Solstice is slowly at the door and I’ve got a freebie you might been waiting for ๐ Or maybe not. Anyway, the astronomical year is ending (on northern hemisphere, that is) and with it I can announce the finishing of the key components of Signal Noise line of mixing tools (*). What a synchronicity. So, here I go…but first the obligatory image that says more than thousand words.
The beauty that’s the beast ๐
I have to confess that creating a channel EQ was what got me into DSP in the first place. I wanted one, single EQ I could slap on any channel that would do the basic things for which I used to use 2-3 different plug-ins.
Hence SN04-G was born. It took me some fancy detours (SN01 – SN03), which were in hindsight inevitable (and a lot of fun), but I’m finally here. Well, I was never not here, but that’s a completely different topic ๐ .
So, let me introduce this beautiful beast.
SN04-G is a hybrid character 3-band channel EQ plug-in with basic surgical capabilities. It features a LP/HP section, adjustable output volume and phase, and optional โanalog modelingโ. It’s designed with ASIO/CPU footprint that allows it to live across all channels of a project without taking away as much of the resources as an insert slot – well, almost โ it has to do some processing, after all :D.
From the manual ๐
As usual, SN04G comes as a VST (currently Win only) in 32-bit as well as 64-bit format. Initially, I thought about releasing the GUI-less version too, but with 20+ parameters with more than half of them switches (and not just two or three way ones), it was not exactly the epitome of ease of use 
— so, this time, there’s only a version with GUI. (EDIT 2020/01/30: As of v1.20 there is a GUI-less version for those really adventurous.)
Now, for the features:
- HF: +/-18dB shelf or bell filter with variable bandwidth and switchable frequencies of 1.1kHz, 2.2kHz, 3.9kHz, 5.8kHz, 8.2kHz, 10kHz, and 12kHz
- MF: +/-18dB bell filter with variable bandwidth and switchable frequencies of 0.22kHz, 0.36kHz, 0.7kHz, 1.6kHz, 3.2kHz, 4.8kHz, and 7.2kHz
- LF: +/-18dB shelf or bell filter with variable bandwidth and switchable frequencies of 35Hz, 45Hz, 60Hz, 110Hz, 220Hz, 300Hz, and 400Hz
- HPF: slope of 6dB, 12dB, 18dB, and 24dB per octave, with frequencies 15Hz, 45Hz, 70Hz, 160Hz, and 360Hz
- LPF: slope of 6dB, 12dB, 18dB, and 24dB per octave, with frequencies 18kHz, 14kHz, 10kHz, 8kHz, and 6kHz
- bell filter bandwidth proportional to gain and frequency
- symmetrical and asymmetrical modes for boost/cut (bell filter only)
- “American” and “British” shelving modes
- output gain +/- 25dB
- phase invert at output
- optional very basic “analog modeling”
- mutable bands for quick A/B comparisons
Hm, pretty long list for such a simple thing as a channel EQ — anyway, happy upcoming solstice and stay well equalized…
…and of course, enjoy ๐
(*) Not that I plan to stop developing SN line any further, but except for (possible) updates to previous releases, all new ones will be either EQs, compressors, or utilities as it seems.
Sender Spike 
What about making a gate or a limiter next time?
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Good question. Would you believe I have never used a gate in my life? So, I have no experience and thus no knowledge about what a good gate should look like. As for limiter, you can use SN01-G compressor as a brick-wall limiter. Max out its ratio and you have flat horizontal line.
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I’m not surprised, gates aren’t exactly popular. Another good choice would be a delay, a reverb is too complex and there has been some good reverbs been given away.
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Ah, I plan on making some effects (delay/echo, chorus, ring mod, etc. — I have some great stompboxes I’d like to transfer into digital), but they would be outside of SN line of mixing tools in their separate SB line (“[s]tomp[b]ox” — call me imaginative :lol:). As for reverbs, recently I came across free Ambient Reverb by Stone Voices, so I won’t even try – it’s fabulous!
