PowerEQ: Quick Start

1.4.1 · September 2026

• No more hollow midrange. The automatic EQ used to line every voice up against its target at a single point, 1 kHz, which left a narrow bump there and a dip around 2 kHz on almost every recording. On a clean, well-balanced microphone that carve was all you heard: a hollow sound with less presence. Voice and target are now lined up across the whole midrange, a typical voice gets no midrange carving at all, and small differences are simply left alone.
• Good microphones keep their presence. The automatic EQ may now take at most 2.5 dB off the top of a recording. Real harshness is still handled by the de-esser.

1.4.0 · September 2026

• A smoother, film-like default for every voice. The automatic EQ now aims at a warmer curve, the kind of dialogue tone you hear in a feature film, instead of a bright broadcast sound. It may still cut harshness freely, but it only adds a little presence, almost no extra air, and never adds low end underneath a voice's fundamental. On a wide range of real recordings this roughly halves the top-end lift that made some voices sound harsh or abrasive, for men and women alike. The Bro preset keeps its deliberately big sound.
• Existing projects keep their sound until you press Analyze again. While audio plays, the live re-fitting may ease the tone toward the new curve by up to about a decibel.

1.3.0 · September 2026

• Analyze measures your room. De-Reverb, Remove Ambience, Isolate Voice and Noise Cleanup used to be set from the microphone profile alone. Analyze now listens to the recording itself: how the sound decays after each word, how deep and how real the pauses are, and whether the noise it found is actually noise. A dry close mic in a treated room no longer gets reverb removal or gating it never needed; a roomy capture keeps its treatment. Where the evidence is weak, the profile's settings still apply, so nothing gets less care than before.
• Safer cleanup. If the quiet moments of a clip are not believable as pure noise (because the voice never stops, or because there is a music bed or tonal hum under it), Noise Cleanup stays at Light and the gates stay gentle instead of chewing into the voice or the music.

1.2.0 · September 2026

• A stronger, simpler Analyze. The spectral match is now the single automatic tone corrector, applied at full strength against a target re-tuned on the Auphonic reference corpus. Analyze no longer sets Reduce Boominess, Add Clarity or Add Brightness: they start at zero and are yours to shape by hand on the Advanced tab. Behind this change: those three used to be re-derived from the same measurements the match already corrects, and Reduce Boominess sat at its maximum on nearly every real recording. That missing body is what "tinny" reports were hearing.
• Level-invariant analysis. Quiet recordings (wireless mics around -40 LUFS) used to analyze brighter than loud ones. The same clip now gets the same correction at any recording level.
• Auto mic guess reads the sound, not the level. Recording gain no longer changes which profile Auto picks. Switching between the Studio Treated, Untreated and USB profiles now applies their defaults.
• Sessions from 1.1.x keep their exact sound until you press Analyze. Latency reporting now includes the Isolate Voice look-ahead, so processed and unprocessed tracks stay sample-aligned.

1.1.8 · August 2026

• Take the Tour. A guided walkthrough of the whole plugin: Analyze, mic profiles, the live spectrum and EQ curve, presets, Before/After, Auto-Fix, then the Advanced and Setup tabs. It opens once on a fresh install, and it lives under Setup → Take the Tour whenever you want a refresher. Step through with Next and Back, or skip at any point.

1.1.7 · August 2026

• Live Input Mode: PowerEQ goes live. Streaming apps like Ecamm Live host audio plugins but have no playback, so Analyze had nothing to listen to. Flip on Live Input Mode (Setup tab) and Analyze becomes a guided capture: the button counts down while you speak normally, waits for actual audio (a muted mic can never produce a bogus profile), and builds your profile from what it heard. The profile saves with your session and with any preset, so one listen per mic and room is all you ever need. See the new Live streaming apps section.
• Auto-Fix now asks first. Detected repairs (mains hum, clipped recordings) no longer switch on silently as part of Analyze. When an analysis finds them, the Auto-Fix button shows a count, Auto-Fix (2), and one click applies exactly those repairs. Same one-click convenience, but you always know what was changed and why.

