$99 ($69 introductory value till 1st September), soundtheory.com
Soundtheory’s Gullfoss plugin was launched in 2018 and has grow to be a staple in lots of studios, due to the way it dynamically balances and unmasks audio with ease. Though we’ve seen comparable plugins from different builders (most notably Soothe), it was extraordinarily revolutionary on the time of launch.
Six years later, Soundtheory is lastly releasing its second plugin. Kraftur is a multiband saturator and clipper, however is it as groundbreaking as Gullfoss?
What does Kraftur do?
Kraftur makes your audio sound fuller and louder, letting you tame transient peaks whereas retaining dynamic punch. Its pure house is throughout the combination bus to subtly enhance and improve your masters, nevertheless it may also be used when mixing particular person devices so as to add presence or thickness.
Kraftur works by means of a mixture of single- and multi-band saturation, which you’ll be able to seamlessly mix with the dry sign through a singular moist/dry triangle on the person interface. There’s additionally a separate mushy clipper to additional form wayward peaks.
Kraftur’s person interface is straight away putting. Its pleasing steadiness of muted greys and vibrant visible suggestions is complemented by orange, cyan, and yellow components for its three bands. A excessive dynamic vary (HDR) will be enabled to make the graphics pop, and a movement blur on the triangular mix management offers us some 80s VHS nostalgia. It’s only a disgrace that the plugin window is somewhat giant and presently isn’t resizable.
Kraftur predominant GUI
How do you employ Kraftur?
Consider Kraftur as two parallel saturation modules (single- and multi-band) adopted by a clipper.
The saturation modules share a predominant Drive management that pushes into each processors, plus Knee and Offset controls to regulate the switch curve and goal simply the peaks, or the quieter components and the entire physique of the sound. The multi-band saturator then provides additional controls to regulate crossover frequencies, solo every of the three bands, and likewise independently change the thresholds (labelled as Low, Mid and Excessive Shift).
Single-band saturation could be helpful whenever you need to add a contact of aggression, the place low-end peaks result in harmonic distortion throughout the entire spectrum. This helps glue a monitor collectively because it looks like the entire combine is responding as one.
Nevertheless, if you wish to scale back the intermodulation distortion impact, then you will get cleaner outcomes by utilizing multi-band and having the low-end simply distort itself. The Shift sliders will help additional, set to drive the low-end lower than the mids and tops, if that’s what you’re going for. Or you should utilize the triangular mix management to combine each kinds alongside the dry sign for the most effective of each worlds.
A tasty-sounding clipper sits on the finish of the chain. And we imply the tip. The dry sign part from the triangle mix will probably be clipped, and even the ultimate Achieve management is positioned pre-clipper. Though this affords an additional management to drive the clipper more durable, it will have been extra helpful to have a last output knob or slider for use for international quantity matching. Fortunately, a Match button is efficient for re-balancing the output in actual time as you alter different parameters. This make it simpler to gauge simply how a lot you’re crushing your audio.
Kraftur clipper plugin
Easy methods to learn Kraftur’s visible suggestions
Kraftur’s visible suggestions is particularly useful when tweaking settings.
There are enter and output meters for the single-band and three multi-band indicators, plus a visually brighter part for whenever you drive the sign more durable. These are mixed with the big predominant window that encompasses a switch curve and enter and output histograms.
It’s an uncommon approach of presenting the data, however when you wrap your head round it, you’ll be able to shortly refine the brink and knee settings to hit simply the peaks of the sign. Sadly although, the shortage of achieve discount metering for the clipper makes it tough to guage how onerous you’re chopping into the peaks.
Kraftur multi-band saturator
How does Kraftur carry out?
We put Kraftur to the check on a variety of audio, together with full mixes and particular person instrument components.
Arising with compelling-sounding outcomes is a breeze, and might simply be blended to style. Drum transients are tamed, the physique of sounds is thickened, and you are able to do some severe peak discount with out drastically altering the audio.
We check it alongside just a few comparable instruments, and discover the distortion has a barely extra ‘grabby’, faintly gated sound that wraps round hits to bolster the transients however with out over-thickening the tails. This all leads to a subtly tighter sound than the opponents.
The clipper is clear up to a degree, however then it saturates barely sooner with bass-heavy materials, albeit with a satisfying, analogue-like behaviour. Even when set to full, there’s nonetheless a contact of softness to the knee curve, so the choice for a totally onerous knee might need been helpful, alongside separate knee settings for every band.
Oversampling is on by default with no choice to modify it off, but someway the plugin runs with zero latency, which is critically spectacular.
Kraftur makes use of mixed-phase filters that exhibit a largely linear section response, nevertheless it means you’ll be able to’t use Kraftur for parallel processing on a bus with out getting a phasey sound. CPU utilization is reasonable, so (relying in your system) you wouldn’t need to use plenty of situations, however you would get away with just a few.
Kraftur triangle mix
Do you actually need one other clipper?
On the floor, Kraftur seems pretty versatile, with its two saturators and clipper in a single plugin. Nevertheless, whenever you evaluate it with FabFilter’s Saturn 2 (additionally a multi-band saturator, however with 28 distortion kinds), or Kazrog’s KClip3, then you definitely realise that Kraftur is a bit more restricted by way of harmonic variation.
Fortunately, at $99 it’s priced competitively for a mastering-grade plugin (particularly in the event you make use of the $69 introductory value), and it performs properly at clear quantity thickening.
Early users have noted Soundtheory’s relatively unusual licence and transfer policies, the place the licence is legitimate just for 25 years, slightly than perpetual possession. Countering this, the model says its insurance policies support in guaranteeing longevity of its plugins, with out asking customers to pay for updates. For instance, says a consultant on Gearspace, Gullfoss is presently at model 1.11.5, regardless of the model releasing updates that “might have simply rebadged as Gullfoss 2”. For many customers, the licensing and switch preparations received’t be a difficulty.
Do you want Kratfur? Effectively, there are many first rate clippers and saturators already on the market, so chances are you’ll have already got one or two that you just’re proud of. Nevertheless, in the event you’re mixing or mastering genres that profit from being pushed somewhat louder, then it’s at all times helpful to have a number of choices, as sure instruments will work higher with specific flavours of music than others.
When it fits the supply materials, Kraftur is a superb plugin that lets you get cleaner and louder tracks, so we’d fortunately add it as an choice in our software package.
Key options
3-band multi-band saturator and clipper pluginVST, VST3, AU, AAX Native (requires iLok account)Add readability, punch or heat to any materialBlend between single-band, multi-band and dry signalsSeparate threshold controls for every bandReduced aliasing and intermodulation distortion on account of distinctive oversampling methodFlexible management of the distortion curveMatch mode for auto quantity compensationVisionTone color rendering pipeline primarily based on human notion
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