smooth sounds, you can push it into a distortion effect, too.
The plugin has three main sections: EQ, Saturation, and Presets.
The EQ section includes a high-pass filter ranging from 5Hz to 240Hz.
Little Audio used neural networks to recreate the sound of a homemade passive filter, giving the plugin its “mojo.”
Little EQ has three bands: Low, Mid, and High.
- Low – 80Hz – 480Hz
- Mid – 1.2kHz – 4.8kHz
- High – 5kHz – 18kHz.
The Low and Mid bands have three settings that determine the range of influence the band’s settings have: Wide (most), Normal (moderate), and Narrow (least).
For more EQ freebies, check out our best dynamic EQ and best linear-phase EQ articles.
Little EQ works well on vocals and acoustic instruments, but, as the demos show, it has something to offer synths and electronic sounds, too.
The developer also simulated the saturation of an EI96 output transformer to add another creative element to the EQ.
The Saturation section features three modes of increasing drive: Normal, Hot, and Broken.
The drive mode you choose impacts the Input Gain.
- Normal – reduces Input Gain by 10 dB
- Hot – Input Gain remains the same
- Broken – Increases Input Gain by 10 dB
The names of the drive modes are good indicators of the level of saturation or distortion you can expect, but you can manually adjust the Input Gain to fine-tune the effect.
You don’t need to have any level of saturation by default; you can turn it off if you’re looking to stay as clean as possible.
You can also keep the saturation turned on and use the available oversampling for a smoother sound.
The presets offer a varied range of sounds:
- Clean & Clear
- Thicken a little & clear
- Dirty & distorted
- A little brighter
Little EQ is available in VST3 format for Windows.
Download: Little EQ (FREE)
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