Techivation’s latest release is a simple EQ designed to offer quick control over a source’s overall tonal balance. Despite its basic appearance, though, Tilt EQ does have an interesting trick up its sleeve, and employs harmonic saturation in a way that aims to set it apart from the competition.
Low- and high-pass filters are present, each sporting variable cutoff points and a choice of slopes. The bulk of the plug-in’s functionality is, as you’d expect, provided by its Tilt Band section. A Range parameter provides precise control over the tilt curve, allowing users to define the positions of the resulting cut and boost, while the overall amount of tilt applied is governed by a Gain control. Much like other tilt designs, the approach offers a quick and simple way of adjusting tonal balance: increasing the gain results in a lifted high-frequency response with a brighter, more open sound; reducing it heads in the opposite direction and leaves things sounding ‘warmer’.
Where Tilt EQ differs from similar processors is its Drive control. As you might expect, the dial is related to the plug-in’s harmonic distortion functionality, but rather than simply introducing saturation when the effect is being pushed harder, it ‘re-injects’ energy that’s removed by the tilt curve in the form of additional harmonics. Techivation say the approach helps to avoid tracks sounding ‘thinner’ while removing excess low-end energy.
In addition to its standard stereo operation, Tilt EQ can be switched into Mid-Side mode, and as with all of the company’s offerings, it includes a number of other helpful tools and functions. It’s possible to quickly audition different settings thanks to a built-in A/B comparison function, and there’s an automatic gain-compensation setting that ensures the output level remains consistent with the input. Finally, a Drive Quality setting offers four oversampling choices for the saturation effect — Standard (1X), Good (2X), Great (4X) and Ultra (8X) — allowing users to manage the balance between audio quality and system performance.
Compatibility
Tilt EQ is supported on PCs running Windows 7 and above, and Macs running macOS 10.11 or higher. VST, VST3, AU and AAX plug-in versions are available.
Availability
Tilt EQ is available now, and is free to download.