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Itโs a beauty. Will there be a Mac version? Also you should look at converting it to a rack module for VCV Rack and Voltage Modular. ๐
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I plan to make Mac versions when my Patreon campaign hits the second goal post. But those modular racks picked my interest (I didn’t know they exist). Especially VCV Rack, even though Voltage Modualr looks interesting, too. Thanks for tips.
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Voltage Modular recommend! I love it.
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Congratulations on completing your plugin. Looking foward to putting it to good use ๐
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Thanks. Yeah, I’m very pleased with it. Yesterday we had a conversation over at GS and so I run some subjective tests against one of my HW channel EQs (Joe Meek ThreeQ). I was very pleased with what I’ve heard. I hope you’ll find good use for SN04G, too. Happy equalizing ๐
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I’ve snagged yr compressor and now this EQ! Thanx tons! I’ll try to spit something into yr patreon (sic?) fund one of theez paychecks ๐
I own a hardware Joe Meek British Channel I’ve had since 2000, lol. Back b4 DAWs, I’d sometimes room-record myself and some other victim in 2 trax, using the Meek on one side, and a Presonus BlueTube on the other. That’s the sort of thing that happens when Texas hillbillies try to be The Buzzcocks… o-O Well, it would turn out not bad, lol. I’m such a hard Joe Meek poseur, I’ve bought a Joe Meek branded condensor mic, sight unheard, just because it said “Joe Meek” on it. Fortunately, it’s a good mic. Cheers and thx again!
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I think that starting from some quality point it’s just a problem of noise. I’ve bought my ThreeQ without first listening to it, too, fingers crossed that it will live up to it’s name. And I was mightily relieved when I first tried it — compressor is simply fantastic (vocals and base, not so much for anything else), EQ is up there with the best, and preamp, too. It’s just a bit more noisy than the top of the cream/price brands. The same luck I’ve had with a Behringer tube preamp (this one is truly completely up there – perfect sound, dead silent – directly compared it to preamp of TL Audio tube compressor). But back to Joe Meek — I think that one cannot go wrong with (sort of) his stuff. After all, he is one of the people to whom is attributed the coinage of the phrase, “If it sounds good, it is good” ๐
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Hi!
Great EQ!
It has become my mixer’s default Buss EQ replacin a very famous API clone from the “W” company.
It took two test mixes to change a years old preference. Congrats on the great achievement.
As for bugs detected, i can’t seem to enter values directly. I can write the numbers i want (sometimes) but they’re not accepted. It’s necessary to rotate the buttons with the mouse.
A couple of requests/suggestions:
1. could you please enhance the “fine” adjustment option in the Gain buttons? Maybe by using SHIFT+Mouse drag/Mouse Wheel it would be nice if the Gain would move by tenths of dB.
2. could you please lower the brightness of the yellow switches when they’re in the Off position? I keep turning them On just to see if they’re On or Off.
They’re fine when they’re On but are probably a bit too bright in their Off position.
Keep up the great work!
I am very thankful and really appreciate your SN04G EQ
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Thanks very much for feedback. Text input is something I already messed with (i.e. I changed the default behavior), so I may have screwed something there. I’ll look into it.
As for you suggestions:
ad 1) that’s what I’m working on right now, i.e. mouse-drag -> increment by whole units, shift+mouse-drag -> increment by tenths of units
ad 2) ok, goes into TODO list
Once again, thanks ๐
EDIT: Regarding the text input, I forgot to ask — what DAW are you using?
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Regarding the text input, I forgot to ask โ what DAW are you using?
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. Magix Sequoia 15 in two different systems: same problem.
. Adobe Audition 13: working!
. Izotope RX7: working!
Glad you asked about the DAW because i hadn’t checked the other programs i use.
Since i’ve never used SN04-G in those other programs i never thought of performing the test there.
It’s a bug related with Sequoia.
