Sonimus

That thing is amazing and now my goto EQ for most EQing tasks.

SonEQ 2 is an amazing enhancement of its little brother SonEQ and SonEQ pro.
If you don't know these EQ here are the main characteristics of the SonEQ plugins family :
- It is a frankenstein equalizer plugins where each band is modeled after different famous EQ, and these EQ sounds so good
- Despite having few controls these EQ are very versatile : LP and HP filters, low band mimics a pultec shelf, and high shelf. Whatever you do with this plugin, it always sounds good !

This new version, sonEQ2, is way more expensive but believe or not, it sounds even better to my ears than the other iterations ! The sound is really something crazy.

The second new thing is a new very useful feature : it is now a modular EQ where you can add up to 16 bands of any of these "frankenstein" band, each with its on character. It also features integrated oversampling (with selectable rate) and the option to remove the labels/values on the knob to have the pleasure to mix only with ears.

Pros :
- great analog sounding.

- flexible yet simple
- great for mixing with the ears and not the eyes.

- great for working quickly.

cons :
-more expensive than its brothers.

Crazy free plugin, I really enjoy using this one, it's a kind of Pultec eQ, generous bass and lovely trebbles .

Also working with apple silicon M1 macs.

If you love the sonEQ, you ll love this one ! (and you ll support sonimus !).

It's a wonderfull coloring/tone shaping tool that never sounds bad and that contains history !
It is an homemade mix of famous analog units :

The drive is nice and adds low end presence, there's a pultec shelf for the lows, .

an agressive low-mid/mid band, a smooth high-mid bands, and wonderfull high-shelp trop produce air and shimmer .

There is also different high-frequency cuts filter/bands type, that allows to tame the high in a very musical way (different configuration of high shelf and low-cut filter that are perfectly connected to do the job)

Some examples of use :

- Pultec shelf and drive on drums/bass to shape the low-end with no mud.

- shimmer and agression on vocals with the high mid and shelf.

- tame high frequency of a violin in a musical way to let the vocals cut through the highs.

A good SSL sound quality at a cheap price .

I don't like using my eyes for tone shaping and place instruments in the mix. when it comes to tone shaping and make mixing decision, this is my go-to plugin ! (for surgical purpose, I still use IIEQ pro).

This plugin is not as popular as other sonimus, because when sonimus released it, the gui was awfull... but they correct it, and it is now worth the price.

This EQ makes the bulk of the work in my mixes :

- 4 bands, shape from precise narrow band to large musical band (it is a mix between brown and black ssl units).

- Nice low-cut and high-cut.

- low CPU usage when the drive is at 0%, a bit more with the drive on, which sound very nice by the way !

This plugin has become my most valuable tool during the mixing process. When I'm ready to mix, I use Britson Channel as my first insert on nearly every track (except for drums, where I find myself reaching for the seemingly-punchier SatsonCM instead), as a gain staging tool. For me, this plugin isn't just about the console sound; having a good VU meter, plus a set of very musical HP/LP filters, makes this one kind of a no-brainer for me. Gently rolling off the extremes of the frequency spectrum, in addition to dead-simple gain staging, really gets a track ready for a serious, productive mixing session. And after I've gone through setting all the Britson Channels up, I can just forget about them and get on with the mix. This is made even better by the fact that each instance uses hardly any CPU at all! I can load up a 40-track mix with the channel plug on every track (on my Intel i3 2.3GHz laptop) and still only be pushing 10-15% of my processor capacity.

Britson, when applied across a whole mix like this, really seems to make the mixing process more intuitive. It almost "suggests" certain things about the mix that weren't apparent before; I find it hard to explain, and it's definitely very subjective (and subtle). I've noticed that with the whole crosstalk/mojo/depth stuff going on, I am less inclined to instinctively slap an EQ/comp on everything; just setting up a mix with Britson gives me a baseline sound that I find rather pleasurable. However, there is some kind of high-end harshness (which is source-dependent) that really kind of sticks out when used on stuff like cymbals (which is partly why I use SatsonCM for those channels instead). There also seems to be some kind of "smearing" in the upper-mid range, which may or may not fit your style of music. It's not a bad thing, necessarily; it's just a thing that is. But again, it's subtle, and of course you don't have to put Britson on every single track in your project if you don't like it.

I use the Buss plugin for most of my busses, and even throw an instance on the master channel, making sure to set the crosstalk mode to Modern since it seems to pull the bass frequencies more toward the center. The buss plugin is subtle, but seems to impart this sense of depth and space that makes me want to explore the stereo field more than I usually do otherwise.

