# Sonnox : claro eq



## muziksculp (Oct 12, 2021)

*Sonnox : CLARO EQ*

https://www.sonnox.com/toolbox/claro


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## Trash Panda (Oct 12, 2021)

Cool concept for those who want a more visual approach to EQing. I particularly like the Tweak tab.


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## Joël Dollié (Oct 14, 2021)

Why not train your ears and just use ProQ3 or any parametric EQ

I don't wanna be a party pooper but it looks like a bunch of menus on top of menus to give you the illusion that you will EQ better when the only thing that matters is actually your ears.

The masking hotspots can be more or less dangerous depending on what genre of music you mix, there will always be frequency overlaps and oftentimes they are normal and needed. Especially in orchestral music.. So I find this more dangerous than useful. It's probably going to mislead beginners.

Lastly, having mid side EQ built as if it was a common feature right next to the tone button is probably going to make people overuse it and not going to help learn EQ properly. Mid Side EQ can very quickly destroy recordings so I don't think it's such a good idea to implement it like that.

Being able to quickly swap and see EQ's from different tracks is cool though.


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## Trash Panda (Oct 14, 2021)

Joël Dollié said:


> Why not train your ears and just use ProQ3 or any parametric EQ


Why not use it as a tool to help train your ears?

There are many ways to learn.


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## Bee_Abney (Feb 14, 2022)

Claro


Claro, Claro plugin, buy Claro, download Claro trial, Sonnox Claro




www.pluginboutique.com





Claro is 35% off until the end of the month at Plugin Boutique: £76.96 instead of £118.80.

Has anyone been using it and have a recommendation either way?

I generally try to buy Sonnox plugins whenever the price drops, but this plugin doesn't fall seem to fall into their regular line-up. But their Limiter, VoxDoubler and Inflator are also on sale if anyone else wants to take a look. I use the Limiter constantly and the Inflator is great for those looking to punch up a specific track (although I tend to use other things now).


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## v petero (Feb 14, 2022)

Honestly Claro has been sitting unused ever since I purchased kirchhoff-eq.


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## Bee_Abney (Feb 14, 2022)

v petero said:


> Honestly Claro has been sitting unused ever since I purchased kirchhoff-eq.



Thanks. Kirchhoff definitely looks like a better bet.


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## v petero (Feb 14, 2022)

kirchhoff-eq is really great. Before that I was using claro and Sonnox Dynamic EQ but I am trying to sell both now as I really do not ever reach for either. 

Give kirchhoff-eq a demo and judge it on your mixes before committing as we all have different tastes.


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## Bee_Abney (Feb 15, 2022)

v petero said:


> kirchhoff-eq is really great. Before that I was using claro and Sonnox Dynamic EQ but I am trying to sell both now as I really do not ever reach for either.
> 
> Give kirchhoff-eq a demo and judge it on your mixes before committing as we all have different tastes.



I shall, thanks. I meant to demo it earlier but didn't get round to it.


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## inhaleexhale (Feb 15, 2022)

Interesting


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## Rob Elliott (Feb 15, 2022)

Hmmm. For those owners of BOTH Fab Filter Pro-Q3 and Kirchoff. Real-life advantages of the Kirchoff? I would really be interested in hearing about this.


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## Trash Panda (Feb 15, 2022)

I feel like Kirchoff and Claro are great alternatives if you do not already have Pro Q3, but not necessarily have anything that makes them stand out as choices _over_ Pro Q3 if you already have it.


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## v petero (Feb 15, 2022)

In my humble opinion Kirchoff stands above the others in the way it respects the transients of material especially the low end. 

Though if claro had a dynamic section I would have settled on that. 

Pro q has just not been for me but again everyone has different tastes. 

I liked also Equilibrium and Crave EQ but overall I chose Kirchoff. 

Again I advise anyone to demo both products on their own material to reach a conclusion as that is the only way to choose a tool that suits your workflow and material.


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## Bee_Abney (Feb 15, 2022)

v petero said:


> In my humble opinion Kirchoff stands above the others in the way it respects the transients of material especially the low end.
> 
> Though if claro had a dynamic section I would have settled on that.
> 
> ...



That's excellent advice.


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## Bee_Abney (Feb 16, 2022)

I've demoed Claro. It sounds great and has some fantastic sound-sculpting options. The display makes it easy to both view the frequencies and to view and edit the EQ settings on multiple tracks without switching pages.

