Kazrog True 252 

Thanks for trying this out! You're absolutely right to be skeptical about EQ plugins, especially analog modeled ones, as there have been some highly suspect ones coming out in recent years. With True 252, we worked hard to get many things right where others have failed - namely - True 252 has no cramping, accurately models the gain/Q interaction of the hardware on a per-control basis (each slider has unique behavior), and it models the saturation of the hardware (rather than being purely linear as so many "analog modeled" EQ plugins are.) I also wanted to say, that piano piece is beautiful!

I'm really appreciative that Kazrog has not gone the iLok route, or subscriptions, other phone home routines. In fact, this simple purchase/license approach that so many great plugin makers use increases my loyalty to them.

it’s amazing how subtle good eqs are once there is proper gain compensation happening.

You are an honest RU-vid sound analyst. When you don't know, you simply say it. Keep the good job going on!

The big advantage for an analog eq plugin for me is that I can outsource my decision-making about which frequencies to select to someone else. Pro-Q is great for someone who REALLY knows EXACTLY what they want to do as soon as they hear it, but for me it's option paralysis. A nice little fixed-freq, fixed-q setup that I can just wiggle a little bit to get more sheen or less mud is just what the doctor ordered.

Kazrog is an absolute S tier company for me. They don't have many plugins yet, but every single one of them are outstanding, even their amp sim is the best modelling that amp, out of the 100 others. I tried almost them all. So that's why they don't crank out plugins like a machine: they take their sweet time, quality over quantity, with every single release. And it shows, it's also absolutely rare these days and we have to support that.

When I read the description of the plugin I immediately thought they watched all the Harrison controversy and tried to deliver exactly what Harrison are missing.

My name is Harrison and that lil cutaway scared the crap out of me 😂

The big trouble Harrison is getting into is that their plugin and DAW is not modeling the transformer saturation that their marketing claims are saying. The 32C plugin has zero saturation anywhere. The EQ curves claim to model the hardware but the bell curves cramp. I think the key to modeling analog properly is 1. Saturation 2. Tolerance modeling 3. No cramping bell curves 4. Oversampling 5. Anti aliasing. 6. Gain staging. Not in that order. I like Hornet analog stage for this reason, and also Brainworx products as well. Not so much their AMEK channel because of a cramping high mid bell, but the SSL emulations are spot on and don't cramp. Then there is something about FIR mode EQ which I don't know much about, which might help get better Analog emulations.

Thanks. Bought. I can assure you that even from your a/b with Pro Q on whatver weirdness RU-vid codecs do,, the legendary analogue sweetness is there (on my mastering monitors in the studio )The softening it has on the inherent harshness of the strings when boosted is a clear indicator. It's right there. After 30 years commercial mixing & mastering one's ear attunes - far better than any fft etc measurements are capable of . I've tried that too over the years as adjunct lecturer supervising theses etc. BUT it does take a while doing this day in day out to really hear this kind of sublte differences and trust what we're listening for. One of my undergrads once tried a simple listening test on good 320mp3s vs 24bit wavs. Only myself and the other mastering engineer attached to the uni ( DMU) could reliably tell the difference. But we needed GOOD cans or our mastering monitors to be sure every time. Sometimes it seems so subtle you have to close your eyes and click till you've forgotten which is which, then select with just ears to prove you can get it everytime. Try the listeing test in Apple's roundtrip. BTW I've no assoc with Kazrog but Ture iron and Trye Dynamics are SUPERB. Use them all the time in mixing, occasiobnally True iron on a master. Thanks for the informative and honest review 🙂

In the highs, I hear musical 'harmonics'; and it is in the mojo (subjective) realm; that is, it affects the music in a way that 'I' prefer. Other folk may not be so impressed ... but I LOVE it!!

Sounds a little more natural and round on the Kazrog and it would be better with a THD knob to control those. This plugins seems to be useful for a fast workflow when you need to change the tone slightly in the bus chain.

The piano piece is absolutely beautiful!

This sounds absolutely great!

I love that you state your opinions on things so fearlessly. So many youtubers and influencers now a days are afraid to have any opinion at all because they don’t want to hurt anybody feelings or step on anybody’s toes, but then that actually hurts whatever community it is that’s trying to have high quality whatever’s. I don’t trust people that don’t have opinions on things. Keep being badass.

'I don't know' is sometimes the best answer.

