Couldn't find any discussions on these new plugins from Softube so I thought it's a good idea to discuss them some because they are rather interesting, in not the way you may think.
Clipper
It's really weird. None of the input gains actually tell the truth in terms of how much the signal is amplified. Even in hard clipping mode with RMS section turned off, the input gain slider doesn't correspond to actual real world values. It's very weirdly scaled. As for the clipping "sound" itself, I guess it's rather strange sounding.. not in an unpleasant way but definitely not just a simple clipper it seems. There seems to be some strangeness going on with this one. Like most Softube plugins, it's quirky and definitely has "a sound" of it's own.
It produces high levels of 3rd harmonic distortion even when your input signal is rather low, so this is definitely more of a "mojo" plugin than a simple mathematical clipper. If you need just pure clipping, this is not it!
Their oversampling solution uses minimum phase filtering so again, if you need to clip things on a parallel bus, this is not it!
The RMS section is really interesting and very useful. It seems to have a very wide knee and thus seems to affect the signal even if the "headroom" slider is set all the way up to +18dBFS. It is superb at shaping the the sound before it hits the clipper. I found it especially useful when combined with the High Pass Filter. You can force the RMS section to gently massage the bass and low-mid frequency ranges so that they don't interfere with the clipping, while leaving the highs alone. This section alone is what makes the plugin unique and thus possibly worth the current asking price (at full price, no way!).
Also worth noting that the RMS section can be used on it's own and it's gloriously effective in taming things! Very useful.
It is thus very unfortunate that this plugin does not expose all of the juicy parameters when used in Console 1 !!. A big warning here for users of Console 1. The Clipper plugin is only available in the input section (where you find the Tape plugins) and in the 'Drive' section of Console 1 where it exposes the Input drive amount and Knee parameters but none of the important and useful ones like the filters nor the RMS controls. This was a huge letdown and probably the main reason I will not purchase this plugin.
It should have been enabled for the 'Shape' section of Console 1 and allowed full access to all the controls, just like the Widener plugin does.
Widener
This one is the more interesting of the two. It combines many of the known classic ways of widening things. Most notably the 'classic' mode that seems to be Softube's implementation of the infamous Bob Katz K-Stereo process. I guess they felt safe enough bypassing the patent (because it's a ridiculously stupid patent to begin with and should never have gone through in the first place!). It basically converts the mono sum into 180 degrees out of phase information (aka the "side") then delays it by the amount the user sets and can be further filtered by a LPF and HPF. Simple but effective.
Then there is a phase rotation options and frequency skewing option. These are similar to what you can do with pretty much any EQ plugin that includes all-pass filters and separate left/right or mid/side processing.
Finally there's also two "reverb" options. One is more of a tight ambience/room and the other a pure early-reflections kind of thing with just a few strategically placed delay taps around the stereo field. Quite effective and pleasant sounding both of them.
For Console 1 users this plugin is available in the 'Shaper' section, exposing most of the controls in a rather smart way making it easy to A/B compare the different algorithms with their own parameters set. A pretty decent implementation of the plugin within the system, unlike the abysmal Clipper implementation.
You can currently get both plugins together in a "buy one, get the other free!" kind of deal for around 65€. Are these worth it? Maybe, but perhaps not. You can do all of the Widener things with free plugins or the built in plugins within your DAW. The K-Stereo effect can be easily created as a send effect in your DAW with free plugins like Voxengo Sound Delay + MSED + EQ/filter and you can further refine the effect if the delay you use has modulation capabilities. All the other widening effects can be easily done with other tools, except perhaps Softubes reverb/early reflections thing. That could be tricky to match, so if you really like what they've done with these then it may be worth it. The clipper is a bit more unique and probably impossible to match it's color and interaction. The RMS section alone is possibly worth the current asking price and then you get Widener for free (at least for a couple of weeks).
For Console 1 users this is maybe worth it just to get these tools within the ecosystem, to further avoid having to go out of the Console 1 universe, but due to the silly Clipper implementation it's just barely a recommend from me but definitely only at this current reduced price. At full price both plugins are ridiculously over priced.
