A console EQ deck: one plugin, a choice of equalisers. Try each card on the sound and keep the one that suits the job, with no second EQ to insert. Two circuit-modelled cards come with it: the 965A, a workhorse for everyday tone shaping, and the J15 for surgical work. Zero latency.
The Jana 965 with the 965A card in circuit: the filters, the four bands and the output stage. The deck row at the bottom shows both cards, the 965A lit. Rendered by our own tools; nothing in it is a photograph.
At a glance
$50 at release With both cards. One price for everyone, and free updates for life.
A console EQ deck: one frame, four card seats.
Two cards included: the 965A (workhorse) and the J15 (surgical), in one insert.
Zero latency.
Unit variation, part by part, down to the 965A's pot tapers.
Formats: planned for macOS and Windows, as VST3, AU and AAX.
Trial: from release, the whole plugin, with no time limit.
Try each card, keep the right one. The equalisers in the 965 are cards in one deck, so comparing them takes one insert, not one EQ plugin per equaliser and a bypass button on each. Click a seat and its card is in circuit, in the same place in your chain. Each card keeps its own settings, so set both on the same sound, click between them, and keep the one that suits the job. A session remembers the card you chose.
Two cards, two tools
The Jana 965 is a frame with four seats for cards. The frame is the part that stays: the output stage, the meter, the stereo modes and unit variation. The card in circuit decides what the equaliser is, with its own circuit, its own controls and its own printed scales. Two cards come with it. They are different tools, and neither is the better one.
965A. Workhorse. Reach for it for everyday tone shaping on tracks and buses. Detail of the panel: the filters and the two low bands.J15. Surgical. Reach for it to fix one narrow thing in a sound: a ringing note, a hum, a whistle. Detail of the panel: bands 1 to 3 of its five.
fix one narrow thing in a sound: a ringing note, a hum, a whistle
Bands
Four, with a high-pass and a low-pass filter
Five, summed in parallel; no filter to set
Widest bell
2.58 octaves
1.5 octaves
Narrowest bell
0.33 of an octave
0.03 of an octave on bands 1 and 5, about 0.036 on bands 2 to 4
A bell, as you turn the gain
Proportional-Q: a small move is broad, a large move is focused
Constant-Q: a small move is never broader than a large one
Gain, as the dial prints it
±15 dB
−20 to +15 dB
Bell widths are measured on the plugin itself: an impulse through the Jana 965 at 48 kHz, offline, VAR 0, read between the points 3 dB inside the peak or the dip at full boost or cut. The other rows are what each panel prints. Every figure is on its card’s page.
The 965A is a four-band parametric equaliser with a high-pass and a low-pass filter, and it is our own design. We drew the circuit ourselves, out of parts we could order, and modelled it end to end, part by part. More about the 965A, with its measured frequency response.
The J15 is five parametric bands summed in parallel, modelled from the published schematic of a mid-1980s five-band parametric equaliser, part by part, with the drawing's own values. More about the J15, with its measured frequency response.
The deck
The row along the bottom of the panel is the deck: four seats, one card in circuit at a time. Click a seat to put its card in circuit. Deck setup puts cards into seats, moves them around and takes them out. The two cards that come with the 965 fill two seats, and two are free.
The deck: four seats, the J15 lit because it is the card in circuit, two seats free, and the stereo switch. Rendered by our own tools; nothing in it is a photograph.
Each card keeps its own settings. Switch from one card to the other and the 965 keeps the settings of the card you left and brings back those of the card you open, or its defaults the first time. Nothing is carried across, because a knob on one card does not mean the same thing on another. The frame's own controls stay where you left them.
A session remembers the card that was in circuit by name, not by seat, and it remembers both cards' settings. Rearranging the deck never changes what an old session sounds like.
The same frame with the J15 card in circuit: five bands summed in parallel, and the J15 seat lit in the deck row. Rendered by our own tools; nothing in it is a photograph.
Unit variation
No two units of a circuit are quite the same, because no two sets of parts are. Both cards model that, part by part: each resistor, capacitor and pot can sit a little off its value, parts bought as a matched set vary as a set, and on the 965A the variation goes down to the pot tapers.
VAR sets how far a unit strays, from 0 to 200 %. At 0, every unit is the same ideal one. Turn it up and you are using a unit of your own: frequencies, widths and gains each a little off their legends, as on any real front panel. Each card has its own serial, so you can save a unit you like and load it again, and a session keeps the units it was mixed on. In L<>R, the two channels are two units.
The frame
The output stage. An output control trims ±12 dB after the card. After it comes a soft clipper for catching stray peaks: it is out unless you put it in, its ceiling is on a fader from 0 to −36 dBFS, and its lamp shows how hard it is working and is also its switch. A bargraph meter reads the output, and the power switch takes the whole unit out, meter included.
Zero latency. No oversampling, no lookahead and no linear-phase filtering. Every card runs at the host's own rate, so the 965 adds no delay to the track it sits on.
Two stereo modes.L=R, the default, puts one unit on both channels. L<>R puts two units side by side, one on each channel.
Readouts. Any control can show its value on a plate beside it, with Show values. A plate shows what the panel prints; turn on Show realized values and it also shows what your unit does at that setting. Your host sees the same choice as the parameter Readouts, set to Theoretical or Actual.
The usual tools. Four snapshots, A to D, copy and paste between them, undo and redo, and presets.
Origin story
Why I built the 965
I'm a sucker for a good console EQ. When one is designed well, the ranges, the switches, the tapers and the curves are all exactly where they should be, and the controls themselves steer you towards making a sound better.
