MusicRadar

Redline EQ features five separate bands.

View in gallery

• Review

We're big fans of 112dB's Redline Reverb, as it brings a lush, musical sound to a saturated market. Now the 112dB has released an EQ, Redline Equalizer, and most impressively, it lives up to the high standard that the company has set for itself.

The centre panel is dominated by a large graphical interface, which also has a useful spectrum analyser option (albeit with a nearly invisible pale grey colour scheme). Below this are the main EQ controls, with a high- and low-cut at either end and five parametric bands in the middle, each offering a more than ample 24dB of cut or boost, with frequency ranging from 10Hz to 28kHz.

You can also set the gain character – ranging from soft to surgical – which affects the interaction between the Q setting and the gain level. This can be handy for gentle sound-altering duties, as opposed to, say, cutting a specific frequency.

In detail

Each of the five parametric bands can be set to one of eight different algorithms, most modelled closely on classic kit. These are a basic digital and tube EQ, and modelled versions of six classic units: Neve 1073, 1081 and 1084 EQs, an SSL 4000E and an API 550A and 550B. You can freely mix and match them (eg, use a smooth type for your top-end and a clinical digital algorithm for punchy bottom-end).

One of our favourite features is auto-gain, which balances the volume of the signal so that the perceived loudness is around the same as the bypassed signal. Since a loud signal always sounds 'better' than a quiet one, this feature helps to ensure that the changes you're making are really improving the tone and not just making it sound better because it's louder. Auto-gain isn't perfect, but it is incredibly useful.

Quite unusual are the Phase Shift and Dynamic EQ sections, both of which offer up a level of control we're not accustomed to seeing. Analogue EQs and 'normal' digital ones introduce phase shifting, whereby some frequencies are delayed slightly in relation to others – a "frequency dependent delay," as the Redline Reverb manual puts it.

The results of this can be unpredictable, but in general, phase shifting causes a subtle 'smearing' of the signal, especially noticeable on transients. This isn't always a bad thing, and is even partially responsible for 'that analogue sound'.

However, if you want to adjust the frequency content without introducing phasing, you'll have to use a linear phase digital EQ. Redline EQ goes a step further, enabling you to sweep the phase shift from linear (ie, none), through typical analogue emulation… and beyond! The latter extreme won't be useful every day, but it is worth playing with on any rich sound source, as it adds some real character.