Alloy’s versatile EQ allows you to add warmth and character with analog-modeled filters, and precisely boost and cut frequencies with its helpful frequency spectrum overlay.
Key Features:
• Eight bands of bell, highpass, sharp highpass, lowpass, sharp lowpass, high shelf or low shelf filters
• Analog modeled soft-saturation
• Fully configurable spectrum analyzer
• EQ resolution zooming
Frequency and Gain
The white numbered circles mark each of the eight EQ nodes. You can adjust an EQ band by clicking on a node and dragging the crosshairs to change the frequency and gain of the band. You can also use the arrow keys to adjust a selected band, or the Shift key in combination with the arrow keys to adjust in larger increments.
Q/Bandwidth
You can adjust the Q or bandwidth of the EQ by clicking and dragging on the "handles" on the side of the band, to widen the band. If you have a wheel mouse, you can use the mouse wheel to widen/narrow a selected band.
Selecting Filter Shapes
Alloy provides the ability to set the type or shape of any of the eight EQ nodes. Any node can be a lowshelf, lowpass, sharp lowpass, peak, highshelf, highpass, or sharp highpass filter. To change the shape, click on the "Show Info" button.
From this table, you can specify a different filter shape by clicking through the corresponding nodes’ filters. You can also use the "Show Info" dialog to enter values for the EQ bands directly. Either double-click on the value to manually type in your desired setting, or click and drag on the value’s text to increase of decrease the value. You can also disable bands with this table by clicking on the square checkbox to the left of a band.
Zooming
You can zoom in on the EQ curves by clicking the ‘1x’ button to magnify 1x, 2x, 3x or 6x. This allows you to better see and position EQ nodes around the 0 dB line. The zoom deliberately does not zoom the spectrum. The purpose of the zoom is to give you better visibility and resolution for small tweaks of the EQ around the 0 dB line. If the spectrum also zoomed in, well, the spectrum would be ineffective as a visual aid since you'd only see the spectrum around the 0 dB line, when what you probably want is a "stepped back" view of all the peaks and valleys.
Note: With Alloy, right-clicking (under OS X you can also ctrl-click) a button toggles it in reverse - so for the zoom button a right click zooms back out - 6x to 3x to 2x to 1x.
Editing Multiple Nodes
When clicking and dragging in the EQ display, a shaded selection box will appear. You can use this to select and edit multiple nodes simultaneously. Once you have your nodes selected, you can proportionally adjust them by clicking and editing any one node in the selected group.
Visuals
As you adjust a band you will see two EQ curves. The bright yellow curve is the composite of all EQ bands while the darker yellow curve shows the EQ curve of the selected band.
A spectrum is overlaid by default on the EQ module for visual feedback of the mix. You can turn off the spectrum to conserve CPU or if you just don't want to see it using the Options screen. You can also set options such as average or real time spectrum, show peak spectrum, etc. These are available in the Spectrum Options screen.
In the background you'll see the gain scale for the EQ down the center in a light grey color. This will change as you zoom the EQ in or out. You'll see the scale for the spectrum in gray down the right side of the EQ display.
Note: The scales for the EQ and spectrum are different, by design. If they were made to match, you wouldn't see enough of the spectrum for it to be useful. The frequency scale in grey applies to both the EQ and the spectrum.
The Alt-Solo Feature
If you hold down the Alt key and click on the spectrum, you have an "audio magnifying glass" that lets you hear only the frequencies that are under the mouse cursor, without affecting your actual EQ settings. This is useful for pinpointing the location of a frequency in the mix without changing your actual EQ bands. Releasing the mouse button returns the sound to the actual EQ. You can set the default bandwidth of this filter in the Options screen under "Alt-Solo Filter Q".
Additional Tips using Alloy's Equalizer
• If you hold down the Shift key and drag an EQ band, the EQ band will be "locked" in the direction that you're dragging. So if you just want to change the gain without affecting the frequency (or vice-versa) just hold the Shift Key while you drag.
• If you've chosen to display an averaging spectrum or a peak hold spectrum (using the Spectrum Options screen) you can reset the peak hold or the averaging by clicking on the spectrum.
• Right click on the spectrum to bring up an options dialog to control the spectrum display.