1.1.6 · August 2026

• De-Rustle is back on the panel. A layout bug hid the De-Rustle controls since 1.0.7: the feature worked (its parameters were always live in host inspectors), but its rows never rendered on the Advanced tab. It now closes the repair group with its Band Low/High sweep and Solo Band listen controls, and De-Hum leads the restoration rows as intended. Lav wearers: turn De-Rustle on, hit Solo Band, sweep the two handles until you hear mostly rustle, then switch Solo off.

1.1.5 · August 2026

• One family folder: PowerAudio. PowerEQ and PowerDuck now sit together under PowerAudio in every host's effects browser (they were under "PowerEQ"). Nothing else changes: existing timelines, presets and favorites are untouched, and searching "PowerEQ" still finds it. The original ⚡️EQ Final Cut app keeps its old folder.
• Sturdier preset loading. A damaged preset or saved-session file could corrupt memory on load in rare cases; loading is now fully guarded.

1.1.4 · August 2026

• Correct levels on lav and dual-mono clips. When a stereo clip carries the same voice on both channels (a dual-mono recording, or a wireless kit's main channel plus its quieter safety track), each channel used to be leveled to the full loudness target on its own, so the two summed several dB too hot in the timeline while the plugin's own meters looked fine. PowerEQ now recognises the pair, processes the voice once, and keeps timeline levels honest. True stereo material is untouched.
• The leveler no longer boosts into the limiter. On quiet recordings the auto-leveler could lift the voice so far that the safety limiter was working constantly, which reads as a hot, crushed sound. The leveler now watches its own peaks and stops a step short, so the limiter is back to catching only rare transients. Very quiet recordings may land a touch under the loudness target, which is the honest trade.
• Breath Remover and Pop Filter now start Off for every microphone profile. Both are repair tools with side effects on soft speech, so they are yours to switch on when the material actually needs them.
• A proper name and a new icon. The panel header now reads ⚡️PowerEQ instead of ⚡️EQ, so the plugin and the legacy Final Cut app are no longer easy to confuse, and PowerEQ has its own icon.

1.1.3 · August 2026

• Smoother starts at every cut. The auto-leveler used to begin each fresh start (a new clip, a cut, an export segment) at a level estimated before it had heard any audio, so very quiet recordings could come in loud and then get pulled down, or swell in over the first second. It now listens to the first moments of actual speech and settles to the right level quickly, and leveling through the rest of the clip is unchanged.

1.1.2 · July 2026

• Smoother, cleaner voice at every setting. The analog preamp stage applied far more saturation than intended at low drive amounts, including the factory default, which could put a subtle crushed, gritty edge on loud syllables even though nothing was clipping. It now scales smoothly from fully clean to fully driven, and turning the Preamp up still gives the same full warmth as before. Existing projects benefit automatically, with no settings changes needed.

1.1.1 · July 2026

• Pick your panel size: a small menu in the header (next to Presets) offers 50% · 75% · 100%, just like Apple's Channel EQ. The default is now 75%, which fits comfortably on a 14-inch MacBook; one click brings back full size. Your choice is remembered everywhere the plugin runs, and PowerDuck follows the same setting so both panels stay in step.

1.1.0 · July 2026

• Cuts-Safe is now opt-in: it ships off by default in every host, so the out-of-box sound is the full adaptive behavior. Flip it on (Shape tab) for multicam and cut-heavy timelines where every cut of the same voice should sound identical. Projects saved with it on keep their setting.
• Send Feedback button: the Setup tab now has a direct line for ideas and suggestions, separate from Report a Problem. Big or small, they all get read.
• Clearer activation errors: a blocked or filtered connection to the license server (VPNs, ad-blocking DNS, corporate networks) now reports as a connection problem instead of "invalid key", so the fix you chase is the right one.

