Clariphonic Mk3
MANUAL / DESIGN NOTES
IN / OUT TRIM
Adjusts the gain pre- or post- eq, with a range of +/- 12dB
0VU TRIM
Determines what level on the dBFS scale corresponds to the 0VU point on this meter, when calibrated with a 1k reference tone.
XY control
This dual-axis control allows for simultaneous control of both of Clariphonic’s Gain knobs.
The Y-axis (up-down) controls Focus Gain, the X-axis (left-right) controls Clarity Gain.
Skew On/Off
By default, the XY axes are semi-linear, meaning 50% of travel on an axis results in roughly 50% of travel on its corresponding gain knob.
Enabling the Skew control adjusts the XY axes to a custom, non-linear curve, such that 50% of travel on an axis represents roughly 25% of travel on its corresponding gain control. This affords the user much finer control over the subtler, lower gain ranges of the Clariphonic.
When Skew is activated and de-activated, the Focus and Clarity Gain values remain unchanged, but the XY control point will immediately toggle to the correct Skewed or non-Skewed position.
Band Dropdown Menus
Clicking on the displayed frequency name along either the X or Y axis will activate a dropdown menu, from which any possible frequency can be selected. This method of selecting frequencies mirrors the use of the toggle switches on the main UI, such that changing one will change the other.
When Stereo Mode is set to (DM) Dual Mono, or (MS) Mid-Side, the displayed frequency names represent the active selections for the (L) Left channel, and an additional set of frequency names will appear along the top X and right Y axes, representing the active selections for the (R) channel.
Curve Display
Dynamically adjusts to Clariphonic’s highly variable and gain-dependent corner frequencies.
This allows for continuously maximized resolution over the eq’d portions of the spectrum, allowing the operator to easily see the impact of small or large moves in a relatively compact, easy to read display area.
If the Stereo Mode is set to (DM) Dual Mono, or (MS) Mid-Side, the display is divided into two smaller displays, for the Left/Mid and Right/Side channels respectively.
DISPLAY ON/OFF
If the EQ Curve Display is distracting, it can be disabled via this toggle.
FOCUS
Focus is the lower of the Clariphonic’s two high-shelving bands.
Focus Gain
Boosts the gain of whichever Focus frequency is selected: Lift or Open When no frequency is selected (left toggle set to Out) the entire Focus band, including the gain knob, is bypassed.
Lift / Open / Out
Lift is the lower of the Focus band’s two frequency selections, Open is higher.
The Out position bypasses the Focus band and nothing else. This is handy when you’re using both the Focus and Clarity bands, and want to momentarily isolate the Clarity band’s effect, or check what impact Focus has on the combined shelves.
Note: all of the chrome toggle switches in Clariphonic's EQ section can be toggled via two mechanisms: click-dragging on the switch, or clicking directly on any of the names (e.g., Lift, Out, Cut etc.).
Boost / Cut
The original Clariphonic was a boost-only eq. Clariphonic Mk3 adds a cut-mode to the Focus band, modeled on the Clariphonic M/S hardware. This enable s a dip between 1k-3.5k, to mitigate, flatten, or invert the boost in this range when boosting with the Clarity band.
Note: Cut and Boost mode are asymmetrical. Boost will produce 14-16dB of gain, while Cut maxes out around -7dB. When using Focus Cut in conjunction with the (very wide) Clarity filters, Focus gain may need to be turned higher than usual, ~ 3 o’clock, to get the desired upper midrange softening effect.
Channel Control
In Dual-Mono or Mid-Side mode, this switch will toggle which channel is affected by the knobs and band switches. In stereo mode, it does nothing.
Soft Bypass
This toggle turns off all of Clariphonic’s processing, including the eq, Analog Highs (see below), and metering, while still technically passing through the plugin’s internal architecture.
Unlike the Hard Bypass or Plugin On/Off/Power switch offered by your DAW, Soft Bypassing a plugin internally has the advantage of being instant and silent, allowing for distraction-free a/b comparisons. The downside is that Soft Bypassing does not eliminate any latency the plugin creates.
Note: this toggle is a mirror of the Bypass button on the lower left of the plugin window; toggling one also toggles the other.
Stereo Mode
Toggles the plugin between (ST) Stereo, (L/R) Dual-Mono, and (M/S) Mid-Side modes.
Clarity
The higher of the Clariphonic’s dual shelving bands.