You can use a single instance of the channel plug as a saturation effect by using the output compensation switch, but I haven't really explored that too much since I already have a tool I like (SDRR) for the more obvious,"effect" saturation. I also haven't worked the Grouping feature into my workflow, since I've found that setting each channel plugin is pretty much "fire-and-forget."

I've never used a Neve console (or any large-format console for that matter) so I can't say how this compares to the hardware by which it was inspired. But I can say with certainty that I love what this product does for my mixes. I will go so far as to say that Britson has made the mixing process fun again, rather than a chore.

Extra points for the gorgeous, incredibly-easy GUI, and also the absolutely painless (lack of) copy protection.

The purchase was painless and I had the plugin installed just minutes after the transaction. And what a great price for such an indispensable tool! The e-mail with my login DID go to my spam folder in Gmail, however, so just be aware of that possibility. I am looking forward to acquiring more Sonimus products when my budget allows it.

(For context, I am primarily an instrumentalist and a songwriter, who is just now seriously getting into the engineering/mixing side of things).

Windows7 x64, REAPER 5 x64. Stability is rock-solid thus far.

This is an EQ you feel comfortable putting on all channels, it just cannot sound bad. Of course this is not a precise EQ for cutting that 208.3 Hz resonance on your acoustic guitar with a notch filter, this is a classic "sweetening" EQ. Usually I find myself boosting the bands instead of cutting, and even if you dial the high band knob to the right, it never sounds harsh.

It is practically impossible to destroy a signal with this one, that is, if you don't use the drive to get some saturation or distortion on purpose. The usage of the drive parameter is a bit unusual though, you need too boost the input, the drive and the bass band together and fine tune those parameters, but the drive sound itself is excellent and ranges from subtle saturation to nice distortion.

Regarding the Pultec style bass band I am not sure about the 20 and 30 Hz frequencies. They may be historically accurate, but I have found no use for them so far, I'd prefer an extra 80 and 120 Hz band. The mid band is the most flexible one, ranging from 150 to 4000 Hz and lets you choose between a higher and a lower Q. The hi band is the most simple one, but perfect for giving some air to muddy guitars or vocals. The high and low cuts are a welcome addition to the Pultec concept and make the plugin all in all quite versatile.

And last but not least the GUI is well-designed and good looking and guarantees a good workflow.

I bit the bullet and bought this a few days ago.

Honestly I like my other console emulations better for effect. But the nice filters and the really subtle effect with the good gain control kinda have me at a sorta happy spot. I used it on a project and thought it was okay but blended with my other console emulations and things got really nice really quick. I had the console bypassed just used the filters and gain. the bus part I did use pretty nice overall i would give it a 9 because of the quality looks and low CPU hit.

The saturation is very subtle but I do like the idea of a little goes a long way. The only problem I have with it is I notice a loss of low end when I try to get it to saturate just a little more. This can be expected but its a pretty noticeable when on bass heavy stuff and ends up not really helping so I like using it when I just need a small effect that my other console emulations and tape emulations just are to strong for if that makes any sense.

Over all I would say really really nice filters, It looks mega cool and the meters are just so nice. the gain control with the filters are my favorite things about this one. And I do not see my self wanting to ask for my money back even though i have other emulation that i prefer because its a great product and some times that really subtle effect but subtle does add up in a nice way and its really good when combed with something else.

EDIT:alright I edited and re rated this because after a few good full mixing projects I used it in just to say really used it. I found the filters amazing I am really loving the filters and personally find them to be high enough quality to warrant liking this plugin.

I LOVE when some free plugin kicks a**es of big payware. :) Have already few of them, rewieved few and probably will keep doing this, becouse I can't afford pretty much nothing else. :D

This EQ is example of that. So musical. I swear I heard character it adds in one YT tutorial where they gloryfied some Softube emulation.

In usual cases, especially with acoustical instruments, all you want to do really is low/high cut them and do little simple boost anyway, so I can't tell I don't miss something featurewise, parametric EQ is still parametric EQ, but as far as usability goes, you won't be limited that much. Hey, hear the sound, see missing pricetag! That's the main thing here! :)

Distortion is graeat. Really cool sounding. As always you need to watch out not overdoing that. Freeware plugins sometimes tends to behave crazy when overdriven too much, but can't tell here yet, didn't test it that long.

I usually cut basses too much so I didn't like it on (synth) basses too much. Could be different with acoustic though. But its great for all different leads, plucks, stabs, can imagine it on vocals too. Everything you can imagine runing through the Pultec in your dreams, you can run it trough this with good results. :)

Point down as a dev-poke, couse I'd love to see much more from them, seems like they know their way around DSP. :)

Loving it, love it too, download it and be happy! :)