Harpenden, U.K. (December 11, 2025)—Software developer The/Audio/Firm has launched its first plug-in, Furnace, a three-way saturation processor with mid-side processing.
The company is a collaboration that combines the real-world experience of veteran mix/mastering engineer Sean J. Vincent and the DSP developments of Vic Lewis of Fazertone, one of the first companies to emulate analog gear using neural networks.
Furnace is described as delivering the authentic sound of tape, transformers or tube saturation taken directly from real gear and modelled with custom real-time neural networks, forged into a plug-in. The plug-in’s photorealistic GUI is simple: engaging the 456 button realistically replicates analog tape saturation—captured using a real half-inch tape machine running Ampex 456 tape while TFM replicates transformer saturation—captured using a pair of 1084 input stages plus a ‘mystery’ transformer on the output and AX7 replicates valve/tube saturation, captured using a pair of 12AX7 long-plate tubes running into a Lundahl transformer stage.
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“We designed the 456, the tape emulator, so that, no matter what you do with the Drive, it’s never going to completely pop off and go nuts,” Vincent says. “This is designed to sound like tape, not tape being destroyed, so if you set the Drive, let’s say, at nine o’clock and the Mix full up, it’s going to sound very subtly like tape.”
He continues, “It’s been coming for ages; about two years ago, I approached a bunch of different plug-in companies with some ideas,” Vincent says. “I had protracted conversations with a few of them; I started working with one of them for a bit, but we couldn’t really agree on how I wanted this thing to be—it just wasn’t going in the direction I wanted it to go, so I called a halt to it.
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Vincent reports that development got off to a slow start until he began working with Lewis. “We had a chat and realized we both wanted to do the same thing. He was very open to my ideas; I was very open to his way of working. We got on straight away and just got on with it. We have a range of plug-ins coming; we’ve been working on this all year, and the first one is ready right now.”
