Hi I am Ed Thorne here to walk you
through Claro the new eq plugin from Sonnox
through claro the new EQ plugin from Sonnox
Claro is an intuitive eq plugin designed
Claro is an intuitive EQ plugin designed
to help you make informed decisions
throughout the music production process
from composition to final mix whilst
helping you blend your tracks into a
clean well-balanced mix claro has been
designed to help you maintain creative
focus and improve your workflow by
utilizing three distinct processing
stages with progressively more in-depth
functionality and precision as you need
it this plugin has been designed to be
used from the start of a production all
the way to the end at the beginning
we're just sculpting out the rough sound
of the mix in the middle section we're
going into more refined details and in
the last part of the plugin we're going
to be able to really execute those tiny
little details that really if we pay
attention to those will really set your
mix apart
the plugin consists of three views the
produce view is geared towards broad
strokes eq to get the general tone you
desire for an enjoyable recording
experience whilst encouraging you to
quickly move on to the next stage in
your production
the tweak view incorporates a spectral
analyzer providing further visual
reference to aid your processing
decisions this week also hosts a series
of professional studio standard eq tools
for more precise processing further into
the mix process the mixview enables you
to explore the interaction and frequency
collisions between tracks with visual
aids to help you understand where
frequencies and resonance are competing
against each other in your mix we'll
explore these elements in more detail
shortly but already you can see there's
a lot of tools in this plugin they've
really packed a lot of features into
this
clara also features auto-gain like no
other instead of compensating the output
against a default pink noise curve like
some other plugins claro actually
considers the tonal signature of the
track your track will maintain its level
regardless of whether you're cutting or
boosting frequencies on dark bright or
full range frequency signals you can
turn this feature off at any time and
also freeze the auto gain which is
particularly useful if you're automating
things like filter sweeps claro boasts
advanced mono left right stereo mid and
side only filtering options as well as a
width view to quickly create space while
you're in the composition production or
early stages of the mix the final tool
in claro's powerful arsenal is a
multi-track workspace where multiple
instances of the plug-in on different
channels communicate with each other to
help you visualize how your audio
channels are interacting in the context
of a full mix to help you make even more
refined processing decisions
so let's take a closer look at these
sections the primary focus of the
produce view is to help you achieve the
desired tonal shaping quickly and
effectively without getting bogged down
in precise mixing sonox wants you to
retain focus on the creative process i
remember when i started recording and
mixing i'd dive into the eq and focus on
tiny little details make big notches and
stuff which would ultimately result in a
thin sound but more importantly i was
losing focus of the bigger picture and
not plowing on with the recording with
this in mind a purposefully limited set
of three eq filters provide broad tonal
shaping as well as a high and low cut
hovering the cursor over each processor
displays a selection of set frequency
options to choose from these have been
inspired by various popular analog eqs
and offer frequently used starting
points simply select one then click and
drag the cursor for additive or
subtractive eq
each of these is linked to a slider
along the top which can also be used to
further fine-tune the filter parameters
above this horizontal line you'll notice
combinations of descriptive words to
help you identify tonal elements of your
audio and where these occur in the
frequency spectrum if you're new to
music production this is a fantastic way
of improving your eq intuition without
having to rely on complex terminology
but even if you're an experienced audio
engineer these are really helpful when
you're in the creative mindset or
communicating with clients for example
if i say the bass at 180 hertz is too
prominent not everyone's going to
understand that but if you say oh it
sounds a bit muddy or the client says it
sounds a bit muddy that's where you can
use this graph and use these words to
isolate exactly what you need to adapt
with the eq to demonstrate this listen
to how boosting the corresponding region
on the bass adds warmth but too much and
it clutters and muddies the mix and if
we try cutting this region you'll hear a
lot of the muddy confusion is cleared
out of the mix
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the shelf tabs toggle between high and
low processors being set to bell filters
or shelves these shelves sound super
musical very clean and great for
cleaning up muddiness or harshness while
adding low end weight or air
respectively
on stereo tracks a tone slash width
button appears in the plug-in footer
toggle it to switch between overall
stereo tone shaping and stereo width
shaping
the produced spectral analyzer shows you
where the energy exists without
distracting you with short-term peaks
brighter sections display prominent
frequency ranges and the darker areas
represent little or no sound energy when
using mid and side width parameters
bright meter sections on the width tab
show regions with a wide stereo image
while dark areas show where the signal
is narrower or mono the tone tab is
designed to help you get into good
production habits by using broad strokes
of eq to shape the overall tone applies
to the full stereo spectrum rather than
getting bogged down in precise cuts and
notches and this will help you maintain
your creative workflow the width tab
