Audified announces availability of serious saturation plug-in based on U73b compressor circuitry
“The character that it imparts on a song is actually priceless. This is the glisten, the glass, the glow that people lack in their digital workstations. It does everything — pounding kicks, crunchy claps, burning Motown strings... I’m really impressed!”- Baby Brown (Grammy®-nominated producer), 2016
“The character that it imparts on a song is actually priceless. This is the glisten, the glass, the glow that people lack in their digital workstations. It does everything — pounding kicks, crunchy claps, burning Motown strings... I’m really impressed!”- Baby Brown (Grammy®-nominated producer), 2016
Host application and audio effects developer Audified is proud to announce
availability of U78 Saturator — saturation effects plug-in par excellence, utilising meticulous models of the
amazing-sounding analogue circuitry central to the U73b, the treasured Sixties-vintage German broadcast
compressor/limiter that found favour in European mastering circles well into the Eighties and beyond, but
supplementing the tube saturation circuitry with high-pass and lowpass filters and a unique tone filter for
some seriously satisfying saturation.
Despite having recently rebooted its award-winning U73b Compressor as a new and improved emulation of the unique-sounding Sixties
vintage German broadcast compressor/limiter hardware with which it shares its name and takes its inspirational sound, Audified has
not
stood still when it comes to taking tube saturation to higher levels of
creativity for demanding DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) users... users
like Boris Carloff, a well-known Czech Republic producer who just so happens to ‘moonlight’ as a product designer for Audified.
After all,
almost anything is possible in the digital world. With the right skills
and technology you can create absolutely anything you like... like the U78
Saturator. “I was always crazy about the sound of the U73b,” begins Boris Carloff. “I like this unit — great saturation, but there are situations
when I need more saturation and distortion. This is why I came up with the idea of the U78.”
Elsewhere, in the level control module, Mix controls the dry and wet signal ratio with the dry signal only delayed to match the wet signal path latency to prevent phasing issues, while Output adjusts the output gain of the whole effect and can be adjusted automatically when Auto is switched to On (thereby retaining approximately the same loudness whenever the input Gain parameter is changed).
Continuing onwards and (literally) upwards, just like the U73b Compressor reboot before it, U78 Saturator’s gorgeous GUI implementation includes a display area that is as easy on the eye as it is easy to use with selectable display colour. All parameters can be set numerically while Preset management is located on the right-hand side of the display alongside self-explanatory LOAD and STORE functions and a helpful key symbol-designated services menu (to access the User Manual, Check For Updates, go to the Audified Website, and more).
Implementing that idea involved removing the U73b Compressor’s compression function. Filters were added — HiPass sets the cutoff
frequency of the high-pass filter, which comes before the saturation circuit in the signal path, ranging between 30 to 800 Hz; LowPass sets
the cutoff frequency of the lowpass filter, which also comes before the saturation circuit, ranging between 1 to 8 kHz — alongside a Tone
control to dial in (or out) the unique tone filter, with lower settings producing Dark sounds with more low frequency content while higher
settings result in Bright, sparkly sounds; finally, a strong Gain control adjusts the input gain of the saturation circuit — the higher the settings,
the more rich the sound that can be achieved — and effectively completes the seriously satisfying U78 Saturator sound... to Boris Carloff’s
satisfaction!
U78 Saturator informative introductory video
(featuring both Boris Carloff and Baby Brown)
Understandably, U78 Saturator’s gorgeous GUI (Graphical User Interface) implementation is superficially similar to that of its recently
released U73b Compressor sibling. Predictably, perhaps, the two plug-ins even share some more mission critical features. For example, the
power and calibration module is identical when taken at face value with an On/Off switch (to toggle between processing and bypassed
states) and a -9dB default Calib. (calibration)
setting with an added value mechanism; moreover, the software model
works with real
voltages that are the same as those found in the original hardware
circuitry (related to the dBu scale), but the DSP (Digital Signal
Processing) in DAWs works with dBFS (Decibels relative to full scale) so
users can (carefully) set the calibration (to work within the correct
operational range of U78 Saturator’s saturation effect).(featuring both Boris Carloff and Baby Brown)
Elsewhere, in the level control module, Mix controls the dry and wet signal ratio with the dry signal only delayed to match the wet signal path latency to prevent phasing issues, while Output adjusts the output gain of the whole effect and can be adjusted automatically when Auto is switched to On (thereby retaining approximately the same loudness whenever the input Gain parameter is changed).