Thank you! I’ve always liked the ease-of-use that graphic EQs offer. Interested in trying this out as with other things you give a 👍🏻. Thanks again!

It sounded quite nice to me, but I haven't heared a significant difference in the comparison with Pro-Q3. For my part, I realized that when it comes to software EQs there's only a very limited need. A serial one (Pro-Q3), a parallel one (Nova), a Pultec emulation and perhaps one or two plugins that have a unique, useful feature or which are "fun" to use (special tone shaping and/or coloration) is all that seems necessary to be flexible enough.

My favorite part. "Are you taking notes, Harrison?" 😂😂😂😂 I love it!

Super Great Video as usual, one of the best thing, learning in a good mood!

That piano piece was so beautiful!

Thanks for a review! True Dynamics and True Iron from Kazrog are amazing plugins

To me this sounds yummi yummi. I hear the motown spirit there. So what they do is just old proven formulas (Nyquist and Fourier already did most of the work ) + whatever sauce on top. OTOH the analog sound thingy are mainly the inductors in the circuit..... they act like "springs" giving the current some "inertia", thus reacting in a program-dependant way. I put sauce over hamburgers, but not over good fresh fish.

I like what I hear and the density that this EQ provides

This sounds super smooth, like it!

I like Kazrog plugins (True Iron). I'm intrigued by this but frankly I rarely use graphic EQs.

To me this sounds very good. I didn't think I would buy it, but I love the True Iron and the Valve EQ from Kazrog. I may try this one

This last theme takes us to the beginning of time. Beautiful sound! Congratulations!

it sounded very pleasant to my ears :)

Love the subtle dig at Harrison 😂

Listening again. It is amazing.... i am all in for analog emulations. It's just that no company seems to nail it, but Kazrog does

It sounds like there's some magic happening in the top end, a sort of sweetness and depth...as you said, it's subtle but it's something you can feel.

Yes there is 'something' we're missing. Analog eqs back in the day were designed, and engineers did everything they could to make them as linear as the technology allowed them to be. So we're dealing with false memories here I think.

I finally know why i often don't hear subtle differences, I just have my volume too low to hear it...

Thank you. What I would love to see from plugin makers is if they implement an switchable alternative shrunken parametric (modern) interface. All those big buttons etc. just fill my screen, don't really bring any haptics and only impress visitors in the studio xD

Well, apart from the curves and the harmonics, there's also the dynamic response of the eq which is not simulated. Some developers use dynamic sampling/convolution, which is supposed to do exactly this (with varying degrees of success).

Anything Kazrog does is brilliant.

"Are you making notes, Harrison?" roflmao

Another vintage EQ plug-in that is ridiculously limited. Just what the world needs.

FWIW, in British English we don't pronounce the R in "iron" (the metallic element). It sounds like "EYE-un". To confuse matters we do pronounce the R in "irony" ("EYE-run-ee") and "ironic" ("eye-RON-ic"). In some ways, English is weirder than Dutch.

I like the red sliders :) If it looks good then it is good.

I think this is going to replace the main Eq in my plugin chain .. it sounds amazing

I like it a lot, wow ima have to get it eventually

Fantastic 70’ funk as first example. What’s the song? Excited to try out the demo today!

Switching a multimembrane microphone to omni will not help with the proximity effect. It’s still 2 cardioid capsules (pressuregradient mics) just summed together.

The second tune was really really nice!

On the PLAP tour of Cherokee Studios, Bruce Robb talked about the original unit, and mentioned that it's a passive EQ, which possibly makes a difference between this and the FabFilter, but I'm not sure.

Ohohoh, I just start watching and I'm at 01:51 just after "are you taking notes ......?" sounds like a new echo (plug-in) to a "not cool" Quick video I saw yesterday hihihi Thank You ;-) Love it

Sounds really good! Would it be better to take the same modeling algorithms and allow us to use this eq at frequency bands that the og hardware didn't have?

The True 252 is an excellent eq. The way to test it is to use Plugin Doctor along with one of your favorite eqs and settings. You can then match the curve, compare and use your ears to make finer adjustments. I didn't get anywhere with the True 252 until I did this and now love it.

It's interesting. During the A/B I didn't hear so much a difference in the "sound" as much as a not-so-subtle widening and deepening of the soundfield, and an added richness. I'm wondering if Kazrog isn't doing a little additional harmonics in the side channels or something. (I use this trick myself: adding a little saturation on the side channels.) It sounds really good. Do I need it? I don't know yet. Lol.