I see users mentioning other incompatibilities with Samplitude and Sequoia but so far, from the plugins i use, i have never noticed any other than this text entry bug.
Maybe the problem is not on your EQ!
Anyway, i keep using it as the Master Bus EQ.
Congrats!
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Congratulations! I love your plug-ins, sounds really good and better than some paid software, this plugins become my everyday tools, the GUI help me work more with my ears than eyes, I hope support you at pantreon soon.
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. Magix Sequoia 15 in two different systems: same problem.
. Adobe Audition 13: working!
. Izotope RX7: working!
Glad you asked about the DAW because i hadn’t checked the other programs i use.
Since i’ve never used SN04-G in those other programs i never thought of performing the test there.
It’s a bug related with Sequoia.
I see users mentioning other incompatibilities with Samplitude and Sequoia but so far, from the plugins i use, i have never noticed any other than this text entry bug.
Maybe the problem is not on your EQ!
Anyway, i keep using it as the Master Bus EQ.
Congrats!
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Thanks for info. I already looked into it and there *was* a bug in EQ, e.g. I checked it in Reaper and I had to unpin the FX rack, because otherwise the text box ended up hidden behind all windows (Cubase and Bandlab Cakewalk are ok). So, for now, you may try to make the plugin window *not* “always on top” (if there’s such a feature in Sequoia). I should have an installer of the old Samplitude LE 9, I’ll look if I can reproduce the problem there (code bases seldom change at such a deep level, so chances are that I may be able to reproduce it–especially that part about not accepting values even if you managed to enter them somewhat bothers me). Thanks for feedback once again and stay tuned–if everything goes according to plan, the bugfixes and upgrades should be online within this week.
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Ok, Samplitude 9 was too old, but Samplitude 11 did the trick. There was a bug/shoddy implementation of text edit (on my part) in the EQ, indeed. The fix will be released in upcoming days (1-2 if all goes right). Thanks again for letting me know.
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Awesome!
Your dedication is indeed appreciated and admired.
Now, other than really enjoying the SN04-G EQ i am also well impressed by your support and dedication.
Congratulations!
As for my suggestions and oppinions, you’re welcome.
I only commented because i was really surprised at how good SN04-G sounds especially considering i simply “stumbled” upon your page. Pure chance!
Thankyou for your work!
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Maybe it’s the result of my upbringing or maybe I’m just too attached to the fruits of my work ๐ Either way, doing everything at 100% feels like the right way to go about things. Still, many thanks. I must confess that being appreciated and admired feels good ๐ Anyway, as you probably noticed the updates are already online, so if you happen to stumble upon any further bugs/problems in the new version, just drop me a message ๐
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Great work!
i can’t detect any bugs or “to do” things in SN04-G.
Working flawlessly in Sequoia 15 and i also see several other improvements that are working 100%.
Thanks for noticing user’s posts with suggestions.
I’m really happy with your work and with SN04-G’s sound.
It’s definitely THE default Master BUSS EQ for me now.
Thankyou!
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Thank you very much. I wish all users were like you — not only reporting problems, which is invaluable (and essential) for further improvement, but also coming back and tell the developers when those problems were successfully ironed out. I must say that it alleviates a huge amount of uncertainty in this already uncertain universe. Many, many thanks once more. And stay well equalized ๐
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Just one more thankyou note:
the dimmed brightness in the Off switches is just perfect!
Awesome!
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Honestly, if you didn’t bring it to my attention I would not notice that e.g. people with color vision deficiency have absolutely no way to tell if the buttons are on or off. Small details, but huge impact. And I must say that I like it this way (dimmed) much much more–in terms of usability as well as aesthetically.
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Ty mate
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Thanks for this plugin, it’s really CPU friendly and sounds good! Unfortunately, without fully parametric bands I cannot use it for mixing across all groups or busses. Do you think a fully parametric channel EQ could be something to work on in the future? Maybe the 4-band-thing you were talking about but with fully parametric bands, would be so awesome!
