Originally a part of BUTTERFLY, CATERPILLAR brings the SpreadEQ to a standalone format allowing you to add stereo information without heavily sacrificing your mono image. Let’s take a closer look at how it works.
The display functions as a visual guide on what CATERPILLAR is doing behind the scenes to the signal.
The Spectrum Analyzer will show the LEFT channel in yellow and the RIGHT channel in purple. Additionally, both the state and speed of the analyzer can be switched between OFF|PRE|POST in the upper-left corner to show either nothing, the input or output signal, and SLOW|MED|FAST in the upper-right corner to control the speed of the analyzer.
The Correlation Meter is a common indicator to show how mono-compatible your signal is with +1 meaning left and right channels are fully in phase and -1 meaning they are completely out of phase.
On the bottom-right is a CLIP button that will hard-clip the output signal at 0db.
By stacking, what we call Modes, any signal can be widened without having to sacrifice mono-compatibility. A single mode is built up of 2 opposing-gain Bell-Filters with one on the Left channel, and one on the Right channel.
With up to 24 Modes, they are spread out over the selected range which can be adjusted by moving either ends of the Frequency Range Slider and distributed either linearly, exponentially or a blend in between by changing the Distribution Curve.
Next to that, the Q factor as well as the Gain are ‘global’ for every filter in the Spread EQ.
The Spread EQ works on the Left and Right channels and functions independantly of the processing mode selected in the footer.
