McDSP - 4020 Retro EQ HD

The McDSP 4020 Retro EQ is a four-band EQ with high and low pass filters, designed from scratch to feel and sound like a piece of vintage studio gear rather than copy one. It's for anyone who wants a broad, musical EQ that's hard to make sound bad.

How it works

The high and low bands are shelving EQs, with two parametric bands in the mids. Every band uses a gain-dependent variable slope and Q, so curves stay smooth at small settings and get more selective as you push them. The high and low pass filters use a split-octave design: 12 dB/oct near the cutoff, rising to 24 dB/oct further out.

The sound

Gentle when you want it, and forgiving when you push it. The anti-clip output stage and analogue saturation modelling mean big boosts thicken rather than harden. It's at home on vocals, acoustic guitars and drum overheads, and pairs naturally with the 4030 Retro Compressor.

HD or Native?

HD adds AAX DSP, so it runs on Pro Tools HDX cards and Avid VENUE S6L live consoles as well as natively on your computer. If you don't have HDX hardware, 4020 Retro EQ Native does the same job for less.

Features

• Four-band EQ: two shelving and two parametric bands
• Gain-dependent variable slope and Q
• Split-octave high and low pass filters
• Anti-clip output stage
• Analogue saturation modelling
• Double precision processing, ultra low latency
• Mono and stereo versions

System requirements

• Version: 7.3
• Mac: macOS 10.13 High Sierra to macOS 26 Tahoe. AAX DSP, AAX Native, AU and VST3. Native on Apple Silicon and Intel
• Windows: Windows 10 and 11. AAX DSP, AAX Native and VST3
• RAM: not specified by McDSP
• Licence: iLok, on an iLok2 or iLok3 USB key, your computer or iLok Cloud (a free iLok account is needed). Two activations per licence

SOUND7 is an authorised McDSP reseller. Digital delivery: licence activation code sent by email.

Demo