As for SN04, I think you should review the GUI-less version or just don’t offer it. Someone hinted at it before: The controls don’t make any sense in the Gui-less edition. Frequencies are said to go from 0.000000001 or so to 1.000000 Hertz and such. Plus, all bands are the same range. When you set the mid band for 740 or something in GUI-less, and then switch to GUI (Reaper can switch between GUI and non-GUI), then it does not show anything close to 700 on the knobs but 3.2 kHz.
When someone said it earlier that you were using all units wrong, like Hz, ms, and so on, I think he referred to all the GUI-less versions of your plugs being essentially faulty. You should check this or just take them down.
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Yes an EQ with 4 bands and continuous freq. controls (think Portico/SSL + all the bells and whistles of SN04) is among planned things.
As for GUI-less versions – please, refer to “addendum for GUI-less plug-ins” (downloads > manuals). In short, all parameters are inserted as percentages from 0 to 100 and displayed as a value from 0 to 1 (again, in GUI-less versions). Unit names are there as a guideline. It’s a common way all GUI-less plugins operate out of the box. Btw. who mentioned that I use the units in a wrong way? I certainly don’t remember having such conversation with anyone, but maybe you can refresh my memory.
All in all, thanks for your concern, but the plug-ins will stay as they are as they work as intended.
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Thanks for your reply! I searched the comments on this page and cannot find the original post which made me check the GUI-less versions myself. So I think it was on some audio forum page that someone said the units/controls didn’t make sense in the non-GUI-VSTs. Sorry, I confused this, I thought it was posted here on your page.
Anyway, back to my initial concerns: When I use the GUI-less version of SN04 based on your hint that it uses percentage – I set the mid band to 0.5 which would equal 50%. Since the band covers 220 – 7200 Hz in GUI version, which is a span of 6980, 50% of that would be 3490 Hz. However, set to 50% it is definitely not boosting 3.49 kHz. It is, however, also not boosting 3.2 which would be close, but rather some frequency much lower.
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That’s because the freq. control is a switch and you cannot outwit it to work in a continuous way. As I said, pls. refer to “addendum for gui-less plugins” (a text file you can download in download section). In that file are listed values corresponding to switch positions for all plugins. For EQ freq. refer to this table:
The first row is the slider value, the rest should be obvious. Btw. I double-checked it and found out that it’s safer to insert values slightly greater (+0.01 or +1% should do it) to actually make the switch move to correct position (there is also a typo in the table, can you spot it?). Well, as I said elsewhere — using SN04 in GUI-less mode is not for the faint of heart ๐
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I love this EQ, but I have some little complaint about the control: Drag the outer knob feels not very easy, and when I want to drag the outer knob on the HF band all the way up to 12k, my mouse cursor reaches the border of my screen. I’m aware that the numbers are clickable, but I think most of the time we want to move continuously. It would be great if we can use mouse wheel to control the gain, ctrl + mouse wheel to control the freq, and shift + mouse wheel to fine control the gain.
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Thanks for feedback. I like the mouse wheel idea and it goes into my TODO list. As for continuous movement – there is no continuous movement for those outer frequency knobs. Whether you drag them with mouse or click the numbers, they always move in steps as there are no frequencies “in-between”. If you just mean that you simply like dragging the knob to change its value as opposed to other means of manipulation, I hear you, but you can still drag the knob from side to side (as opposed to dragging it from bottom to top and vice versa) to achieve the same effect and remain within the bounds of your screen. The drag distances are sort of a compromise to make the knobs feel not too loose and not too stiff at the same time, but I would guess that the meanings of “stiff” and “loose” are largely a matter of personal preference. Alas, I have currently no plans to implement customizable mouse sensitivity. So, that’s that. Anyway, thanks for feedback once again ๐
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Glad you like the idea, and thanks for the trick of dragging horizontally ๐ By “move continuously” I actually mean “move in steps”, by dragging / mouse wheel / any “moving in one direction”.
