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Anyone recommend a good (free!) EQ plug-in?


Skol303
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Hi folks, I'm being lazy here and could probably solve this thru Googling... but I very much trust the opinions on BC and wanted to check if anyone has any immediate recommendations. Firstly, a quick bit of context to explain what I'm looking for:

A colleague at work has recorded a bunch of vox-pop interviews at an event using a bog-standard digital camcorder. The audio has been recorded using the built-in mic so it's not the best quality and includes a load of background noise. The recordings don't need to be broadcast quality - we just need to clean up the audio a little, if possible.

I'd normally do this myself at home but I don't have time at the moment. We have Garage Band installed on the Macs in the office so I want to brief my colleague on how to clean up the audio himself using that as a DAW. Being a Reason user I have no idea of what VST plug-ins are best for this! Hence, if you can recommend any suitable EQs then please do: it needs to be freeware (or very cheap) and ideally include low/high pass filters and a decent bell filter with adjustable Q, so we can notch out some of the cr@p in the recordings.

Many thanks! :)

Edited by Skol303
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Install the DAW called Reaper. Its free to download and features a whole host of really good plug ins including EQ. The program is available for download in full and is not limited, however after 30days you'll get a 5 second nag when you open it, but still no limits to operation.

It's brilliant - one of the best DAWS for features. I bought the full license within a couple of days I was so impressed and have been using it as my main tracking DAW, though I also use Logic Pro and most of the other DAWs.

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Thanks Dood! Yeah, I have a copy of Reaper at home - great piece of software and exceptionally well priced.

The reason I'm keen to use Garage Band is because we already have a licensed copy at work, so although Reaper is very cheap it still saves 60 bucks or whatever if we can find a VST to run in Garage Band. We could of course use Reaper under the trial license but I don't think that covers commercial work.

The budget for this project is tiny, which is why I'm being so tight-fisted and not wanting to spend a penny more than we need to!

Anyway, cheers for the repy mate - appreciated :)

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I posted this in the free VST section a couple of weeks ago.
MeldaProductions.
Everything you need for clean up Audio, and of course some standard plugs. - and they are very good.
Well worth checking out.

[url="http://www.meldaproduction.com/freevstplugins/"]http://www.meldaprod...freevstplugins/[/url]


Garry

Edited by lowdown
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[quote name='lowdown' timestamp='1355150274' post='1894628']
I posted this in the free VST section a couple of weeks ago.
MeldaProductions.
Everything you need for clean up Audio - and they are very good.

[url="http://www.meldaproduction.com/freevstplugins/"]http://www.meldaprod...freevstplugins/[/url]

Garry[/quote]

^ Thanks also Garry, this looks good. Much appreciated! (I should have checked the free VSTs thread... my bad).

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Hmmm, for noise reduction you really would do better to install Reaper and use ReaFIR which in subtraction mode you can get to 'learn' the noise pattern you want to remove.

A far better option than using a simple EQ IME.

In fact I think you can just download the Reaper FX...

http://www.reaper.fm/reaplugs/

Edited by 51m0n
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^ Nice one Si, I never knew that the Reaper FX were available for free as standalones. Can't beat the generosity of Cockos! What a damn good company :)

I normally use the noise removal tool in Audacity for this - works ok for standard background hiss/rumble, but not great for more 'busy' noises.

Anyway, I'm going to sit down with the VSTs suggested by yourself, Rob and Garry and work through them. Looking forward to playing with some VSTs on work time for a change! We might end up buying a Reaper license anyway if we get more of this sort of work, as I'm more familiar with it than I am Garage Band. Fingers crossed.

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