The 15 Best Free EQ VST Plugins in 2026

The quantity and variety of EQ plugins on the market today is staggering — from premium-grade paid ones to free ones that punch above their weight.

We spent some time testing well over a dozen of the free onesand this list is made up of our favorites.

Let’s dig in.

The best free EQ plugins available today

1. TDR EQ plugins

While most Tokyo Dawn plugins are paidthey also have a healthy selection of free ones. TDR Nova and TDR VOS SlickEQ are their two free EQ plugins.

Nova specializes in “dynamic EQ,” which allows you to boost or attenuate frequency bands while the EQ compensates for changes in gain. This makes it easier to dial in adjustments without losing energy or creating new problems.

SlickEQ is less technical in nature and succeeds at maximizing ease of use. It also offers some flavors of subtle saturation and coloration that we lovedespecially on drums and guitar.

Nova might be more suited for producers with prior experience using EQswhile we’d more easily recommend SlickEQ for producers of any experience level.

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2. HoRNet TreBande

While the TDR free EQs offer you a choice between transparency and characterTreBande leans more toward character.

That’s not to say it isn’t precise — we found it both quite capable and very easy to use.

Howeversince it’s inspired by classic hardware mixer EQsit does introduce a bit of coloration into your signal. Sowhether or not you get along with it will likely depend on your preferences in that regard.

We happened to enjoy the subtle saturation it gave us (especially on a drum bus)as well as the switchable “hiss” feature. Soif a bit of grit is your cup of teathis is certainly one to try.

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3. Photosounder SplineEQ

Read - Linear Phase EQ: The 10 Best Plugins and How to Use Them

We’ve spent some time with SplineEQ beforeas it’s one of the EQs covered in our article on linear phase EQ.

Revisiting it for a fresh round of testing was once again an interesting experience. Once you get used to itthe spline curve workflow is quite impressive for making certain adjustments quickly.

Howeverour favorite aspect of this free EQ plugin remains its potential as a creative filtering toolespecially considering how drastically you can cut and boost with the splines.

The $29 paid version gets you past the limit of four frequency bands and allows for up to 60opening up a whole world of filtering effects and experimentation.

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4. DDMF EQ plugins

Read - The 250 Best Free VST Plugins Ever

Among DDMF’s freeware offerings you’ll find two free EQ plugins — IIEQ and ColourEQ.

IIEQ shares a name with the widely-beloved IIEQProtheir flagship paid EQ (though it’s unclear whether or not they share any underlying architecture).

On one handthe small (unscalable) and tightly-packed interfaces of each of these EQs did not provide the most pleasant experience in terms of aesthetics or ergonomics.

But both of them were still highly capable of addressing a variety of problem areas while providing a pleasant overall sound. Not surprising given the developer’s reputation.

We appreciated the simplicity and no-nonsense approach of both IIEQ and ColourEQso we think they’re well worth checking out.

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5. Melda Production MEqualizer

Melda Production is a name you’ll see constantly in free plugin recommendationsand we think it’s for good reason.

While we’ve used nearly all of their freeware tools over the yearstheir free EQ plugin MEqualizer was one that we’d previously overlooked.

This turned out to be a misstep on our part — MEqualizer is great. We found the workflow to be straightforward yet preciseand the visualizer highly useful.

The built-in saturation also sounds excellenteven when cranked to extremesbut you can easily use MEqualizer for more transparent applications if you prefer.

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6. Manda Audio 7Q

7Q offers a take-it-or-leave it approach to equalizationgiving you a set of seven predefined frequency bands with fixed Q values. It also gives you low and high-cut filters for good measure.

While we at first were skeptical of what seemed like a lack of flexibilitywe were soon proven wrong by 7Q’s performance.

It’s clear that a lot has gone into engineering this free EQ plugin for absolute efficiencynot to mention high-quality results.

We definitely recommend 7Q as a straightforward graphic EQ that simply gets the job doneespecially when the situation doesn’t necessitate countless hours of agonizing with overly-surgical moves.

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7. Mellowmuse EQ1A

There are a lot of vintage EQ emulations out there at various price points.

While some of them (especially the more expensive ones) can beautifully capture the sound of classic outboardthey can also be a bit heavy on the CPU.

Mellowmuse EQ1A aims to deliver an analog- EQ with simple operation and very light processor load. Our tests found that it accomplished both of these goals elegantly.

On most machinesyou could quite easily have this free EQ plugin scattered throughout a project in numerous instances without pushing the limits of your CPU.

If that sounds compelling to youthen we recommend trying this one out for sure.

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8. Analog Obsession EQ plugins

It’s clear that the developer behind Analog Obsession haswellan obsession with capturing the spirit of analog outboard gear.