1.0.9 · July 2026

• Cuts-Safe mode: multicam & cut-heavy timelines now match. Final Cut renders every cut as its own fresh start, which used to mean small loudness and tone differences between cuts of the same clip. Cuts-Safe locks the leveler and Adaptive EQ to your Analyze profile so every cut of the same voice sounds identical. On by default in Final Cut (Shape tab toggle); compound clips are now an optional refinement, not a requirement.
• No more clipped sentence starts and ends: the gate now looks 8 ms ahead and holds through natural pauses, so the first syllable of a sentence and soft trailing words come through whole instead of being shaved off.
• Instant level lock: the leveler starts every segment already at the level Analyze measured (with a fast settle), so fresh cuts no longer fade up or wander for the first seconds.
• Analyze stability in Final Cut: fixed a freeze (and follow-on crash) when Final Cut rebuilt its audio pipeline at the exact moment an analysis was running.

1.0.8 · July 2026

• Channel EQ, right on the analyzer: the spectrum is now an EQ editor: six bands (low cut, low shelf, three peaks, high shelf) as draggable numbered handles on the graph's own frequency scale. Select a peak and drag its width grips to widen or narrow the band with the affected range highlighted; double-click a handle to reset it. The curve is computed from the exact filters the audio runs, every band is host-automatable, and your sound is untouched until you move one.
• Auto mic: don't know what it was recorded with? Leave the mic on Auto (the default) and press Analyze: PowerEQ detects the mic and applies the matching profile for you. An explicit pick is never switched automatically. You just get a suggestion.
• Sound: dark-mic fix + calibration trim. The Adaptive EQ no longer pulls presence and air down on dark mics (SM7B-class) after it settles, and the overall level now sits exactly on the calibrated reference instead of ~1 dB hot, noticeably less dense on close mics.
• Panel fits your screen: the window opens no taller than your display (the resize corner could spawn below the Dock on small MacBooks), and the layout is wider: output meters and a master volume fader (linked to the Volume slider) now live beside a taller spectrum.

1.0.7 · July 2026

• Adaptive Auto-EQ: PowerEQ now keeps tuning its EQ while the clip plays, adapting to each voice and room instead of applying one static curve. It listens first and glides in only once it has settled, so nothing pumps or shifts audibly. On by default; toggle it on the Shape tab.
• De-Esser rebuilt: sibilance control now genuinely bites at every recording level. Tame Sibilance and the De-Esser strength finally do what they say, and the new sensing leaves natural speech untouched.
• Calibrated against professional processing: every preset and mic profile was re-tuned on real before/after pairs mastered by a professional reference pipeline; out of the box, loudness and tone land within a fraction of a dB of the pro target.
• Leveler overhauled: gain holds through pauses (no more "volume swelling up" when a speaker resumes), the attack is faster, quiet passages get a more confident lift, and new Attack, Release and Threshold sliders on the Advanced tab let you fine-tune it.
• Analyze guesses your mic: after Analyze, PowerEQ suggests the matching mic pick ("Analyze thinks this is: Lav - Indoor") with a one-click Use This Mic button.
• De-Rustle: targets lav-mic clothing rustle, with an adjustable band and a Listen mode that plays only what's being removed.
• Mix control: blend the processed voice with the original.
• Mic picks: retuned Lav and Boom profiles, a new USB Mic pick, and Phone / On-Camera split into Indoor and Outdoor picks, grouped together in the menu.
• Cleaner gaps: the noise-gate no longer flutters at its threshold, removing a subtle digital artifact in pauses.
• Double-click any slider (its name or value) to reset it to default.

1.0.6 · July 2026

• Smoother, gentler sound: the automatic leveling, compression, preamp warmth and brightness introduced in 1.0.5 have all been re-tuned to be noticeably easier on the ears: audio now lands with comfortable headroom under the loudness target instead of pushing right up against it, and the tone shaping uses softer, smoother roll-offs. If 1.0.5 felt too hot or dense, this is the fix.
• Final Cut Pro: the analyzer and meters no longer animate while FCP rebuilds waveforms in the background.

