Bypass the EQ stage from the chain¶
This page explains how to bypass the client-side parametric EQ for either the TX or RX audio path. Bypassing removes the EQ from the signal chain without deleting your band settings.
Before you start¶
- AetherSDR must be open. A radio connection is not required to bypass the EQ.
- The EQ stage must already be present in the CHAIN widget for the path you want to bypass (TX or RX).
Steps¶
- Locate the CHAIN widget for the path you want to bypass — either the TX chain or the RX chain.
- Single-click the EQ stage in the CHAIN widget for that path.
The EQ stage is now bypassed for that path. The ClientEqTxEnabled or ClientEqRxEnabled setting is updated immediately and persisted across restarts.
To re-engage the EQ, single-click the EQ stage in the CHAIN widget again.
What each control does¶
| Control | Path | Persisted key |
|---|---|---|
| EQ stage (TX chain) | TX | ClientEqTxEnabled |
| EQ stage (RX chain) | RX | ClientEqRxEnabled |
| Output Fader | Vertical combined fader + level meter on the right edge of the floating editor. Drag to set post-EQ master gain; scroll wheel adjusts in 0.5 dB steps; double-click resets to 0 dB. The level bar behind the handle shows the smoothed post-EQ peak in real time with the same green-amber-red gradient as the Tube level meter. | Persisted separately per path: ClientEqTxMasterGain / ClientEqRxMasterGain. Tooltip: 'Output gain (dB). Drag to set, wheel for fine step, double-click to reset to 0 dB.' Gain range is linear 0.0 to ~4.0; the scale labels run from -40 to 0 dB. Located in the floating editor only — not in the docked applet tile. |
| Peak Hold | Located in the floating editor header strip only. When checked, the per-bin peak-hold trace in the analyzer stops decaying — every frequency's highest observed level is held until the button is toggled off. Button background turns amber when checked. | None (not persisted). |
| Filter family | Located in the floating editor header strip. Selects the HP/LP cascade mathematics: Butterworth (maximally flat passband), Chebyshev (steeper rolloff with 1 dB passband ripple), Bessel (linear phase / gentler rolloff), or Elliptic (steepest transition with ripple in both bands). Applies only to HP and LP filter types; peak and shelf bands use their own fixed 2nd-order topology regardless. Default: Butterworth. | Persisted separately per path: ClientEqTxFilterFamily / ClientEqRxFilterFamily. |
| Reset | Located in the floating editor header strip. Resets all bands to the default 10-band template, restores the default band count, and resets the Filter family to Butterworth. Saves immediately. Tooltip: 'Reset all bands to default values'. | Affects ClientEqTxBands / ClientEqRxBands and ClientEqTxFilterFamily / ClientEqRxFilterFamily. |
| Smoothing | Applies fractional-octave power-averaging to the analyzer trace for display — does not affect EQ math. Lower fraction = smoother (⅓ is most smoothed; 1/96 is effectively off). Shared between TX and RX editors. Smoothing is applied after the peak-hold update each frame, so both the live analyzer trace and the peak-hold trace are smoothed for display while peak detection itself remains sample-accurate. | ClientEqSmoothingFraction. Tooltip: 'Fractional-octave smoothing applied to the analyzer trace. Lower fraction = smoother (⅓ = most, 1/96 = off). Affects display only — EQ math is unchanged.' Located in the editor header strip (floating editor only). |
| Filter-type icon row | A row of 8 custom-painted icons (one per band slot) at the top of the editor canvas area. Each icon draws the current filter shape (peak bell, shelf ramp, HP/LP slope) in its band's palette colour. Click an icon to cycle through the filter types for that band; clicking also selects the band, highlighting its handle on the canvas and its column in the parameter row. | Located in the floating editor only. Icons dim to 35 % opacity when the band is bypassed. Implemented by ClientEqIconRow. |
| Parameter text row | A row of 8 text columns (one per band slot) below the canvas showing each band's Freq, Gain, and Q values. Values update live during canvas drags. Clicking a column selects that band. Each column has a transparent background so it does not bleed a dark fill over the canvas's band-plan strip directly above it. | Located in the floating editor only. Implemented by ClientEqParamRow. |
| Filter cutoff guide lines (TX / RX) | Dashed yellow vertical lines overlaid on the canvas at the radio's current TX low/high filter cutoff (TX tile) or RX passband edges (RX tile). Hovering near a line changes the cursor to a horizontal-resize arrow. Dragging a line in the editor moves the radio's corresponding filter cutoff in real time. The docked applet tiles also display these guide lines: the TX tile receives cutoffs via setTxFilterCutoffs, and the RX tile receives them via setRxFilterCutoffs. |
Dragging the TX cutoff guides emits cutoffsDragRequested(Tx, lo, hi), which MainWindow forwards to TransmitModel. Dragging the RX guides writes to the active SliceModel. Pass 0 for an edge to suppress that guide. |
Band data is stored separately in ClientEqTxBands and ClientEqRxBands and is not affected by bypass.
Tips¶
- The bypass state is per-path. Bypassing the TX EQ does not affect the RX EQ, and vice versa.
- The "Aetherial TX EQ" and "Aetherial RX EQ" applet tiles are hidden when their matching EQ stage is not enabled. If a tile disappears after bypassing, this is expected behavior.
- The floating editor ("Aetherial Parametric EQ — TX" or "— RX") can still be opened via double-click on the CHAIN widget stage even when bypassed, so you can continue editing bands without re-engaging the EQ.
- The peak-hold trace in the analyzer decays at approximately 10 dB/sec during normal operation. Peak detection always operates on raw, unsmoothed bins so it is sample-accurate; smoothing is applied separately for display purposes only. Enable Peak Hold in the floating editor to freeze the trace at its highest observed level per frequency bin — useful for identifying resonances while tuning bands.
- The parameter text row columns use a transparent background. This prevents the dark application stylesheet fill from overlapping the band-plan strip at the bottom of the EQ canvas above the row.
- Clicking Reset in the floating editor is permanent and takes effect immediately. There is no undo. The reset also sets the Filter family back to Butterworth for that path.