Continuing onwards and (literally) upwards, just like the U73b Compressor reboot before it, U78 Saturator’s gorgeous GUI implementation includes a display area that is as easy on the eye as it is easy to use with selectable display colour. All parameters can be set numerically while Preset management is located on the right-hand side of the display alongside self-explanatory LOAD and STORE functions and a helpful key symbol-designated services menu (to access the User Manual, Check For Updates, go to the Audified Website, and more).
More meaningfully, U78 Saturator sees Audified keeping
the heart and soul of the machine to deliver a beautifully musical tube
sound.
Satisfaction guaranteed, the result is a saturator that sounds like no
other. By being blessed with the things that dreams are musically made
of, the U78 Saturator plug-in is even better than the real thing... just ask Baby Brown. “I can’t wait to see what these guys come up with
next,” notes the Grammy®-nominated producer, before concluding: “This one’s now in my toolbox... they’re not getting it back!”
U78 Saturator is available to purchase as an iLok-protected plug-in — running as an AAX, VST3, and VST2 plug-in on Mac
(OS X 10.9 - 10.12) and PC (Windows 7, 8, and 10) and AU on Mac — at an introductory price of $129.00 USD — rising to
$149.00 USD on January 1, 2017 — from Audified’s online shop here: https://shop.audified.com/
U78 Saturator is available to download directly from Audified from here: http://services.audified.com/
About Audified (www.audified.com)
Audified is
the premier brand of privately-owned Boskovice-based DISK Multimedia,
s.r.o. in the Czech Republic, created to develop specialised audio
applications, as well
as handling the company’s high-end hardware product portfolio.
Pioneering the development of audio applications for live (realtime)
performance, as well as developing the
first audio effects plug-ins for Apple’s Mac OS X, the company created some of the first plug-ins for Power|Core, TC Electronic’s hardware-accelerated DSP platform,
prompting the Danish developer’s then-PR Manager Thomas Valter to comment, “Our two companies have been working closely together on various projects, and we
are very satisfied with the products that have been a result of our cooperation.” Consequently,
the company returned to its host application and audio effects
developmental roots in 2007 by branding itself with the Audiffex
appellation to resourcefully reflect that directional change with an
award-winning array of innovations,
including MixChecker —
a must-have mixing assistant plug-in that transforms studio monitors
into classic reference monitors or one of several consumer devices to
instantly improve mixes.
Moreover, Audified is not just a for-profit business, however; its parental company clearly cares about the future of audio software/hardware development, developing partnerships with both Janacek Academy of Music and Performing Arts (JAMU) in Brno, Czech Republic — realising a research project to bring modern audio engineering technologies to music education, and also Brno University of Technology, one of the Czech Republic’s leading research and teaching institutions — working with the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Communication Technologies on scientific projects. Participating in organising entry exams and teaching at these highly- respected higher education establishments has helped establish the first specialised studies of audio engineering in the Czech Republic.
In keeping with spreading the (audio engineering) word, Audified has helpfully seen fit to recently release a range of free plug-ins, available from here: http://shop.audified.com/
Moreover, Audified is not just a for-profit business, however; its parental company clearly cares about the future of audio software/hardware development, developing partnerships with both Janacek Academy of Music and Performing Arts (JAMU) in Brno, Czech Republic — realising a research project to bring modern audio engineering technologies to music education, and also Brno University of Technology, one of the Czech Republic’s leading research and teaching institutions — working with the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Communication Technologies on scientific projects. Participating in organising entry exams and teaching at these highly- respected higher education establishments has helped establish the first specialised studies of audio engineering in the Czech Republic.
In keeping with spreading the (audio engineering) word, Audified has helpfully seen fit to recently release a range of free plug-ins, available from here: http://shop.audified.com/
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Thanks for your interest - DCSI
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