It starts where the Focus band leaves off, and goes all the way up from there. From lowest to highest frequency: Presence, Sheen, Shimmer, and Silk.
As with Focus, selecting 'Out' bypasses the Clarity band only, everything else remains active.
Clarity Gain
This boosts the gain of whatever Clarity frequency is selected: Presence, Sheen, Shimmer, or Silk. When no frequency is selected (center toggle set to Out) the entire Clarity band, including the gain knob, is bypassed.
Presence / Sheen / Shimmer / Silk
Presence is the lowest of the Clarity band’s frequency selections, followed in ascending order by Sheen, Shimmer, & Silk.
notes from the designer
A note on level matching
The VU meters on Kush’s more recent plugins feature two needles, green for Input and red for Output. These needles travel in parallel, which for me makes level matching a fairly quick and painless affair.
But here are my thoughts on level matching with the Clariphonic: its shelves predominantly affect the upper-midrange and treble frequencies, you can’t eq the low end. And when I think about how people report using the Clariphonic, the approach is generally to keep the bass and low mids where they are, as with a drum buss or a mix, and add top for presence, clarity, and/or articulation. So what we generally want is “same bottom, more mids and/or top”.
But if you lift the highs with a high shelf and then precisely level-match the post-eq’d Output with the pre-eq’d Input, you will necessarily be turning the eq’d signal down to match your input, which means instead of “same bottom, more top” you’ll be hearing “less bottom, more top but not as much top as I thought”.
Thinking about it that way, the usefulness of precision level-matching of pre- and post-eq is questionable with this particular eq and the workflow it encourages.
Focus Band Frequencies
These names come from the way I heard what needed to be done to the sound. If I had trouble hearing it no matter where I set the fader, until it simply became too loud in the mix, it needed to be Lifted up out of the mud. If I could hear it, but it just felt too closed off, it needed to be Opened up.
LIFT
In my experience, based on years of mixing with it and getting feedback from engineers of every possible skill level, Lift is a generalist and almost always the one to grab. Sometimes, a bit Lift is all a sound needs, no Clarity band required.
OPEN
This filter, by contrast, is more of a specialist, and tends to work better for me on percussive sources like individual drums, percussion, or on vocals where the singer isn’t resonant enough, as if their voice couldn’t quite make it out of their throat. I had that problem with my own vocals for many years, so anyone who struggles with this as a singer or as a mix engineer has my sympathies. On the plus side, you now have a very effective tool for getting that kind of vocal to slice thru a dense mix, so… yay?
Clarity Band Frequencies
PRESENCE
Presence is a hot one, I strongly advise being careful with this one. It strikes me as the most powerful of all the filters on this eq, because it’s very easy to hear and even easier to overdo, and it can make almost anything bright to the point of annoyance. Spending even 30 seconds with Presence pushed anywhere past 9 o’clock will skew my perception of what is bright and what is dark, so if something seems like it wants a lot of Presence I’ll frequently click the Out switch to double check and reset my baseline. With that said, if I’m using the Clarity band on any kind of source, about 50% of the time I’m using Presence, and 50% of those times the gain knob is barely cracked open. Even at that low gain, to my ears it’s not subtle.
SHEEN
As with the Focus band’s Open, Clarity’s Sheen is a bit of a dark horse, the one I use least on this band. But I always audition it, and when it works, it’s absolutely magical. It bridges the gap between the obvious treble of 4k-5k and the subtler treble of 10k-13k. In my world, things usually need one or the other of those treble spaces, but sometimes a source needs a blend of both, and that’s where Sheen comes into its own.
SHIMMER
Shimmer is the closest thing the Clariphonic has to a classic console eq’s high shelf, the kind that’s often fixed at 12k. I love it for overheads, vocals, acoustic instruments of any variety, and sometimes the mix bus. It’s hard to get a bad sound of it.
SILK
When the Clariphonic first came out over 15 years ago, very few eq’s had a filter as high as Silk, which if you could give it a number would be somewhere in the 30k-35k range. Very few eq’s even had a filter over 20k; Avalon had one, GML/Sonteq, Avedis, and not much else outside of custom mastering eq’s. Nowadays, there are a lot of ‘supersonic’ filters, but I’m not aware of any that have the gentle slope and laid back vibe of Silk. Check out the preset ‘Mastering Trick’ to see how simple and effective this one filter can be.