Waves Renaissance Equalizer

It's a bit difficult to think of too much to say about this EQ other than it is a solid, well-made plug-in with no foreseeable downsides.

I personally used this as my go-to EQ for a few years before getting a bundle of PSP plug-ins which have replaced a lot of the Waves stuff for me. I find this EQ to be very nice and clear, without producing any harshness when you boost the upper frequencies, which can happen in cheaper EQs. I use the PSP MasterQ for most of my general work now and couldn't tell you that it is any superior performance-wise, only that I like the look and feel of working with it a bit more. The Renaissance EQ isn't quite as point-and-click friendly and seemed somehow obtrusive in that way but I think that's more about my style than any weaknesses of the product itself. I like it on my Master bus for a bit of soft tweaking to the overall mix.

If you know and understand basic EQing then you will have no problems opening this up and working with it right away. There are plenty of helpful presets and all parameters are pretty well labeled. The layout is fine although I prefer plug-ins that aren't so dark when I have the choice. Again, a style thing, but I don't like looking at dark, black plug-ins when I have to work with it all day.

Stability was never an issue and I can't recall ever having any issues with my program crashing or otherwise having problems with most of the Renaissance series, which is sadly not something I can say about a couple of PSP plug-ins.

I've never needed to look in the manual so I don't have any experience about whether it is helpful or not. Like I said, if you know your way around an EQ it shouldn't be a problem, but even if you don't this is fairly user friendly and you should be able to figure it out quickly.

I also can't comment directly on the price, as I got it as part of a big bundle and not separately. For $150 though, which is the price I've seen for it now, I can't imagine it being my first choice of new gear when I get my paycheck. If you're just getting going or are more into production as a hobby, I'd spend your money on something else before coming to this product. It's definitely good but not really necessary unless you're producing professional stuff on a frequent basis.

Cheers!

As always, please, please do yourself a favor and make sure that the software that you purchase is compatable with your system and recording software when necessary. Otherwise, this software in no more difficult than any other to install or to begin using.
Manual? Well, if you really need a guide book to enlighten you to the mysteries of using EQ, such as Q and high-shelf, low-shelf, etc., then you really need to put yourself back into school.
Overall, the Renaissance EQ is fairly easy to use and all of your typical options and adjustments are easily accesible.

SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE

Yet again. It is your responsibility to ensure that the software products that you purchase are all compatable with your hardware and yourself. End of Story.
The Waves REQ series are widely compatable with alot, and I mean it, ALOT, of existing programs. You shouldn't have much trouble.
Performance wise, the Renaissance series of EQ's are not huge CPU hogs. You, again, shouldn't have many problems, if at all.
The Renaissance EQ has been a LONG TIME staple of Waves'. I personally have been using their slightly less pretty version of the REQ since about 1999.

OVERALL OPINION

The Renaissance EQ series was essentially created to be able to model a wide variety of vintage EQ's. Some being much sought after units and some being rare units that only a few engineers were partial to. That being said, the REQ series are extremely versatile, once you get a hands on chance with the options and possibilties of the REQ's you will see just how handy these guys can be.
The Renaissance EQ's and the brethern compressor have been offered as a bundle and they have also been included in many Waves bundles. I encourage you to go ahead and buy them bundled, with whatever other plug-ins you desire, and at whatever cost you can afford. Waves' software really is the best, so bundling is always a good idea.
For the most part the REQ series doesn't seem to color the sound in any depreciable or negative way. Really, it seems as though your own adjustments play the most significant role in how the plug-in responds to incomming sounds. This is not entirely uncommon, there are many different EQ's that seem to react differently according to source information and user settings. Chalk it up to the nature of how many older "vintage EQ's" were constructed and the technology available/used and the concept has a certain logic. Keep in mind that the REQ series, among others, were designed to mimic the performance of many sought after vintage EQ's.
The Renaissance Eq's are a guaranteed solid choice. You should have these in your arsenal.

