Claro is a new EQ plugin from Sonnox which presents three different interfaces, one quick and easy for getting a sound fast at the creation stage, one detailed for tweaking those initial settings and one which presents information from across the whole session for the mix stage.
Claro is an interesting plugin as it works like many of us do when we are working at our best. When tackling a task most of us will rough out what we intend, moving quickly to get a result to which we can respond. Creativity thrives like this. However, we will usually return to this first pass and examine it with a more considered approach, tweaking where necessary. In the same way as a film edit gets a rough cut, which is then finessed, music gets a rough mix which develops in to the finished article.
The clever thing about Claro is how it presents itself. A simple interface with 3 bands of EQ with descriptive language and visual representation of the audio given priority over numbers like frequency and Q values. However at any point the user can take those intuitive settings from what Sonnox have called the ‘Produce’ tab and open them in ‘Tweak’, where a more conventional, fully-featured modern EQ plugin allows any necessary adjustments to the first pass to be made.
Then there is a third tab - ‘Mix’, which presents every instance of Claro in a session to be viewed together in the same window. The energy display from the centre of the Produce tab, which shows the energy of the signal across the audio spectrum in a horizontal bar, is represented for every instance of Claro and potentially problematic build-ups of energy at specific frequencies are identified as yellow bars. The way this works is by specifying a reference track and then a detailed comparison can be made of that track against the reference track by selecting it.
In the video I show Claro in action, firstly on a solo piano recording and then demonstrating the Mix page on a multitrack session. Sonnox certainly know a thing or two about quality equalisers but their best known EQ product, the venerable and highly respected Oxford EQ, is a traditional console EQ which presents the tools but does little to help a novice. The excellent Oxford Dynamic EQ is much more modern in its presentation but is fundamentally a dynamic EQ. Claro takes the best of the rich visual feedback available in plugins and combines it with lots of cues to encourage the user to stay in the creative mindset rather than getting too influenced by the numbers.
For something that at first looks like a 3 band EQ, the facilities on offer are comprehensive. The high and low Pass filters offer slopes from 6dB/Oct to 120dB/Oct, Produce offers three bell filters, the high and low bands can be switched to shelf, the high and low bands each having different shelf shapes. The Width setting creates filters in the Sides channel. Tweak offers as many bands as you can shake a stick at (I got bored trying to max it out) and a right click reveals every shape and combination of split, mid/side etc.
In terms of sound there isn’t much to say, by which I mean it’s a Sonnox designed EQ and is a clean and effective as you would imagine. In a quick nulling test I got the bell filter in the Produce tab to null pretty well against the Oxford EQ in Type 3, the “Neve-y” one and my favourite. If I ever need a 120dB/Oct high pass filter it’s available here - though I can’t imagine that happening any time soon!
Smart Idea 1 - Use of Language
Something which stands out about Claro is the way in which it uses the language we use to communicate ideas about timbre rather than using dry numbers. When discussing the sound of mixes most of us, even if talking to another engineer who we know to be familiar with what 250Hz sounds like, would probably refer to ‘muddiness’ rather than using a number. Claro takes the same approach. Descriptive words are placed in the UI at appropriate points, and usefully both positive and negative words are used. So while “Mud” is used to describe the sound of ‘bad’ 250Hz, “Body” is used to describe 250Hz as a positive contribution.
Smart Idea 2 - Presenting Information
The use of language is only one illustration of how Sonnox have considered exactly how information is presented. The use of the three tabs - Produce, Tweak, and Mix present information in fundamentally different ways to help three different, but connected stages of the production process. Produce helps you to move quickly, encouraging you not to get too deep and interrupt the creative flow, you can always come back later. The use of an ‘energy bar’ type of display rather than an analyser is a good choice here, giving visual feedback but not in a way which dominates and the rather oversize gain controls draw attention to the task in hand. The auto gain feature is interesting and potentially very useful, though easily switched off if you prefer a conventional EQ response.
Tweak feels like seeing ‘behind the curtain’ and more than once I’ve found EQ moves which were bigger than I’d have dialled in if I’d been looking at the curve. I’ve always liked ‘Ears Only Mode‘ in the Oxford EQ, which hides the curve, for exactly this reason. Other ways Claro is selective about what information to display and when is what happens in Tweak when you change the Q of a filter. The detail displayed by the spectrum analyser changes. At broad Q settings the spectrum analyser shows much smoother results than at tight Q settings where individual notes and harmonics are displayed. This is clever as it is showing you information relevant to the acuity of the tool you are currently using. You can’t notch out a peak with a wide bell filter so why show you that?
Smart Idea 3 - Education
It would be doing Claro a disservice to present it as an educational tool, because that would imply that it is something you would ultimately outgrow. This isn’t the case but it is still true that Claro is a deep plugin with a friendly face. The Produce tab wouldn’t intimidate the freshest of novices and Tweak offers all the tools you might need in a grown up EQ. Mix offers useful suggestions without attempting to automate the mixing process and small touches like the inclusion of a piano keyboard in the UI to help users who might not be conversant with frequencies but are very comfortable taking about pitches is a nice touch.
Conclusion
I like Claro because it is different, and what it seeks to do it does very well. I like the way it encourages you to use your ears. Produce isn’t just for novices, though if you want to you can set it to open in Tweak. Whether you use Produce and Tweak to learn EQ or you use Produce to avoid the distracting ‘mix rabbit hole’ effect which having too many facilities can divert us down, it’s a smart approach, which is why I ask in the title, is it the smartest yet?
Sonnox Claro will retail for £99 ex VAT ($142.50/$134.00) but there's a 25% saving offered until the 1st December 2021 making an introductory retail price of £74.25 ($107/$99).
Thanks to James Paredes for the track.