A three-band EQ with movable crossovers: the classic mixer tone stack. Low and high are shelves, mid is the band between them, and the panel draws the curve the three bands make together.
What it does
Guide and controls
Controls
- Low, Mid and High boost or cut each band by up to 18 dB. Low is everything below the low crossover, High everything above the high crossover, and Mid the band in between, where most instruments live, so small moves there go a long way.
- Low Freq (50 Hz to 1 kHz) sets where the low shelf hands over to the mid band. Moving it down tightens the bottom; moving it up pulls body into the Low control.
- High Freq (1 to 10 kHz) sets where the mid band hands over to the high shelf.
- Mix blends the equalised sound against the dry one. At full it is a normal EQ; pulling it back gives parallel EQ.
The curve has three handles. Drag the low and high handles to change both frequency and gain; the mid handle changes gain only. The mid band always sits halfway between the two crossovers and spans them, so moving a crossover also moves and reshapes the mid band. The curve is drawn from the settings, not measured from the audio.
Getting started
EQ is a mono audio effect: play a recording, a guitar or a voice through it. Start with a factory preset:
- Default: all three bands flat.
- Clean Up Mud: cuts the boxy region and lifts a little air.
- Smile: scooped mids with lifted ends. Big on a full mix, unhelpful on a voice.
- Telephone: both ends gone, mids pushed, like a handset.
- Presence Lift: a gentle lift where a voice cuts through, with the low end tightened.
- Warm Tilt: weight added low, brightness taken off the top.
How it works.
Three cascaded biquads: a low shelf at the low crossover, a high shelf at the high crossover, and a peaking band centred between them. Their responses multiply, which is why the displayed curve is the product of the three and not three separate humps.
The curve on the panel is computed rather than measured. Each band's coefficients come from the RBJ cookbook formulas and are evaluated directly as the magnitude response, so the drawing matches what the filters will do without needing an analyser running.
In the browser preview the three bands run as cascaded Web Audio biquads carrying the same coefficients the curve is drawn from, so the picture and the sound are the same filter. That preview is a stand-in for the compiled kernel rather than the kernel itself - the paths are the kernel's, so the real filter drops in without a rename.
What would you make with EQ?
Describe what you want to make. Build it with the Studio agent.