I've also found that I EQ differently when I'm watching an analyser. My attention gets split between my ears and my eyes. That has its place in precise, surgical work, but for general tone shaping I want to listen, and that's what a console EQ lets me do.
What always frustrated me was the workflow. Console EQs get sold one model at a time, each as its own plugin, and there's no way to know in advance which one suits a sound. So you insert one, then another, and switch back and forth, and the moment is gone. I wanted one plugin where you change the card and keep listening.
There are things I love about many different console EQs, and it has long been a dream of mine to bring them together into one card of my own. That card is the 965A. And there's a real thrill in taking the published schematic of an obscure, discontinued hardware EQ, one that as far as we know has never been emulated in software, and bringing it to life to hear how it works. That's the J15.
And this is only the start. A frame with four seats, filled from a line of cards that can keep on growing, opens up so many possibilities, and I'm looking forward to designing all kinds of useful cards for your sessions.
— Talal Bouroki, founder, Jana Audio
Trying and buying
The Jana 965 is not released yet, so nothing in this section can be done today. This is how trying and buying will work from release.
The trial is the whole product. Before you buy, the Jana 965 and both cards run fully, with no time limit and nothing switched off. The sound, the readouts and the printed values are exactly an owner's: nothing you hear or read depends on the licence.
What the trial does not do is bring settings back. A session reopened on a 965 that is not yet bought opens at its defaults, with a short notice saying why, and presets and saved defaults do not save. Within a session everything works, snapshots and copy and paste included.
Your sessions are kept. The 965 always writes its settings into your session. Buy it, and every session you saved during the trial opens exactly as you left it. If the licence arrives while a session is open, the notice offers to load its settings, and nothing changes the sound until you press it.
Activation. Automatic and online: press Buy in the plugin and pay in your browser, and the licence arrives by itself; on another computer, press Activate and sign in once. Automatic activation covers up to five computers per account, and you can deactivate a computer yourself, in the plugin or from your account page. The licence file from your purchase email is the backup: drag it onto the panel and it works offline, on a computer that is never online. The plugin goes online only when you press Buy, Activate, Check purchases or Deactivate.
Nothing extra to install. Every card ships inside the plugin, and buying a card adds it to your licence. A card takes effect together with a 965 licence: bought on its own, it stays in trial until the 965 is yours.
Price
The Jana 965 will be $50 at release, with both of its cards, the 965A and the J15: $25 a card, and the frame comes with them. Cards beyond these two, when there are any, will be $25 each, or three for $60, and each will need a Jana 965 licence. Prices are in US dollars; local tax will be added at checkout where it applies.
One price for everyone. Everyone pays the same price at the same time, and we don't run countdown sales. When we make an offer, it is open to everyone.
What is included. The frame and both cards; the trial, before you pay, for as long as you like; activation on up to five computers, and the licence file for any computer that is never online. Free updates for life: every update to the 965 and to every card you own, on every platform we release it for, for as long as we make it.
Not on sale yet. The store opens when the Jana 965 is released.
No refunds for a change of mind. Try the full plugin free, for as long as you like, before you buy. We refund accidental duplicate purchases. Refund policy · Terms of sale and licence · Privacy
Formats and system requirements
Planned, and not final until the Jana 965 is released. macOS: VST3, AU and AAX. Windows: VST3 and AAX. One plugin for Apple silicon and Intel Macs, and zero latency in every format.
On Windows the 965 is a 64-bit plugin for Intel and AMD processors. Windows on Arm is not supported at this release.
The system requirements are on the download page, and the installers and the manual will be there at release.
Limits we state
What the measurements found is stated here, not hidden.
Small buffers at 96 kHz. At 96 kHz with 32-sample buffers, automating many controls at once can run out of time in a buffer. Use 64 samples or more there; at 64 and above no buffer has been measured running out.
The 965A while a knob moves. While a 965A control is moving, the card redesigns its filters by a quicker method. The worst difference we measured from the settled response is 0.26 dB, at 20 kHz with the low-pass at its top stop, and only while it moves. Once the knob rests, the card is exact again.
The J15, heavily automated, playing live. With many J15 controls automated at once, a move can now and then take effect one buffer late while the session plays, so the playback differs briefly from a bounce of the same passage. An offline bounce is always exact, and two bounces are always identical.
The J15's two lowest bands, swept narrow. Sweeping FREQ at the narrowest bandwidth, low in the band, gives a slightly different colour from the circuit's while the knob moves. It is not a burst, and the sound settles to the circuit's once the knob stops.
The J15 at the top of the audio band. At 44.1 and 48 kHz the model can differ from the circuit where several wide bands overlap near 20 kHz. That is the price of zero latency, and higher sample rates close the gap.
The Jana 965: the facts
Product
Jana 965, a console EQ deck (an audio plugin)
Maker
Jana Audio, Kuwait
Availability
Announced, not yet released. Release date to be announced.
Planned: macOS (VST3, AU and AAX) and Windows (VST3 and AAX)
Latency
Zero, on every card and at every sample rate
Sample rates
44.1 to 192 kHz, mono and stereo
Unit variation
VAR, 0 to 200 %; at 0 every unit is the same ideal one
Price
$50 at release, with both cards. Not on sale yet. US dollars; local tax will be added at checkout where it applies.
Trial
At release: the whole plugin, both cards, no time limit
Licence
Does not expire; no subscription; up to five computers per account
System requirements
A Mac with Apple silicon or Intel, or a 64-bit Windows PC with an Intel or AMD processor. Minimum system versions: to be confirmed at release.
Want one email when the Jana 965 is released? Write to hello@janaaudio.com with the subject “Tell me at release”. We keep your address only to send that one message, and we delete it once it is sent, or sooner if you ask. The privacy notice says the same.
