In this article Ufuk Onen shares the reasons his product of 2021 is Eventide’s Split EQ, for a plugin which was only released in early November it has made quite an impression.

My favourite product of the year is Eventide SplitEQ. Obviously, it's not the plugin that I used most in 2021 because it was released just a month ago or so. As a matter of fact, I spent very limited time with it. Yet, it's my favourite for 2021 because I think it's very innovative. We see a lot of plugins come out every year, but we don't see many game-changing ones like this one.

What Is Split EQ?

SplitEQ is an 8-band parametric EQ but with a difference: you can EQ the tonal and transient streams independently from one another. Even more, you can pan each band (and tonal and transient streams in every single band) separately. It does these with Eventide's patented Structural Split technology.

Eventide describes SplitEQ as a new approach to corrective and creative equalisation for repairing, rebalancing, enhancing and widening audio. If you ask whether SplitEQ lives up to what Eventide promises, check out Luke Goddard's excellent article and video Is Eventide Split EQ All It Claims To Be?

The ability to work with transients and tonal elements separately is like adding a fourth dimension to the parametric EQ (the first three being frequency, level/dB and bandwidth/Q). This innovative approach enables us to open new doors (or open the existing doors more easily within a single plugin) in music mixes. Some of these are demonstrated in Luke's video I mentioned above and Eventide's videos. Besides those, there are three other reasons I find SplitEQ very exciting.

Why Is Split EQ Exciting?

First, it can be used as an educational tool. As an educator, I know that sometimes students new to audio production have difficulties figuring out what transients are. This plugin can be used to demonstrate the differences between the transients and the tonal contents of a signal. Students can solo the transient and tonal streams and listen to them separately. Then, again within a single plugin, they can experiment working on these two streams individually, learn how each stream affects the signal in what ways and ultimately discover how they complement each other and shape the signal.

Second, it can be used as a powerful and versatile spectral panning plugin. Spectral panning, also called frequency-based panning, allows us to divide the signal into frequency bands and pan these bands individually. For example, it is possible to keep the low-frequency portion of an instrument in the centre and pan the high-frequency part to where we want in the stereo panorama. I wrote about spectral panning and plugins with frequency based panning capabilities in my article What Is Frequency-Based Panning? Try It Out With A Free Plugin.

SplitEQ takes things one step further. You can not only pan a specific frequency band, but you can also place the transient and the tonal elements of that band to any position you want in the stereo panorama. This is very powerful!

Third, it can be used as a sound design tool. Even the ability to solo, or change the balance of the transient and tonal components, either in the master section or in a specific frequency band, opens doors to creative possibilities. I've experimented a bit, and I'll definitely be doing more in the coming weeks.

So, in addition to adding a fourth dimension to the parametric EQ, these are the three reasons why I find SplitEQ innovative and exciting and choose it as my favourite product 2021.