1.0.5 · July 2026

• Auto-Fix button: one click analyzes the last few seconds, switches on repairs for detected problems (mains hum, clipped peaks) and sets every control for your clip, even with Auto-shape off.
• De-Hum, De-Click and De-Clip arrive in the plugin (bottom of the Advanced tab): remove 50/60 Hz electrical hum, repair clicks and mouth ticks, and rebuild peaks flattened by recording too hot. Analyze detects hum and clipping and turns the right ones on for you.
• Before / After: press and hold the new header button to hear your original; release for the processed sound.
• Smarter loudness, tuned on real recordings: Analyze now calibrates the auto-leveler to your specific clip and gain-stages quiet recordings (DJI/GoPro/phone tracks that used to stay quiet now land at the preset's loudness target). Tested against a corpus of real mics, rooms and outdoor captures.
• Mic picks do much more: choosing your mic now applies the same full tuned starting points as PowerEQ Studio (leveling, compression, preamp drive, exciter…), and the Phone/On-Camera pick uses the produced "Studio" voice instead of Neutral.
• Stubborn sibilance tamed: a second de-essing stage catches the harsh esses wireless mics (DJI and friends) push through, and the Tame Sibilance slider now cuts genuinely deeper as you raise it.
• LEVELER / LIMITER readout under the analyzer shows the auto-leveler riding gain and the limiter working, live.
• Import Preset… and Share Preset… (the macOS share sheet: AirDrop, Messages, Mail) in the Presets menu.
• Turning the Auto-shape switch on now re-shapes immediately; re-entering your license key on an activated copy says "already activated, you're all set" instead of "invalid".

1.0.4 · July 2026

• Fixed: Isolate Voice, Remove Ambience and De-Reverb's tail reduction previously had little to no audible effect. All three now work as intended (the same detector fix the Breath Remover received in 1.0.3).

1.0.3 · July 2026

• Breath Remover fixed: it now genuinely ducks inhale breaths (Low ≈2 dB, Med ≈10 dB, High ≈18 dB quieter) while leaving speech untouched. It previously had no audible effect.
• Loudness Target works on every preset: picking a preset moves the slider to that preset's tuned target (YouTube −14, Podcast −16, Radio DJ −12), and you can adjust from there. Previously the slider only applied to Neutral.
• Hover tooltips everywhere: hold the mouse over any control's name (sliders, Shape rows, presets, the Analyze result pills) for a plain-English explanation.
• A/B blue dot on every Advanced slider: click to disable just that effect without losing your setting; click again to restore it.
• "Running hot" warning: if the chain drives the safety limiter into sustained clamping, a warning appears over the analyzer with an Auto-Fix button that lowers Loudness Target just enough.
• PowerEQ Studio preset bridge: the Presets menu lists your Studio presets, and Export to Studio… sends the current settings the other way.
• Scroll wheel no longer adjusts sliders (goodbye, accidental Magic Mouse nudges). Drag to adjust.
• Faster exports: all metering work is skipped during offline renders, and the analyzer no longer animates while Final Cut Pro redraws waveforms.
• Advanced tab reordered (Volume and Loudness Target first); Shape tab puts De-Reverb and Noise Cleanup at the bottom.
• Fixed garbled characters on the Setup tab's license pill.

1.0.2 · July 2026

• Update notifications: a banner appears in the panel when a new version is available, plus a Check for Updates button in the Setup tab.
• Installer finish screen now covers Final Cut Pro and Resolve's plugin-enable step.

1.0.1 · July 2026

• Fixed: the analyzer could stay frozen in Final Cut Pro and Premiere Pro.
• Bigger, clearer analyzer On/Off button; the panel greys out when off.
• New Report a Problem button in the Setup tab.
• Installer's finish screen now covers Resolve's plugin-enable step.

1.0.0 · July 2026

• First release of PowerEQ for DaVinci Resolve & Premiere Pro (VST3 + AU, universal).
• One-click Analyze & Shape Voice with mic profiles and Auto-shape.
• Realtime spectrum, LUFS readout and output peak meters.
• Spectral De-Reverb, full room & character toolkit, six voice presets.
• User presets (including analysis) shared across hosts.
• 7-day free trial; licenses via Payhip.