I think analog equipment , going through some capacitors and transistors , adds some kind of parallel sound, and that gives us that depth and width. Something Mathew Lanes DrMs does in the box. Even True iron if you crank it and mix in a bit. And acustica too but thats is sampling.

As an aspiring EE who built analog EQs and tested many plugins + spice modeling i can say; don't overthink it, you can absolutely null an analog eq with digital ones, it's not rocket science, is important that they use natural phase and ther's no cramping. Then trasformers used in pro audio gear have negligible levels of saturation by design, studio monitor speakers/headphones will have way more saturation than any high grade transformer. With tubes well there are some amazing plugins that are indistinguishable from the real thing. So just use what sounds good to you :)

Big Kazrog fan here.....True Iron and KClip are on almost every mix. That being said, I can't remember the last time I used a graphic eq on anything??, except in live sound situations. Not sure I actually need this, and I don't have any other graphic EQs to A/B it with?. I'd be willing to try

sweet reflections on the knobs.....

Fun fact about simulating analog EQs. Some of them have frequency offset. You dial 200hz, but in reality get 210 or 190. And developers bring this "like the original thing" nonsense in the plugin. You compare it to ProQ and like, "Wow, it sound bit brighter..." or "It has more weight and body!, It definitely has character!". No, you just dialing wrong frequencies, bcause they dont match values written on knobs. You can see this in Waves EV2 "brown" and "black" knobs via Plugin doctor.

Kazrog brings the sauce again. EQ plug-ins are abundant, but some of them really do the trick.

Yes there are aspects of analogue gear yet to be modeled. The most overlooked is, thermal variation.

Awesome video, love theTrue 252 sounds so good on the demos, loved it.

I'm here for ALL the Harrison slander.

where do you find this music to test plugins on? or is it your own clients work?

The problem with analog EQs, from my experience, is the way each band effects each other band when you boost or cut certain signals. I remember my old Alesis MEQ230, when you cut a lot of bass from the signal, there was a certain amount of gain you would get. I have no idea if that has anything to do with signal resistance, or some kind of internal balance circuit, but it was apparent. Maybe it was just my unit; they were kind of cheap.

My Dad left 5 of these (well, the Altec version, 9062a) in his studio at our house after he sold most everything else. When he died I gave them away, along with a Urei LA-3A. So ignorant I was.

Yeah, sounds like some really sweet high-frequency saturation. Maybe they included true iron xformer modeling? Why not: it's sitting there on their shelf, waiting to be used in new plugins.... Thanks.

It softens the transients in the high registers

Running it through Plugindoctor shows me that this EQ is generating harmonics, it is also interesting to see what it does to the EQ curve. It tested the demo and I have to say that I'm not going to pick it up. I use the UAD API Channelstrip, which as a great graphical EQ integrated, so no big use for me. If you would like to work with a pretty musical graphical EQ with subtle harmonic "mojo" then this is probalby worh it for 40$.

where did you buy that T-shirt? its awesome!!

There’s definitely a difference between EQs and it’s very hard to understand what that difference is. Measurements can be almost exactly the same and have very quiet nulls, yet when comparing them I’ll often hear a difference in stereo image and transients.

What are these accustic panels/diffusers? I'm looking to upgrade my studio and they look like good pieces.

The Langevins (258-A's I think) at Bradley's "they had Langevins, and all the Langevins were locked in at 3k 8dB boost position and left there!"

What is the name of the piano song? Amazing video btw!

YES! THEY ALWAYS ADD HARMONICS! THAT'S WHAT THEY DO! The harmonics are the " ... doing something ... " thing that people can't describe effectively.

Via testing, this plugin uses a very steep slope EQ curve algorithm where you would hear the differences subtly. Unlike most VST EQ plugins.

Do you think the subtle things you're hearing may be from the transformer inside this plug-in, which Kazrog may have modelled after the transformer in the original analogue EQ unit? After all, Kazrog nailed it with True Iron. Your videos sold me on True Iron; it's simple and brilliant!!…I don't think I can go wrong with this EQ, either. $40 USD is an incredibly fair price.

I've wondered about group delay and decay time in analog EQs. It takes a non-zero amount of time for power supply capacitors to charge and discharge, so some delay and decay time would be expected. Are time delays like that part of the "analog" sound signature, or are they in the femto-second range and truly inconsequential?