With dozens of plugins available on the Analog Obsession Patreon (which we’d encourage anyone to subscribe toeven though you don’t have to pay a subscription fee to access the software)your biggest challenge is choosing where to begin.

We tried out nearly all of themand some music producers on our team use several of them quite regularly.

When it comes to his free EQ pluginswe highly recommend starting with SSQFrankand FIVER.

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9. ViatorDSP EQ plugins

Let’s continue down the path of analog-inspired free EQ plugins and take a look at these three contenders from ViatorDSP.

Radiant Q is a tube EQ emulation with carefully-tuned curves and an emphasis on simplicity and immediacy.

LV-50A is a parametric EQ with a set of classic filters designed for a balance between precision and ease of use.

Graphic EQ offers 10 fixed bands with the addition of high- and low-pass filters.

We enjoyed using all of theseas they imparted lovely coloration to a wide variety of instrument sounds and their interfaces made for a pleasant experience in terms of usability.

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10. Sonimus SonEQ

Some EQs give you almost endless flexibility in how you treat your soundswhile others focus on a limited set of very finely-tuned parameters for quick and easy moves.

Sonismus SonEQ is a great example of the latter — it didn’t take much time for us to get results that we liked.

When we wanted some extra crunchwe dialed it in with the dedicated “Drive” knob. This sounded pretty good on most signalsand we especially appreciated the slight enhancement of transients that it gave our drum bus.

Try this one out if you want a free EQ plugin that makes it easy to enhance vocalsadjust mids for better instrument soundsor simply indulge in a little grit.

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11. Voxengo EQ plugins

Read - The 15 Best Free Delay VST Plugins

Voxengo once again comes through with the high-quality freebies. The much-loved developer offers not one but three free EQ plugins.

The Marvel GEQ is a linear-phase graphic equalizer (whichof coursewe also featured in our linear-phase EQ list). It’s transparenteasy to useand even offers multichannel operation for surround sound work.

Overtone GEQ allows you to introduce extra harmonics into the signal for added enhancement. It’s a bit heavier on the CPUso don’t throw it on everything in a project.

LastlyTEQ-421 is all about simplicity and immediacy. It offers three fixed bands that are carefully tuned to important areas for adding energy and presence to acoustic recordings.

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12. lkjb EQ plugins

lkjb has a few free EQ plugins to choose frombut our two favorites are Luftikus and QRange.

QRange was another plugin that we featured in our article on linear phase EQ.

We appreciated the precision and clarity of QRange. Howeverits linear phase operation can introduce latency in your projectso use it with care.

Luftikus is nice and straightforwardallowing for quick and satisfying adjustments. It even has built-in gain compensation.

Unfortunatelythese aren’t available in 64-bit macOS versionsso keep compatibility in mind if you’re hoping to try these out.

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13. Blue Cat Triple EQ

We’ve had a solid stretch of analog- free EQ pluginsso let’s pivot back to more transparency-oriented option.

Blue Cat’s Triple EQ isn’t a super in-depthsurgical EQ. Insteadit functions almost as a set of three highly flexible filters that allow for both subtle adjustments and creative filtering effects.

We appreciated how easy it was to useits very low CPU loadand most of allhow well it responded to automation. We were able to sweep all of the frequency bands between various states with no artifacts whatsoever.

If this balance between simplicity and flexibility sounds good to youwe highly recommend this one.

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14. AudioThing Blindfold EQ

Okaysorrywe’re back to vintage- EQs. Except we’re not sorrybecause we love this one.

AudioThing is a great company with an impressive portfolio of plugins that we’ve used a lot in our productions. They also have a very thoughtful approach to their designs.

In this casethe concept is to provide a free EQ plugin without any numerical values for its frequencyQor level parameters.

That’s rightyou have to actually use your earshence the name “Blindfold EQ.”

We love any tool that challenges our habits and encourages us to develop our skills. If you do toothen you should pick this one up.

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15. Kiive Audio Warmy EP1A Tube EQ

The Pultec EQP-1A is one of the most famous EQs of all timerenowned for the character imparted by its vacuum tubesand especially its effect on lower frequencies.

There are quite a few emulations of the Pultec out thereand most of them are paid. Kiive Audio’s Warmy EP1Ahoweveris free.

We’re happy to say that it competes very well with Pultec emulations that will cost you moneyand we were especially impressed with how well it captured that famous low-end “mojo.”

We recommend grabbing this one and trying it out on bass and synths in particularbut it’s certainly useful on a wide range of instruments and sounds.

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Devon Hansen is a producerDJand writer with 20 years of experience in electronic music production. Having worked under various names and in a wide range of sDevon has performed several editions of MUTEK Montreal and has released music with labels in North Americathe UKand Japan. When not working on creative projects or playing tunes on Montreal’s n10.as radioDevon can be found watching moviescookingand reading too much about gear.

@Devon Hansen

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