Install & load
⚡️EQ is an Audio Unit v3 (AUv3) effect for macOS 13+. It's built for voice clips in Final Cut Pro, and works in any AU host.
Final Cut Pro
Logic Pro, GarageBand & other DAWs
Add ⚡️EQ as an audio effect on your voice track. It processes in real time alongside the rest of your mix, and every parameter can be automated by the host.
Analyze & auto-shape
The one-click step. Press Analyze & Shape Voice and play the clip. ⚡️EQ listens to a few seconds of speech and measures the voice: male/female detection, loudness, pitch, signal-to-noise, and a noise profile. It then sets the controls to a finished, safe result.
- Analyze listens while you play. The button shows "Listening… play the clip" until it has heard about four seconds of audio. If nothing is playing it won't spin forever. It times out with a reminder to press play first.
- Results are saved with your project. The analysis (including the noise profile) is stored in the Final Cut project and survives closing and reopening it, no need to re-Analyze.
- Microphone / condition picker. Tell ⚡️EQ what it's hearing (Studio Mic, Lav (indoor/outdoor), Action / Wireless, or Phone) and Auto-shape biases the result for that source: rumble filtering, clarity, brightness, ambience and reverb control are all tuned to the mic's typical weaknesses.
- It never over-processes. Auto-shaping caps noise cleanup at Medium and keeps boosts conservative; if a clip is genuinely rough it suggests the next step (Final Cut's Voice Isolation, or a pass through EQ Studio) instead of forcing it.
Presets
The same six voice styles as EQ Studio: your sound stays consistent between the app and the plugin:
Clean, transparent polish, a balanced starting point.
Bright, present and forward for talking-head video.
Warm, intimate and even, easy on the ears for long-form.
Big, bold low end with broadcast punch and density.
Refined, full-range studio vocal character.
Deep, larger-than-life voice (uses its own analysis target).
Where the loudness targets apply: the preset targets are delivery levels for the track the plugin is on. If your video also has music and sound effects, the finished mix lands louder than the voice alone, so set the Loudness Target a few dB lower (dialogue around −18 to −16) and let the full mix arrive at your platform's number. Keep the preset value when the voice is the whole program, like a podcast or a voiceover delivery.
Controls
Start from Analyze or a preset, then shape to taste. The Preamp sets drive and auto-compensates output level, and every parameter can be automated by your host.
Main controls
- Voice (Auto / Male / Female), Boost Low End, Warmth, De-esser, Noise Cleanup, Preamp.
Advanced parameters
- Tone: Loudness Target (LUFS), Remove Rumble, Reduce Boominess, Add Clarity, Add Brightness, Tame Sibilance, Tilt (dark/bright), Air / Exciter, Tame Harshness.
- Dynamics & level: Extra Leveling, Compress, Volume.
- Cleanup: De-Reverb, Remove Ambience, Breath Remover, Pop Filter, Isolate Voice.
- Character: Preamp Character (Tube / Tape / Transformer), Doubler / Width.
Your settings, including every Advanced slider, hold through playback and are saved with the project. The Reset button returns everything to default, including the behind-the-scenes room controls set by auto-shaping.
Noise removal in a DAW
For lighter, real-time noise reduction inside the plugin, use the Noise Cleanup, Remove Ambience and Isolate Voice controls.
Trial & license
Updates & ownership. Your license is permanent. Every 1.x update is free, including macOS compatibility fixes. A future major version will be a paid upgrade, always discounted for existing owners. If this product is ever retired I will say so rather than go quiet: the final version stays downloadable and your license keeps working.
- Free trial. Every install starts a 7-day trial with the full feature set, no key needed. The panel shows the days remaining.
- Buying. Get a license key from Payhip, then paste it into the license field at the bottom of the plugin panel. Activation covers 2 devices.
- After the trial, the plugin passes audio through untouched until a key is entered. It never blocks your timeline.
Updates
- The ⚡️EQ app (installed alongside the plugin) checks for updates automatically and installs them with one click.
- The plugin panel also shows a banner inside Final Cut when a newer version is available, with a link to the download.
- After updating, quit and reopen Final Cut so it loads the new version.
Working alongside EQ Studio
⚡️EQ shares its DSP engine with EQ Studio, so the two match exactly. A common workflow:
- Rough out the character of a voice quickly in EQ Studio (and run AI Cleanup there if the recording is noisy).
- Recreate or refine it on your clip with ⚡️EQ, in context with the full edit.
Timelines with many cuts
Hearing small loudness jumps, fade-ins, or tone shifts between the cut parts of a timeline, often only in the exported video? Nothing is broken: Final Cut treats every cut as its own fresh copy of the effect, so PowerEQ's auto-leveler starts listening from scratch at each one. During playback the instances stay warmed up, but an export renders each cut from a cold start, which is why a timeline that sounded fine while editing can misbehave in the export. Since version 1.1.3 these fresh starts settle much faster, so the effect is far less audible; on heavily cut timelines the two setups below are still the way to get every cut identical.
- Quick fix: switch on Cuts-Safe (Multicam) on the Shape tab. It locks the leveler and Adaptive EQ to your Analyze profile, so every cut starts at the right level from its very first frame instead of settling in. Set up one clip the way you like it, then select the other clips and use Edit → Paste Attributes… to give them the same settings.
- Best fix: apply PowerEQ once to the whole passage. Select the dialogue clips, right-click → New Compound Clip, and put PowerEQ on the compound instead of the individual pieces. One instance of the effect then runs across all the cuts as if they were one continuous recording, which also keeps the tone perfectly consistent from cut to cut.
Tips & help
- Analyze first. It's the fastest route to a finished sound: everything after is taste.
- Watch your gain. If a preset feels hot, ease back Preamp or Extra Leveling, or trim Volume.
- Pick the mic. The microphone / condition picker meaningfully changes the auto-shape: a lav outdoors gets very different treatment from a studio condenser.
- Match the app. Because the engine is identical, a setting that sounds right in EQ Studio will sound the same here.
Prefer a standalone app, with batch matching and AI cleanup? See EQ Studio.
Uninstall
One click: download the ⚡️EQ Uninstaller, open it and follow the prompts. It removes the app and asks whether to keep your settings. Keep them if you might reinstall, since your license activation lives there. (Signed & notarized, like everything else here.)
Prefer to do it by hand? ⚡️EQ is an Audio Unit that lives inside its app, so there are no plugin files scattered anywhere. To remove it:
- Quit Final Cut Pro.
- Drag PowerEQ from your Applications folder to the Trash.
- Open Final Cut again. The effect is gone from the browser.
Your license key stays in your Payhip receipt email either way, so reinstalling later is just running the installer and pasting the key.