I’ve been wondering, does anyone use the same static band graphic eq on all the tracks of their mix? Is there any advantage or disadvantage to only EQing the same bands across your whole mix, rather than mixing it up across your tracks?

What is the song at 8 minutes please? It is WOW? And the plugin is now on my list to acquire

Piano piece is Jakob Ahlbom - The Orchard

I couldn't hear a significant difference between the two, but to be honest also because the A/B is done on two different zones of the tune, one with strings and piano and the other only with piano (the other way around). It would be nicer for to loop a little part, for A/B purposes, but I know the video would become a bit boring :)

wow immediately when you pulled up that 12k WOW - THAT HIGH END. GOOD JOB KAZROG GOODBYE MAAG EQ

the high on the piano track is much much nicer than the pro q

I think the resolution of the analyzer plugins is not showing near the detail to actually see what is happening. the amount of detail between octaves has to be vastly deeper then pixels in the line on the analysr.

There might be something as I hear it too. The ProQ is close but there is something in the Karzaq that is different.

what is the reason to use this type of eq compared to a "regular" eq with adjustable bands?

Guess I’ll try the Iron first.

Try the Lindell TE-100. Based on German Klein und Hummel tube eq. It has everything i need for altering the overall sound with "das gewisse etwas". No other eq sounds like it at all

credit please the pianist...

Im very confused about eq plugins. There are just so many. If i should choose an analog modelled one for color, over a digital one, then which one and why?

Is this one really any different than e.g. the API 560 ?

What is the second tune? Already released?

If possible I run a track needing eq in the highs from my Reaper DAW thru a channel in my small Mackie mixer, using its analog eq's. Always get a "sweeter" result that way. Subtle but it's there.

I think a lot of time time with analog EQs its the ever so small difference between L and R channels. Acustica EQs are a good example of EQs that sound “analog” to my ears, whatever that means

This is one the Rolling Stones have to hear!

You know, Wytze…regarding the analog emulation issue on eq’s, I would actually REALLY like to see you do a review of the UAD eq emmulations! See what they figured out - or in fact - are scamming buyers with.

That piano sound 🥲

What sounds good to you, sounds good, period. Cramping, no cramping, added harmonics ot not, as long as the band, you and most importantly the audience reacts positively to the song , and your work helped the band to grow their career, enlarge their audience or reach a goal, all of these analytic non sense doesn't matter. Recently started working on a SSL origin consol after years mixing ITB with the Waves SSL strip, yes analog eq is and will always be different than plug-ins. Something hard to described but to me, sounds more forgiving and musical, you can boost and bend the sound more than with a plug in and it will never be as brittle or boomy. I don't think there's a tab in plugin doctor to analyze that :) Did the console made me do better mixes, I don't think so. I definitely have more fun twisting real buttons!

Do you say that there might be some non measurable voodoo in analog gear?

there was definitely no cramping when you ran the plugin oversampled. that is literally the point of oversampling an EQ. 32x goes way higher than needed though. this implies that the plugin adds harmonics to the signal. but just as you said, better be sceptical about it with all the tricks that are pulled lately. you should get plugin doctor for harmonic analysis, or at least bertom eq curve analyzer for inspecting frequency and phase response

Eqs are tricky. I think there is absolutely a time domain aspect to consider. Look at the use of gyrators to simulate inductors. There are many aspects of circuit behavior that seem to go undiscussed. Sure static frequency response and harmonics are big contributors, but only a handful of of plugins mention phase which is a huge thing. And I've never seen any that talk about resonances. The ringing of an inductor especially. You can fake a resonance with a narrow Q boost but is that really the same as modeling the behavior that causes it? No, that won't behave right in the edge case that engineers are looking for. So much of engineering is using this at the edge of their ability. Whether it is classical engineers pushing the limits of dynamics and linearity, or the rock engineer getting the transformer to saturate right up to the edge of folding but never folding. On the topic of "how much is enough to be hard" a good reference I like to use comes from a well respected equipment designer. In the context of null tests and these sorts of questions he likes to always point out that Neve and API are well recognized for their signature sound, but Neve and API both advertise there preamps as having 0.1% or less. So the difference between two of the most iconic sounds in engineering is in that sub 0.1%. For reference 0.1% is about -60db 0.002% is -74db. When you think about that things get interesting.

Great video! I have never worked on an analog simulation of any EQ that didn't take a lot of tweaking to get something workable and still something is missing. Notching out is great but adding just seems to create some kind of phase issue which is hard to define.