It may be cheaper than their other products, but this has all the high quality and ease of use of the other Sonnox products I've used.

I still have Kirchoff to try yet, though.


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## vitocorleone123 (Feb 16, 2022)

As someone that isn't a pro engineer, I just want a tool that sounds great and is super simple for me to use as quickly as possible so I can move on to something else I'd rather be working on. ProQ3 continues to be the one for me. I also added NoiseAsh Need533 as an analog-inspired alternative because the one thing that slows me down in ProQ3 is mid-side processing when I go that route, and my brain finds separating it into mid on the left and side on the right easier than overlapping on the same graph. Those are my primary general EQs - I've uninstalled or sold most of my others.

That said, I've read *nothing but positive things* about the sound of Claro and Kirchoff (as long as you don't mind a tool not as fast and easy to use as ProQ3 - but the meaning and magnitude of that difference will vary per person). Same with the sound, but even less the experience, of SSL X-EQ2.


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## Living Fossil (Feb 16, 2022)

Trash Panda said:


> I feel like Kirchoff and Claro are great alternatives if you do not already have Pro Q3, but not necessarily have anything that makes them stand out as choices _over_ Pro Q3 if you already have it.


Among other things, you should carefully check out the features of the dynamic EQ section of Kirchhoff.
It's spectacular even if you just scratch the surface.

Edit: p.s. this may also be of interest to @Rob Elliott


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## cedricm (Feb 16, 2022)

I purchased UVI Shade as a creative tool, but I was very surprized that it became my go-to EQ.


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## Bee_Abney (Feb 16, 2022)

cedricm said:


> I purchased UVI Shade as a creative tool, but I was very surprized that it became my go-to EQ.



I use Shade as a surgical EQ at the moment. It also has all of those modulation options. I'll be continuing to use it even if I find a surgical EQ I like better.

For simple high and low filtering, Sonnox's Native Equaliser is also fantastic, with similar tonal response to Claro.


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## b_elliott (Feb 16, 2022)

vitocorleone123 said:


> As someone that isn't a pro engineer, I just want a tool that sounds great and is super simple for me to use as quickly as possible so I can move on to something else I'd rather be working on.


I am with you on this point. 

Aside from the stock EQ, I have a high-end freebie (Acustica Coral2 EQ) and a paid for Ceilings of Sound Hyper EQ. 

I began this week studying more about EQs so I could have some grasp of the basics. One thing I learned is depending on its design EQs sound different and not all the same. 

Today I ran across a helpful process for anyone to hear what any EQ actually does: 

1. Record 30 second pink noise .wav file. (Repeat on.)
2. Put one or more EQs on the track, mute all but one.
3. Do a 1K cut (then a boost) to hear what the EQ does to the pink noise sound.
4. Repeat step 3 on the next EQ and so on.

Notice the difference each EQ makes to the pink noise.

I discovered my high-end Acustica Coral2 makes very subtle changes in the pink noise on any of the 5 presets it offers. Useful more for mastering my guess.

Additional test: (For Reaper) click on EQ param/parameter modulation/LFO, then reduce the speed of the LFO and its strength. Repeating steps 1 - 4 allows for a sweep of the pink noise along the frequency bands for each EQ. 

I likely should spend more time so I have the familiarity to know which eq is best for the project at hand. Knowing one Eq will be brighter or warmer than another would be useful knowledge.

(Note: I previously mentioned another freebie: Bertom EQ Curve Analyser. Since my ears are less than dialed in (trained), the visual analysis is useful on these eq tests.

Hope this is helpful without taking you away from the important stuff.
Cheers, Bill


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## cedricm (Feb 16, 2022)

I have so many EQs i's not even funny.

For analog gear - modeled EQs, I have many from IKM, which are excellent, thanks to the 25th birthday group buy, Waves, and now those coming from my Antelope Audio interface that are computed on the interface's DSPs & FPGAs.



Bee_Abney said:


> I use Shade as a surgical EQ at the moment. It also has all of those modulation options. I'll be continuing to use it even if I find a surgical EQ I like better.
> 
> For simple high and low filtering, Sonnox's Native Equaliser is also fantastic, with similar tonal response to Claro.


For surgical EQ / Resonance removal, I used Waves Q4 - Q10 for years. Now replaced by Shade.


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