Stepped controls in SlickEQ

Why do you want to use stepped controls in an equalizer? I see 2 possible reasons:

1. To quickly adjust the sound you like (something like a coarse tuning before the fine tuning)
2. To quickly match 2 instances of the plugin

Probably you didn’t know that SlickEQ supports stepped controls by right mouse drag or Ctrl + mouse drag on knobs.

This is how the snap points are defined by default:

lowBandFreqParam=”30,40,60,85,120,175,250,350,500,700,1k”
midBandFreqParam=”100,150,250,400,650,1k,1.5k,2.5k,4k,6.3k,10k”
highBandFreqParam=”500,750,1.2k,1.8k,2.8k,4.4k,7k,10k,16k,25k,40k”
hpFreqParam=”10,15,20,30,40,60,85,120,170,250,350″
lowBandGainParam=”-18,-16,-14,-12,-10,-8,-6,-4,-2,0,2,4,6,8,10,12,14,16,18″
midBandGainParam=”-18,-16,-14,-12,-10,-8,-6,-4,-2,0,2,4,6,8,10,12,14,16,18″
highBandGainParam=”-18,-16,-14,-12,-10,-8,-6,-4,-2,0,2,4,6,8,10,12,14,16,18″

And now the secret information. The snap points can be changed! Unfortunately it doesn’t work per-preset basis but only as global setting.

Step#1. Go to Tokyo Dawn Labs settings directory. It’s either “C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Tokyo Dawn Labs” on Windows or “/Users/<username>/Library/Tokyo Dawn Labs” on Mac. For example on my PC it’s “C:\Users\vlad\AppData\Roaming\Tokyo Dawn Labs” and it’s “/Users/vlad/Library/Tokyo Dawn Labs” on my Mac.

The directory should contain “global.conf” if you at least once opened one of Tokyo Dawn Labs plugins and also “TDR VOS SlickEQ.conf” file. If this file doesn’t exist, open an instance of SlickEQ and create some user preset it’ll force the file to be created.

Step #2. Open “TDR VOS SlickEQ.conf” in your favorite text editor (notepad works too). The file contains something like this:

<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”UTF-8″?>

<TokyoDawnLabs>
<presets>
<preset _No_=”1000″ _Name_=”user1″ lowBandGainParam=”0.0″ lowBandFreqParam=”100″ lowBandShapeParam=”Off” midBandGainParam=”0.0″ midBandFreqParam=”330″ highBandGainParam=”2.0″ highBandFreqParam=”8000″ highBandShapeParam=”On” eqModelParam=”British” eqSatParam=”On” hpFreqParam=”Off”
outSatModelParam=”Deep” outSatDriveParam=”18.0″ outGainParam=”0.0″ bypassParam=”Off” modeParam=”Stereo” lowBandBypassParam=”Off” midBandBypassParam=”Off” highBandBypassParam=”Off” autoGainParam=”Off” qualityParam=”Full”>
<logical lowBandGainParam=”0″ lowBandFreqParam=”99.999995934361991″ lowBandShapeParam=”0″ midBandGainParam=”0″ midBandFreqParam=”329.99998331749157″ highBandGainParam=”2.0000009536743164″ highBandFreqParam=”7993.9997989505209″ highBandShapeParam=”1″ eqModelParam=”1.0000000298023224″
eqSatParam=”1″ hpFreqParam=”10″ outSatModelParam=”3″ outSatDriveParam=”18″ outGainParam=”0″ bypassParam=”0″ modeParam=”1.0000000149011612″ lowBandBypassParam=”0″ midBandBypassParam=”0″ highBandBypassParam=”0″ autoGainParam=”0″ qualityParam=”0″/>
</preset>
</presets>
</TokyoDawnLabs>

Step #3. Add default values of snap points in the following way:

<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”UTF-8″?>

<TokyoDawnLabs>
<presets>
<preset _No_=”1000″ _Name_=”user1″ lowBandGainParam=”0.0″ lowBandFreqParam=”100″ lowBandShapeParam=”Off” midBandGainParam=”0.0″ midBandFreqParam=”330″ highBandGainParam=”2.0″ highBandFreqParam=”8000″ highBandShapeParam=”On” eqModelParam=”British” eqSatParam=”On” hpFreqParam=”Off”
outSatModelParam=”Deep” outSatDriveParam=”18.0″ outGainParam=”0.0″ bypassParam=”Off” modeParam=”Stereo” lowBandBypassParam=”Off” midBandBypassParam=”Off” highBandBypassParam=”Off” autoGainParam=”Off” qualityParam=”Full”>
<logical lowBandGainParam=”0″ lowBandFreqParam=”99.999995934361991″ lowBandShapeParam=”0″ midBandGainParam=”0″ midBandFreqParam=”329.99998331749157″ highBandGainParam=”2.0000009536743164″ highBandFreqParam=”7993.9997989505209″ highBandShapeParam=”1″ eqModelParam=”1.0000000298023224″
eqSatParam=”1″ hpFreqParam=”10″ outSatModelParam=”3″ outSatDriveParam=”18″ outGainParam=”0″ bypassParam=”0″ modeParam=”1.0000000149011612″ lowBandBypassParam=”0″ midBandBypassParam=”0″ highBandBypassParam=”0″ autoGainParam=”0″ qualityParam=”0″/>
</preset>
</presets>
<snap
hpFreqParam=”10,15,20,30,40,60,85,120,170,250,350″
lowBandFreqParam=”30,40,60,85,120,175,250,350,500,700,1k”
midBandFreqParam=”100,150,250,400,650,1k,1.5k,2.5k,4k,6.3k,10k”
highBandFreqParam=”500,750,1.2k,1.8k,2.8k,4.4k,7k,10k,16k,25k,40k”
lowBandGainParam=”-18,-16,-14,-12,-10,-8,-6,-4,-2,0,2,4,6,8,10,12,14,16,18″
midBandGainParam=”-18,-16,-14,-12,-10,-8,-6,-4,-2,0,2,4,6,8,10,12,14,16,18″
highBandGainParam=”-18,-16,-14,-12,-10,-8,-6,-4,-2,0,2,4,6,8,10,12,14,16,18″
/>

</TokyoDawnLabs>

Steps #4,5,6. Adjust values to your taste, save conf file and open SlickEQ instance to check the changed snap values actually work.

For example for 1073 style points set the following values:

hpFreqParam=”50,80,160,300″
lowBandFreqParam=”35,60,110,220″
midBandFreqParam=”0.36k,0.7k,1.6k,3.2k,4.8k,7.2k”
highBandFreqParam=””
lowBandGainParam=””
midBandGainParam=””
highBandGainParam=””

Empty “” strings mean no snap points at all.

When the snap points are far from each other the usability of this feature is not very cool.

For SlickEQ GE the configuration file is named “TDR VOS SlickEQ GE.conf”. Default snap points for the additional LPF parameter are the following:

lpFreqParam=”2.5k,3.2k,4.3k,5.7k,7.5k,10k,13k,17k,22k,30k,40k”

Have fun!