About Raèld Surgical EQ
Raèld Surgical EQ is a 16-band precision EQ for taking out the frequencies that make a sound bad, above all in vocals. Every band is true to its analog curve up to 20 kHz, can be as narrow as Q 40 or a deep notch, can sit on both channels, one side, or the middle or sides, and can be dynamic, so it cuts only when the problem shows. FIND & FIX listens to your track and, with one click, puts a precisely sized cut on every bad frequency it finds.
The body stays the same dark, polished metal; the lights take the mode's colour, teal for ZERO LATENCY and blue for LINEAR PHASE.
Installing
- Close your DAW.
- Unzip
Raeld-Surgical-EQ-1.0.0-Windows.zipfrom the download page or your purchase email, runRaeld-Surgical-EQ-1.0.0-Setup.exeand follow the steps. The plugin goes intoC:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3, and a standalone app is installed too. - Open your DAW and rescan plugins. DAW plugin lists show it without the accent, as "Raeld Surgical EQ", so type "raeld" in the plugin browser.
Requirements: Windows 10 or 11 (64-bit) and any VST3 host, or the standalone app.
FIND & FIX
- Choose what you're fixing: VOCAL, INSTR or MIX.
- Play the part that sounds worst and press FIND & FIX. It listens for 6 seconds (press it again to stop early, after at least 2), then puts a band on each problem and names it on the curve.
- Listen. Keep it, adjust any band, or press UNDO.
| It finds | How | The fix |
|---|---|---|
| Resonances (HARSH, SHRILL, NASAL, HONK and, for mixes and instruments, low rings) | Narrow peaks above the outline of the spectrum around them, pinpointed to a fraction of a percent; their width from where they fall 3 dB. | A bell cut by the peak's measured excess at its measured width. Present most of the time: a static cut. Only on some notes: a dynamic cut, its threshold set between the clean and the bad moments as the band itself hears them. |
| Build-ups (BOOM, MUD, BOXY, HARSHNESS) | Broad bumps above the balance the recording should have: an average voice's for a vocal, a robust tilt line for an instrument or a mix. | A broad bell, 2 to 6 dB. |
| Sibilance (ESS), vocals and mixes | Moments where 5–10 kHz jumps far above its usual balance with 1–4 kHz. | A dynamic cut at the esses' centre, only when they happen. |
| Rumble, vocals | Energy below 70 Hz that isn't the voice. | A 24 dB/oct low cut at 80 Hz. |
For voices, narrow resonances are looked for above 600 Hz (instruments: 300 Hz): below that a voice's own harmonics stand apart and would look like peaks while a note is held. Low trouble is found as a broad build-up instead.
Working on the curve
- Double-click the curve to add a band (a low cut below 30 Hz, a high cut above 18 kHz, a bell between).
- Drag a node to move it; hold SHIFT for fine moves; hold ALT while dragging to hear only that band as you sweep (the classic way to find a bad frequency).
- Scroll over a node to make it narrower or wider. Right-click it for its type, slope, placement, DYN, SOLO or REMOVE. Double-click a node to remove it.
- Hovering shows the frequency, its musical note (A4 = 440 Hz) and the level; the FREQ readout shows the note too, so you can cut on the pitch of a ring.
