We usually don’t review products that have been on the market for as long time as this have (besides in our Spotlight feature) but I have only seen one review of Eliosounds (now Eiosis) AirEQ, and brother, I think it deserves another one!

The GUI

Basically it’s an 8-band EQ. Every single band has a label that you can change, so for instance one band can be described as body, another as harmony and a third as attack or whatever. This display option is great. So incredibly easy to know which knob changes what, especially for beginners.

But wait, there’s more, the display options are quite incredible if you ask me. Or how about displaying the frequency as notes? Or as regular values? Or not at all (the default setting)? The Q factor can be set to be displayed as octaves. There are in fact a separate option button which opens a menu with all these options among other things.

Each band also has an on/off switch type of mechanism, so it’s easy to hear if your latest tweak made any improvements. I got to hand it to Eiosis here, not only did they include this switch which in itself is a very good idea, they also came to the conclusion that turning a knob on a band that’s switched off automatically turns it on. It may seem like a small deal, but it just struck me how smart that was, having to turn on and off seems so stupid now.

The presets are a bit different then what you might be used to from other plug-ins. Or how about this: No cutting or boosting is done. Instead it maps out the above mentioned labels, Qs and the frequencies of the particular instrument. There are presets for individual instruments, full tracks and mastering, hopefully they will continue to add more in upcoming updates.

And more…

Yes, there’s more, good and bad. One thing that I found to be annoying is that option-clicking a knob don’t reset it, granted that command-clicking it does, but the standard is option-clicking. Another thing I’d like to complain about is the lack of a manual. Sure, turning knobs isn’t all that hard, but the L/R settings should be properly explained to anyone out there who’s new to it. Did I say L/R settings? Yeah… You have the possibility link the L and R channels, mirror them and so on. There’s also a button for auto gain. On the plus side it also has A/B comparison buttons to easy compare different settings to each others.

In use

AirEQ seems to take up very little of the CPU power and has no delay which of course is very welcomed. Eiosis claims it features “analog like curves” and have a bunch of graphs and comparisons on their website if you’re interested. I’m not, however, I only care about how it sounds and what features it has.

“Analog like curves” should not be interpreted as “analog sounding” though, it’s seems to be a fairly transparent EQ suited for overall sound shaping and not surgical tweaks. I’ve found myself using it mostly on acoustic guitars, hihats, cymbals and vocals.

And so it’s time for the “air band”. Have you noticed the trend of plug-in developers adding features that claim to do what the plug-in should do without all the negative sides to it? Examples could be Flux Solera with it’s “angel’s share” and AirEQ with it’s “air band” which claims to add or even RESTORE brightness to a sound. One could easily claim these functions to be nothing more than marketing nonsense, I on the other very much enjoy using them. Every time I use the AirEQ I turn the air knob a bit to see if it sounds better, sometimes it does, sometimes it don’t, I rarely turn it much, but it’s a nice feature indeed.

Conclusion

Eiosis AirEQ is an innovative EQ with several unique features. It sounds good, transparent and for me it has worked especially well on higher frequencies or instrument covering a broad spectrum such as hihats, acoustic guitar and voice. The on/off switches is a very smart addition, as are the labeling and the various options available. The Air knob is a nice feature, sometimes it sounds good, sometimes it’s better left off. I also have to give AirEQ a plus for a nice looking GUI and Eiosis for a generally CPU friendly plug-in. But by gawd, include a manual! AirEQ haven’t replaced any of my EQs really, it lives happily alongside the others and it’s presence forces me to sometimes try yet another EQ on whenever I need to tweak something.