MORPH EQ Review
Morph Eq by Minimal audio is a unique equalizer with the ability to shape shift with the control of the “morph” knob. While you may look at this and think “I can just do this with automation”, there’s some clever designs in the UI that make Morph EQ far more intuitive and fun to use. I know many of us like to make all of our own presets from scratch, but this is one of those examples where a library of 100 presets comes in handy and makes a lot of sense. If you shift your thinking, you wouldn’t shy away from 100 filter types if they were available in Rift Filter Lite, so why does loading them as presets make things any worse? So sometimes I just think of Morph EQ as a collection of interesting and unique filters to add motion or shaping to my sounds.
quick tip: use command click to add path nodes instantly rather than dragging from the outer ring for faster path creation
Morph EQ allows you to add a plethora of EQ points, I got to 64 before I gave up counting. Each point can be either a bell, notch, shelf or pass filter all with adjustable Q. Below the EQ display are 4 controls which adjust all EQ points at once:
Shift: moves every point up or down in frequency, treating the whole EQ curve as a filter shape.
Pinch: squeezes nodes closer together or pulls them further apart.
Spread: spread shifts the whole curve up or down but differently per left and right channels.
Scale: increases or decreases the amplitudes of all nodes, and can even invert the curve
Alone these 4 controls really give you a lot of flexibility with creative motion and reshaping of the EQ curve, but the magic really comes into play with the Morph control, which moves every nodes along a user defined path. To create these paths you select a node, and drag from it’s outer ring, creating a new point with a connected path. What is particularly nice about this is that you are assigning motion to both the filter frequency and amplitude, unlike automation, where you’d have to do these independently. It’s also nice to do this directly on the EQ display, as you can directly see where you are, and even in relation to the audio spectrograph. These paths can be a simple line, or you can add more points to create complex weaving motions. Each path is also a bezier curve, allowing you to pull and stretch them into loops and rounded shapes. creating several paths for each node allows you to sculpt and form interesting filters, formants, phasers and create motion more complex than the parallel translation provided by the Shift control.
Unfortunately there is no internal modulation, meaning you will have to automate the Morph control, or modulate it if your DAW allows. A simple LFO with tempo syncing, or midi triggering would have been greatly appreciated, even if it were just the basic waveforms to pick from. I like to modulate morph eq with a midi envelope, this is great for snares as you can simply draw the path you want the eq to take, rather than having to fuss with the back and forth adjusting frequency and amplitude, the added curve option makes this exceptionally easy. I’d have also liked to see a notch width adjustment as an option, however what we have already is a simple interface that allows for incredibly complex design. Adding too much to Morph EQ would take away the simplicity that allows for this tool to actually be so useful.
If you plan on purchasing MORPH EQ from Plugin Boutique, please consider supporting me by using my affiliate link
MORPH EQ: https://www.pluginboutique.com/product/2-Effects/16-EQ/9496-Morph-EQ?a_aid=61c378ab215d5