Controls
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| TYPE | BELL, NOTCH (a deep, narrow hole), LO / HI SHELF, LO / HI CUT. |
| FREQ, GAIN, Q | 10 Hz – 22 kHz; ±30 dB; Q 0.1 to 40. |
| SLOPE | For cuts: 6, 12, 18, 24, 36, 48, 72 or 96 dB per octave. |
| PLACE | Both channels (ST), left or right only, the middle (M) or the sides (S). For example: a low cut on the sides only for a tight, mono bass; a plosive cut on the middle only. |
| DYN, THRESHOLD | A dynamic band acts only when its frequency rises above THRESHOLD (a cut takes 3/4 of the excess, never more than GAIN); a dynamic boost acts only below it. Bells and shelves. |
| SOLO | Hear only the part of the sound the band works on. |
| ANALYZER | The live spectrum before and after the EQ, after only, or off. |
| AUTO GAIN | Keeps the overall level as you EQ, so you judge the tone, not the loudness. |
| LINEAR RES | LINEAR PHASE's resolution: STANDARD (8192 taps) or HIGH (32768 taps), for narrow cuts below about 200 Hz. |
| OUTPUT | ±18 dB. |
Zero latency or linear phase
| Mode | What it is | Latency at 48 kHz |
|---|---|---|
| ZERO LATENCY | Every band a filter matched to its analog curve. For tracking and mixing. | none |
| LINEAR PHASE | Every static band as one filter with no phase shift at all: nothing moves in time. Dynamic bands keep their natural phase. For masters, stems and parallel work. Very narrow cuts at low frequencies are smoothed by the filter's length: use HIGH resolution or ZERO LATENCY for those. | 96 ms (STANDARD), 352 ms (HIGH) |
Presets
| For | Presets |
|---|---|
| Vocals | Vocal Clean Start, Vocal De-Mud, Vocal Nasal Fix, Vocal De-Harsh Dynamic, Vocal De-Ess Surgical, Vocal Air & Polish, Rap Vocal Presence, Podcast Voice, Backing Vocals Thin-Out, Plosive & Rumble Cut |
| Instruments, drums | Kick Box Cut, Snare Ring Notch, Guitar Fizz Tamer, Piano Clean Lows |
| Fixes and mixes | Hum Notches 60 Hz, Hum Notches 50 Hz, Mix Mud Cleanup, Mono Bass (Side Low Cut), Master Linear Clean-Up |
What we measured
| Test | Result |
|---|---|
| No band active | bit-for-bit the input (delayed by the latency in LINEAR PHASE) |
| Bells and shelves against their analog curves, 50 Hz – 19 kHz | within 0.25 dB for bands from 60 Hz to 8 kHz; within 0.41 dB for broad bands at 16 kHz |
| A Q 40 bell at −15 dB, 3 kHz | −15.0 dB at its centre, −1.0 dB a semitone away |
| A Q 10 notch at 3 kHz | −66 dB at its centre, −0.02 dB an octave away |
| Cut slopes | −3.0 dB at the corner; 12, 24, 48, 96 dB/oct measure 11.8, 24.0, 48.1, 96.2 dB per octave |
| LINEAR PHASE against ZERO LATENCY, 200 Hz – 18 kHz | within 0.003 dB; impulse response symmetric to −123 dB (the same delay at every frequency) |
| A Q 10 notch at 100 Hz | −102 dB zero latency; −6.5 dB linear (STANDARD), −14 dB linear (HIGH): the length limit |
| A LEFT band / a MID band | the right channel / the sides untouched (to 0.00000003) |
| A dynamic −9 dB bell, threshold −20 dBFS, a tone at −30 then −10 dBFS | 0.0 dB, then −9.0 dB, then 0.0 dB again |
| SOLO on a 1 kHz, Q 4 bell | 1 kHz at 0.0 dB, 100 Hz at −32 dB, 8 kHz at −30 dB |
| AUTO GAIN, a broad ±6 dB bell on pink noise | the level changes +1.8 / −1.0 dB without it, −0.4 / +0.3 dB with it |
| A band swept across a tone, both modes | no clicks: the largest sample step never exceeds the tone's own |
| FIND & FIX: a sung line with a +9 dB resonance at 3200 Hz | found at 3180 Hz (0.6% off), Q 8.7, cut 5.8 dB: the resonance's excess comes down from 8.5 to 3.0 dB |
| FIND & FIX: the resonance there only half the time | found, and set as a dynamic cut |
| FIND & FIX: sibilance | a dynamic ESS cut at 7.6 kHz |
| FIND & FIX: a clean voice (5, 6, 7 and 8 s) | nothing found |
| FIND & FIX's thinking time | about 0.1 s for 8 s of audio |
| CPU (stereo, 48 kHz, all 16 bands, 4 dynamic, two 96 dB/oct cuts) | 1.3% of one core (zero latency), 0.6% (linear, STANDARD), 1.1% (linear, HIGH) |
FIND & FIX is measured on test signals with known, planted problems. On real recordings it's a fast, precise starting point: listen to every cut it makes, and use SOLO to check.
Mono and stereo
Raèld Surgical EQ runs on mono, mono-to-stereo and stereo tracks; your DAW picks automatically. On a mono-to-stereo track the mono source feeds both sides. The MONO switch in the preset strip folds the output to mono, to check how the sound holds up on a mono speaker: it's click-free, works while bypassed, and isn't saved in presets. The bottom bar shows how the plugin is running: MONO, STEREO or MONO > STEREO.
Activation and support
Paste your Raèld Surgical EQ license key, or your Raèld All Access key, into the activation window. A key works on 3 computers. Without a key the plugin runs as a demo with a short dropout every 45 seconds. See support, or email info@raeldaudio.com.
Raèld Surgical EQ is an original design and is not affiliated with or endorsed by any other manufacturer.