New York, NY (February 23, 2024)—Recently, Softube simultaneously released two plug-ins: Widener and Clipper. The new products are currently available in a specially priced bundle.
Widener is a stereo utility that provides tools for widening or adjusting a stereo image and converting a mono track to stereo. It offers five algorithms. Classic creates a copy of the signal using delay and places it on the sides of the image. Frequency changes the phase of the midrange and puts that to either side.
Rotation uses phase rotation and creates a broad stereo image. Ambience applies a short stereo reverb to the source. Reflections also uses a short reverb and modulates the signal to help reduce comb filtering.
Input and Output meters are on the GUI’s left and right sides, respectively, using Softube’s standard Extended Features design. You can configure the meters to show Peak, True Peak, RMS and LUFS (Momentary, Short and Integrated).
To visually monitor the stereo image, Widener also includes a goniometer, which tracks stereo width, and a correlation meter for checking phase correlation. Softube also included Width and Output controls.
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The Clipper plug-in was designed to create dynamic distortion. A clipper works by cutting off the peaks of waveforms. According to Softube, the processing in Clipper was carefully designed so as not to impact tonal color. The effect is to make the audio sound louder and more energetic.
Clipper’s Input and Output meters are the same as on Widener and reside on either end of the horizontally oriented GUI. Clipper features a large color-coded Waveform view with Peak and RMS gain reduction meters on either side. Also included is a Gain Difference meter with a Set button for turning on an Auto Gain function.
The main controls include an RMS section with adjustments for Headroom, Analog Color (even order harmonics), and Low and High Frequency. The latter two allow you to set the frequency range in which the clipping will occur. According to Softube, the frequency adjustments make it possible to emulate different types of distortion, such as transformer-based or tape-based varieties.
Clipper includes a Peak stage, which you can turn on or off. Its controls include Ceiling, which works like a threshold for the Clipping effect, and Soft Knee, for adjusting the onset of the Peak processing.
Like in the RMS stage, you can control the frequency range of the Peak processing. You can use the Audition button to hear only the audio being removed.
Clipper also features 4x oversampling designed to help maintain transients and reduce latency.
Through March 31st, you can purchase Clipper and Widener as a bundle for $79 from the Softube site. After that, the price will rise to $79 per plug-in.
