Waves announces Curves AQ Autonomous EQ Plugin
by The Press Desk   2 weeks ago

I have the Waves sub so I don't have to lay out any "extra" cash for this..meaning if I don't care for it, I'm fine.

Haven't tried it out yet, probably won't. It's just an EQ with machine learning and pre-programmed presets. Nothing groundbreaking. But I understand why Waves put it out..it's another plugin aimed at young laptop producers who have no patience or experience.

I like and use Waves plugins..a lot. They are in every project. This is just one I don't personally have a use for. Others will.

Mercury comes through again, included
Looking forward to checking this out in the morning.

Thank You Waves

Unlike some of the earlier comments, I tested this on multiple tracks. While I’ve genuinely liked every other plugin from this team (Clarity Vx, DeReverb, Silk Vocal, IDX, Equator, and Sync Vx) this one just didn’t hit the mark for me.

The main issue is the automatic settings. On vocals, none of the suggested curves even came close to how I’d normally EQ. In most cases, it either boosted all the wrong frequencies or ended up sounding like a telephone effect.

You can get it to sound decent with manual tweaking, but that kind of defeats the purpose of what this plugin is supposed to do. And frankly, there’s nothing here you can’t already achieve (and more easily) with FabFilter Pro Q4. The workflow in Q4 is far smoother, here you end up adjusting nearly every knob just to get something usable.

I had high hopes for this one, but it ended up being a letdown.

Mercury user here. Free IS good. This plugin seems like a slight twist on the first curves plugin with much fewer bands and the possibility to make those bands fully static or anywhere in-between up to fully dynamic. The GUI is nice and reasonably easy to navigate. Sure, it is eqing for dummies, but also for pros in a hurry, I guess. Also, like most things AI, it is a mere suggestion, a different approach, that can be helpful and even work as is at times. It is nice to have 4 variations on the curve at the press of a button for quick decisions of the fly. All these kinds of soothing plugins gravitate towards a boring vanilla middle point where everything is very smooth and unobtrusive. That is not what you want many times in many genres. So, I would not think about using this on every track. Perhaps just the odd track that is badly balanced frequency wise. Perhaps you can learn something from it and use a more ballsy eq to recreate some parts of the curves in a better way?

You mean the ones making all the money

I was at a Waves demo for this plug-in. It does a lot. IMHO, it’s one of those plug-ins that many will come back to and say, “Oh!…”.

For me, it will speed up my process like the other newer Waves “AI” plugins. I get where I need to get, faster.

Now we need a plug-in that makes producers and vocal producers commit so I don’t have to wade through 140+ tracks a mix. This issue has gotten so much worse. Makes me long for the 90’s everyday in this respect.

Ah yes, a whole $300 for 30 quadrillion streams

When a producer walks into McDonalds the part-time cashier pays for their meals out of sympathy

at an average of 0.004 per stream that works out at $120 trillion.

Now we just need a plugin that increases birth rate

Some of it looks like Paul Frindle’s DSM v3

Like making money equates with making art.

At the end of the movie Amadeus where Salieri comments on Mozart's death by saying long live mediocrity, "mediocrity is everywhere."

Construct your own narrative why don’t you. I never said that you did.

The only auto spectral balancing plug I've liked out of everything is Voxengo's TEOTE, but sadly the owner / designer of that company literally went batshit ****ing insane on this very forum. Can't even look at the threads on it on GS anymore.

TEOTE was great but Frindles DSM had far less artifacts between spectral bins. Really it had none.
Curve Equator sounded really great in the mids but the treble got a bit shredded with the same artifacts.
Honestly I don't even know why I'm typing this cuz these auto-EQ things are rarely useful. It takes too many workarounds for them to not kill the natural air of a signal, or the sub bass.
It really is for the bedroom producers who want a quick hit of dopamine.
Unsubscribing now....

Congrats to Waves on another good plugin! Credit where it is due!

I did not have luck with vocals. Sounded artificially. But for whole mixes this Curves AQ was quite impressive. My feeling is that it works good with acoustic music and not so much with EDM etc. Any opinions to a comparison with Gulfoss?

Agreed, I liked it on a full mix but not on vocals but loved it on drums

whoa, what? I remember loving and using a number of Voxengo plugins.

i tried searching GS but the top threads are locked. that totally sucks.

sorry for OT! figured maybe others may want to know what was up.

All AI EQs: "Make Everything Flat Again"

Tremendous to see "AI" not bandied about as a buzzword instead going for the more dystopian, stylish "autonomous".

Did you try the new Zynaptiq Balance? That's my new goto.

Well, sorry, but this is pretty incredible

Mozart, you say? Wow!

I don’t know if he was drunk or what but I actually commented in the thread before he got kicked off GS. I said something to the effect of “what the **** happened to this thread?” Haha

No but I’ve heard great things.

some people hating on this in here, but i find this one of the most useful auto (type) eq's ive used, gets really good results quickly.

I've got Waves Equator so I'm not a Waves agnostic but this was not a favourable video and put me off trying a demo. Some favourable comments in the thread have me wondering now.

This review is rubbish. The reviewer should learn how to use the plugin and test it with different types of music. BTW the music used here is awful.

It’s not another pultec emu… if these super AI robot learning plugins, if the reviewer isn’t willing to learn how it works before pushing out “content” then F off…

I’m looking forward to checking this plugin out….