Kuassa has just released a new update for its 3-band EQ plugin, BasiQ. The original plugin was free, and this latest update, BasiQ2, remains free.
BasiQ2 is Kuassa’s emulation of a “classic shelving Baxandall Equalizer” known for its slick slope and musical tone.
The original BasiQ featured a simple 3-band EQ interface, which allowed you to “add presence, clear the mids, or boost the bass as necessary.”
This is a nice approach for mixing and mastering. Use the plugin as a “sweetening tool” rather than a surgical EQ that you’d use for hunting down resonances and such.
Since you’re limited to only 3 bands, you can make decisions quicker, and with this plugin, you also get the natural sound of the analog Baxandall unit.
BasiQ2 features the same 3 bands, but with an overhauled GUI and some extra controls.
They’ve added low and high pass filters that will help you clear up the sub-frequencies and the nasty top end of your mix.
In BasiQ2, you’ve also got a preset manager and an A/B comparison setting to quickly pick between different settings.
The GUI is now resizable and allows the user to choose a landscape or portrait orientation for the plugin. This can be great for optimizing the plugin for your workflow.
There is also a new dark and light mode with a sleek look and design. For context, here is what the original BasiQ looked like.
I have to say I slightly prefer how the knobs looked in the original. But I appreciate the resizable UI and the dark mode addition.
A lot of us these days work with high-resolution screens such as 1440p and 4K, where GUI scaling can be problematic. So, having a resizable plugin is always welcome.
If you’re looking for a spectral frequency analyzer, be sure to check out Excite Audio’s Vision 4X Lite, which you can grab for free for a limited time!
BasiQ2 is available for Windows and macOS in VST3, AU, and AAX formats.
If you happen to use Reason, stay tuned, as they have a Reason Rack Extension format “coming soon”.
Download: BasiQ2 (FREE)
More:
- The Spice all-in-one sonic enhancement plugin by Phil Speiser is FREE for a limited time
- Instead of Spending Big on a Pultec EQ, Try Analog Obsession’s FREE Poortec!
Last Updated on January 18, 2025 by Tomislav Zlatic.