Clipper
It's really weird. None of the input gains actually tell the truth in terms of how much the signal is amplified. Even in hard clipping mode with RMS section turned off, the input gain slider doesn't correspond to actual real world values. It's very weirdly scaled. As for the clipping "sound" itself, I guess it's rather strange sounding.. not in an unpleasant way but definitely not just a simple clipper it seems. There seems to be some strangeness going on with this one. Like most Softube plugins, it's quirky and definitely has "a sound" of it's own.
It produces high levels of 3rd harmonic distortion even when your input signal is rather low, so this is definitely more of a "mojo" plugin than a simple mathematical clipper. If you need just pure clipping, this is not it!
Their oversampling solution uses minimum phase filtering so again, if you need to clip things on a parallel bus, this is not it!
The RMS section is really interesting and very useful. It seems to have a very wide knee and thus seems to affect the signal even if the "headroom" slider is set all the way up to +18dBFS. It is superb at shaping the the sound before it hits the clipper. I found it especially useful when combined with the High Pass Filter. You can force the RMS section to gently massage the bass and low-mid frequency ranges so that they don't interfere with the clipping, while leaving the highs alone. This section alone is what makes the plugin unique and thus possibly worth the current asking price (at full price, no way!).
Also worth noting that the RMS section can be used on it's own and it's gloriously effective in taming things! Very useful.
It is thus very unfortunate that this plugin does not expose all of the juicy parameters when used in Console 1 !!. A big warning here for users of Console 1. The Clipper plugin is only available in the input section (where you find the Tape plugins) and in the 'Drive' section of Console 1 where it exposes the Input drive amount and Knee parameters but none of the important and useful ones like the filters nor the RMS controls. This was a huge letdown and probably the main reason I will not purchase this plugin.
It should have been enabled for the 'Shape' section of Console 1 and allowed full access to all the controls, just like the Widener plugin does.
Widener
This one is the more interesting of the two. It combines many of the known classic ways of widening things. Most notably the 'classic' mode that seems to be Softube's implementation of the infamous Bob Katz K-Stereo process. I guess they felt safe enough bypassing the patent (because it's a ridiculously stupid patent to begin with and should never have gone through in the first place!). It basically converts the mono sum into 180 degrees out of phase information (aka the "side") then delays it by the amount the user sets and can be further filtered by a LPF and HPF. Simple but effective.
Then there is a phase rotation options and frequency skewing option. These are similar to what you can do with pretty much any EQ plugin that includes all-pass filters and separate left/right or mid/side processing.
Finally there's also two "reverb" options. One is more of a tight ambience/room and the other a pure early-reflections kind of thing with just a few strategically placed delay taps around the stereo field. Quite effective and pleasant sounding both of them.
For Console 1 users this plugin is available in the 'Shaper' section, exposing most of the controls in a rather smart way making it easy to A/B compare the different algorithms with their own parameters set. A pretty decent implementation of the plugin within the system, unlike the abysmal Clipper implementation.
You can currently get both plugins together in a "buy one, get the other free!" kind of deal for around 65€. Are these worth it? Maybe, but perhaps not. You can do all of the Widener things with free plugins or the built in plugins within your DAW. The K-Stereo effect can be easily created as a send effect in your DAW with free plugins like Voxengo Sound Delay + MSED + EQ/filter and you can further refine the effect if the delay you use has modulation capabilities. All the other widening effects can be easily done with other tools, except perhaps Softubes reverb/early reflections thing. That could be tricky to match, so if you really like what they've done with these then it may be worth it. The clipper is a bit more unique and probably impossible to match it's color and interaction. The RMS section alone is possibly worth the current asking price and then you get Widener for free (at least for a couple of weeks).
For Console 1 users this is maybe worth it just to get these tools within the ecosystem, to further avoid having to go out of the Console 1 universe, but due to the silly Clipper implementation it's just barely a recommend from me but definitely only at this current reduced price. At full price both plugins are ridiculously over priced.
Statistics: Posted by bmanic — Thu Feb 22, 2024 3:19 pm — Replies 3 — Views 172