EQ is easily one of the most abused tools in today's audio world. One of the biggest issues I always find is that people tend to boost way too much and bloat up the entire mix. With paragraphic EQs like this, it can help try to prevent you from EQing too much without hindering any functionality. The plugin is laid out very nicely; it has adjustable gain per band, two/four/six band settings, frequency per band, Q factor per band, filter types for asymmetric bell, resonant hi/low shelf, hi/low pass all per band, in/out switch per band, output gain fader, trim output adjustment, link button and more. To use this, simply enable it on whatever buss you want to EQ. You can even enable multiple instances of this per buss, depending on what sound you're trying to achieve. I couldn't tell you how well the manual is written, but the plugin is simple enough to where you should be able to get the hang of it without much of an issue.

SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE

Waves is, by far, one of the best software companies out there when it comes to things like performance and stability. First of all, this plugin is cross platform compatible. That means that nearly anybody can use this without any issues. As a Mac user, that's a huge plus for me. The plugin itself is rock solid, and I've never experienced a single crash directly related to utilizing this plugin inside of my DAW. There is one one issue that I did experience, and it's why I rated it a 9 instead of a 10. This plugin is a 32 bit plugin inside of OS X. Today, we're mostly living in a 64 bit world. For Logic Pro to utilize this plugin, it needs to run a special bridge application so I can have my higher RAM limit inside the actual DAW. I realize that the plugin is kinda old, but I'm hoping Waves will update this for 64 bit operation in future updates. I've been using the Mercury bundle for the past half a year or so, and it's been a wonderful experience.

OVERALL OPINION

I used to use this plugin all the time before I got Ozone 4. It's a very powerful paragraphic EQ that can really shape and taylor a sound to your liking. One tip that I always give to people is that they should try cutting instead of boosting. By doing so, you'll be less likely to bloat and overload certain frequencies to the point where there's crazy distortion and weird artifacts.

The process of installing the Waves Ltd. Renaissance EQ plug-in on my computer wasn’t hard at all and took a very short while.  I didn’t have any compatibility issues or other problems really and the whole process was pain free.  After installing it I found that it didn’t take me too long to figure out how to use everything in this plug-in as the interface is put together nicely and is easy to follow.  The plug-in contains a six band EQ that each has changeable parameters for gain, frequency, and Q.  There is also the option for each to make it a shelf EQ or otherwise.  There is also an overall output level slider and a graph showing exactly the changes that you are making.  Like all Waves plug-ins you can save presets as well as A-B them to compare sound.  I haven’t needed a manual for this software so I can’t speak to if it would be helpful or not.

SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE

I’ve never had any problems running as many of the Waves Ltd. Renaissance EQs at a time as I’d like.  If I can recall correctly I’ve probably had at least six or seven of these up in a single session without any problems.  While it depends on what machine you are using, I am running it on a Mac Book Pro that has a 2.2 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo processor and 4 GB of RAM, to give you an idea of a system that it will definitely run well on.  I use the plug-in in Pro Tools LE 7.4 primarily that runs off of a Digi 002R audio interface, but also have experience using it in Pro Tools HD.  While I can run it quicker on the HD system, this is to be expected always and isn’t to say that it doesn’t run well on the LE system because I’ve never had a problem doing so.

OVERALL OPINION

I’ve been using the Waves Ltd. Renaissance EQ for about two or three years now and while it isn’t my favorite EQ plug-in out there, it sounds good and gets the job done easily and without problems.  It is pretty similar in make up to the Digidesign EQs, both of which are quite easy to use and to me the Renaissance EQ has a cleaner sound.  This plug-in isn’t all that cheap as is the case with all Waves plug-ins, but if you get it in the Renaissance bundle you’ll be able to get a pretty good price per plug-in and will get some other powerful plug-ins to throw in the mix as well.  All in all, I love using the Waves Ltd. Renaissance EQ because it is extremely easy to use and will work on just about anything.