Black Q - V4

Four-band EQ with circuit drive

Born from a hardware build

Six months, real tubes, Sowter and Lundahl iron: Tone Empire built a golden unit and modeled every path of it. IV keeps that sound and builds the rest of the channel around it.

The two transformer paths that made BLACK Q are still here, untouched, as the LEGACY A and B circuits. Beside them sit three NEW stages built as live circuit models: a steel-core and a nickel-core transformer and a pentode output stage, each one solved in real time rather than curve-fitted.

The bands reach further now, the LOW band is a shelf, the whole EQ can run linear phase, and the left and right channels (or mid and side) can each carry their own settings. All of it still light enough to sit on every track.

From silky to full-on crunch.

Five drive circuits

DRIVE runs from a faint glow to proper saturation through the circuit you choose. A and B are BLACK Q's own two transformer paths, exactly as V3 had them. IRON is a small steel core that grips the lows and saturates early; NICKEL a big soft core, rounded and gentle; PENT a pentode output stage into its transformer.

Legacy and new, one selector

The old sound and the new sit on one five-way switch, so an A/B between them is a flick. Every circuit is run oversampled, 1x to 16x, and switching between them never clicks: the change is made in a few milliseconds of darkness and the audio comes straight back.

Four bands, further reach

LOW is a shelf from 50 to 200 Hz. MID now runs 100 Hz to 3 kHz and HIGH 600 Hz to 16 kHz, so the two bells overlap and you can stack them where the work is. AIR is a shelf up to 20 kHz. Gain is plus or minus 10 dB per band, each band with its own in / out key.

Colour-coded, readable at a glance

Each band's frequency knob is glass tinted in the band's colour, with the same colour on the band's key and on its curve in the analyzer. The frequency scale is printed around the knob; a value card appears while you turn.

LIN, and mid/side with its own settings

LIN applies the very same curve with no phase shift, for mastering and anything that must stay phase-coherent. M/S works in mid and side, and the channel keys give each channel its own EQ and drive: BOTH keeps them linked, L/M and R/S edit one side while the other keeps what you set.

SCOPE: the deck slides out

Press SCOPE and a second slab opens under the panel: the EQ curve, each band's own contribution in its colour, and the output spectrum behind it. It shows the channel you are editing and whether you are in linear phase. Close it and the window shrinks back.

Output, meter, MIX and DRIFT

A two-row LED meter reads the output. MIX blends the processed signal against the dry, time-aligned. DRIFT gives the two channels the small component mismatches of a real pair plus a slow thermal wander: width and life a perfect copy never has. AUTO on the top strip matches the output loudness to the input so you judge tone, not volume.

200 presets, including the V3 Classics

100 new presets in ten banks: vocals, drums, bass, guitars, keys and synths, mix bus, mastering, drive and colour, surgical fixes, stereo and mid/side. Plus the V3 Classics: all 100 original factory presets, converted. Your own V3 presets are imported too. Search, favorites, A/B, undo and redo.

Made for every channel

Light on CPU and no fuss: the EQ you leave on every track. Nothing clicks or zippers as you turn a knob or switch a band, the latency stays fixed and reported to the sample whatever mode you are in, and POWER crossfades in and out. BLACK Q IV installs beside V3: your V3 sessions keep opening with V3, your BLACK Q license activates IV, and IV reads your V3 presets.