controls the side energy of the stereo
channels for example focus your bass
channel into mono by introducing a low
cut filter on the sides or broaden your
vocals by boosting the air frequencies
on the sides
moving on to the tweak view and you'll
notice any filtering we applied in the
produce view will be viewable if we
toggle between the two windows changes
can be made in either section and will
be applied and visible in both sections
tweak view is where we can operate
precise surgical filtering and claro has
all the professional tools we need to do
this such as filter slopes as steep as
120 decibels per octave as in produced
view along the top we have a series of
positive descriptive words to help us
identify desirable qualities in the
audio
boosting in these ranges will give us a
desired tonal effect we also have
another series of descriptive prompts
along the bottom indicating less
desirable tonal attributes cutting in
these ranges will help remove these
tonal qualities from our audio for
example on this master bus for a track
i'm working on at the moment i can boost
the warmth
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or i can cut the mud
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and i can boost the definition
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or i can cut the harshness
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the real-time spectral metering in tweak
is different to produce it displays a
visual representation of the sound
energy in blue which follows your
intentions changing the speed and
smoothness as you make changes
for example if you're doing broader
tonal changes the analyzer is smooth and
slow
but if you're making more surgical
notches the analyzer becomes more
responsive and detailed resonating
frequencies or frequency hotspots are
highlighted in blue this visual aid
allows us to target problem areas
quickly without having to sweep and scan
for the problem areas
below the descriptive words at the top
of the window is a piano roll which
indicates the notes our eq points are
centered to giving musical context and
it's great for those lucky people with
perfect pitch
by selecting an eq node and right
clicking we can choose the type of
filter we want to work with cuts shelves
or bell shapes and which part of the
signal we're processing the mid sides
left or right or the full stereo
spectrum
we can even split the left and right
sides of the signal should we want to
process the eq differently on each side
the eq split is a powerful tool for
mastering floating controls allow the
user to adjust the following options
gain by selecting the eq node and
dragging it vertically to adjust the
band's gain without adjusting the
frequency or double click on the
floating value to enter parameters
manually
select an eq node and slide horizontally
to adjust the frequency or note without
adjusting the gain
the shelves can be set to varying
degrees of roll off using the vertical
slider all the way up to 120 decibels
per octave resulting in a brick wall
filter
the width of each eq node can be
adjusted using the vertical slider and
the shape of each eq node can be
adjusted to create precise eq curves
bells and rectangular shapes
listen mode can be implemented to solo
each filter point by option clicking on
the eq node you wish to solo or clicking
on and holding the headphone icon
this is particularly useful for sliding
across the spectrum to identify problem
areas again the visual aid of the before
and after curves are very useful when
processing audio claro displays both the
outline of the original signal eq and
the resulting processed eq moving on to
the final view mode and this is where
this plug-in gets very interesting by
assigning multiple instances of claro
onto different channels we can link the
eq and assess how all of the tracks are
working in relation to each other to do
this quickly in logic simply select
multiple tracks in the mixer view and
add claro to one of them how to do this
in other doors can be found in the
accompanying user manual
the channel list on the left hand side
is all the channels buses and effects
buses i have assigned claro too
by dragging and dropping a channel or
bus into the top and bottom windows on
the right i can directly assess their eq
relationship
the top window becomes our reference
track which also can be selected by
clicking the gold stars next to the
channel or bus name in the left window
claro will highlight clashing
frequencies in yellow this is
representing where frequency overlaps or
spectral masking is occurring and will
help us make informed decisions which
frequencies to cut or boost on that
channel the bottom window is the working
channel and the one we want to process
in more detail once we've spotted any
masking we have access to all our
processing tools within this window so
we don't need to leave the plugin to
affect changes across the different
channels now not all masking is bad it
can be used to impart a thickness and a
presence to your track which is why the
plug-in doesn't automate this for you
but rather leave this important making
process to you the user so you can
decide what's right for your track
the invert eq button is especially
useful because you can choose to cut the
eq on one channel and clari will
automatically boost the same eq band on
another channel for example how i've
done with the keyboards and the guitar
busses here to try and create them some
separation in the mid-range
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this will save you loads of time
flipping between multiple eq windows in
your door
whether you're mixing your first song or
you're a seasoned professional caro has
been designed to bring your eq workflow
into one plugin to speed up the mixing
process and to help you make smart
informed decisions along the way so give
claro a try today for free with a 15-day
trial over at sonox.com and join the eq
revolution i've been at dawn and on
behalf of sonnox thanks for watching