Contemplations on the Art of Music Production

TDR VOS SlickEQ Review

Today is a great day for free plugins. Tokyo Dawn Labs has just released their latest VST/AU plugin called “TDR VOS SlickEQ”. I’m lucky to have been involved with the beta testing of this plugin (yes I am very happily biased with Tokyo Dawn since about 15 years now..those who know, know). So I’ve been putting the EQ to work lately.

Let me give you a few quick details and thoughts on the plugin – for the full blast and downloads please head over to Tokyo Dawn.

TDR VOS SlickEQ is a mixing/mastering equalizer designed for ease of use, musical flexibility and impeccable sound.

The plugin is a collaboration with three very talented people: Herbert Goldberg (of Variety of Sound), Fabien Schivre (Tokyo Dawn) and Vladislav Goncharov (Tokyo Dawn/Vldag Sound). You might know these guys previously from plugins like TDR Feedback Compressor, VOS Thrillseeker and Vldag Molot just to mention a few. There’s no need to say this but I’m going to say it anyway: these guys know what they’re doing. Hearing they are putting their great minds together to work on a free plugin was just fantastic news for me, and the results didn’t disappoint (quite the contrary). 

The plugin looks simple on the surface but it’s full of cool functionality, such as:

  • A clever auto gain function that automatically compensates for changes of perceived loudness during EQ operation.
  • Mid/Side/Mono/Stereo operating modes.
  • Four distinct EQ models: “American”, “British”, “German” and “Soviet” with optional non-linearity.
  • Four output saturation stages: “Linear”, “Silky”, “Mellow” and “Deep”.
  • Easy to use A/B comparison feature.
  • Support for mouse wheel adjustments (doesn’t sound like much but it’s always a big one for me)
  • Advanced 64bit multirate processing scheme that eliminates typical problems of digital EQ implementations such as frequency-warping, quantization distortion and aliasing.
  • Clean, user-friendly interface.

In short, no matter wether you are looking at this plugin from the perspective of coding, functionality, sound quality or design and user friendliness – this plugin is top notch. It feels great in use and I am getting good results with it.

For me the guys have just nailed the essence of modern EQ’ing here, simple. And hey, finally we Mac users get our hit of that VOS sound we keep hearing about right? Sweet.

So there you have it. The plugin is available completely free in VST format for Windows and VST + AU formats for Mac. For the full details and specs head on over to the official TDR VOS SlickEQ download page.


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Comments

15 responses to “TDR VOS SlickEQ Review”

  1. Eugene Eugene Avatar
    Eugene Eugene

    Thanks, will check it out today!

    1. Ilpo Karkkainen Avatar

      Nice, let me know what your thoughts are.

  2. Jesse Broman Avatar
    Jesse Broman

    Hey thanks for the review, this sounds like a great new plugin. My ears have become sensitive to the “dark side” of many eq’s lately, you really lose a lot sometimes or it just starts to sound fake. I’m going to go download this right now.

    1. Ilpo Karkkainen Avatar

      Yup with a lot of plugins you especially seem to lose “something” whenever you want to give a good boost to the highs I think. Makes it sound artificial. See how you like this plugin Jesse and let me know.

  3. Richie True2life Avatar
    Richie True2life

    Looks good, although I read on the TDR website, there are problems installing for Mac OS 10.9, incorrect file path or something?

    1. Ilpo Karkkainen Avatar

      I am on 10.8 so can’t confirm that. Works great for me. I’m sure they will fix it soon though if that is the case.

      1. Richie True2life Avatar
        Richie True2life

        Sure, I’m yet to try it myself, its just what I read…. However, I will later today… Great website BTW IIpo, very useful stuff here!

    2. Richie True2life Avatar
      Richie True2life

      Installed ok on OS 10.9…. So forget what I wrote! Really cool EQ… nice warm sound… 🙂

  4. Peter Yanyuk Avatar
    Peter Yanyuk

    TDR is significant label for me. It was my first weblabel from where i get tracker music. And surely i remember many of those Krii tracks 🙂 Glad to see TDR is still alive and surprised that they working on this direction. Will try how it is

    1. Ilpo Karkkainen Avatar

      Glad to see someone here who still remembers the old days! I think my first track on TDR came out in 97 or 98. Mad.

  5. jb Avatar
    jb

    i dont know how to download these things. what is dll and what is openfreely.com?? i have only ever downloaded 1 vst, firebird 2 and it was simple. havent found any luck with anything else??

    1. Ilpo Karkkainen Avatar

      1) I have no idea what openfreely.com is.

      2) Downloading is very simple:

      – Go to plugin page at TDR
      – From the right side of the page choose either Mac or Windows installer depending on what computer you are on. Click either Mac or Windows and download will begin.
      – When download finishes, double click the file (.dmg on Mac version, .exe on Windows) to install plugin.

      Any problems, consult the user manual (also availabe on the same page), and if required get in touch with plugin maker to sort out any problems.

  6. lambdoid Avatar
    lambdoid

    This is an awesome EQ. I use it on all my tracks now. All of the Variety of Sound plugins are amazing.

  7. Montanez Avatar
    Montanez

    When you wants to install it, do I have to “browse” the protools folders? Or use the TDR VOS slickeq folder?

    1. Ilpo Karkkainen Avatar

      Here is a direct quote from the manual, hope this helps:

      INSTALLATION

      Windows:
      1. Run the provided installer and follow the instructions

      Mac OS:
      1. Open the dmg-archive (double-click).

      2. Double-click pkg-file to install VST and AU plugins.
      3. Follow given instructions.

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