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Ah, I thought so (dragging / mouse wheel / etc.), but I was not completely sure. Anyway, thanks for your support once again ๐
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Hi. Thank you for this great equalizer. I was wondering if you had any plans to add preset manager to any of your plugins? It would be especially useful in an eq and compressor. Also, how did you decide which frequencies to set in each band of SN04-G Channel EQ? If it’s not a secret.
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Thanks. I don’t plan to add a custom preset manager, but you can still use DAW’s default preset management functionality for that very purpose (all DAWs I ever tried have some form of plugin settings management, e.g. in Cubase it’s fxp/fxb, the same works in Reaper, Reaper has also its own format IIRC). As for frequencies in SN04, to quote myself ๐ (https://www.gearslutz.com/board/showpost.php?p=14410980&postcount=28):
“HP – it’s straight from Neve 1084 […] when it comes to HP/LP frequencies, I’ve just added the 15Hz option to HP (a lot of sources I use have plenty of energy down there). LF is a combination of 1084 and API 550A to cover wider spectrum. MF is again straight from Neve (plus 220Hz which got there as an answer to the question, “OK, I have one free slot, what’s the next critical frequency below 360?”). HF then is a kind of a mix inspired by a lot of designs. I choose partly by frequency at which these frequencies appear on actual gear, partly by what I use the most, and partly as an attempt to cover that part of spectrum more or less evenly.”
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Just detected a bug or what seems to be a bug:
in the middle band (Bell only) the A/B switch, when in “B” mode is not affecting the bandwidth when a gain is being added.
It only affects the bandwidth when gain is being subtracted.
“B” mode operates as expected in the two other bands (High and Low)
Tnx! SN04G is still my Master Bus EQ!
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Thanks for feedback. A/B responses of all respective bell filters are identical in boost (i.e. while boosting, switching between A and B yields the same result). The only difference is in cut — A mode has symmetrical boost/cut, while B mode has bandwidth scaled down in cut which yields an asymmetric boost/cut response. I hope this clarifies the issue ๐
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Hi SenderSpike
Thanks for the reply!
I understood the different response in Q for boost/cut in B mode.
I just wasn’t being able to detect any change in Q when boosting in B mode.
It must have been my mistake while testing because it is, in fact, working as expected.
I am sorry.
I can confirm: no bug!
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Great! ๐
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Just to let you know:
March 2023 and i’m still using SN04 as my default Master Buss EQ in all my mixes.
Still the best!
P.S.: do you accept suggestions/requests for further plugins? I have a request for a very “simple” one but one the market is lacking.
If you do, what’s the best way to contact you?
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Thanks for letting me know. It’s great to read that ^_^
As for your question — although I have finally returned to music two months ago, currently I’m working on notation engraving. If everything will go as I’d like it to go, I will be back to audio and MIDI sometime around this summer. So, I suppose that making a simple plugin would be feasible (there are also other promises I’ve made more than a year ago on a different front which I expect to finally fulfill at that time, so that’s that).
In any case, if you wish to discuss things in private please PM me at GS https://gearspace.com/board/member.php?u=115167
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“currently Iโm working on notation engraving”
As in, actual physical engraving? Or a digital version?
Do tell!
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Digital. As in notation based DAW aimed primarily at composing that would feel like text editor and could produce passable mockups (but also some exports — I’m still not sure, whether I will push the engraving part beyond visually satisfying screen experience). Well, pretty much what every notations software developer aims for ๐ In any case, after a long time I feel like a fish in the water again ^_^
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Cool. Welcome back to the water! Are you looking to market the notation app? Or is it a free / donation-ware project?
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“Welcome back to the water!”
Thanks ๐
“Are you looking to market the notation app? Or is it a free / donation-ware project?”
Frankly, I have no mental capacity left to think about it now. But I do know that I’d like to keep (at least) a substantial portion of it free.
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Cheers! Look forward to investigating it if / when you share it.
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I’m looking forward to you investigating it ^_^
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