CStrip

CStripDemo is the Airwindows channel strip! 32bit/64bit/PPC Audio Unit, with EQ, compression, gate, highpass, lowpass and timing trim, CStrip is the go-to toolbox for any track.

All the parts not in use switch themselves out of the circuit, so you can engage only the parts you need. They’re designed to work together perfectly, interleaved in the most useful possible way. This is also one of the first plugins to get Airwindows floating point noise shaping, retaining more tonal depth on the Audio Unit buss. The signal flow goes like this:

Gate—Highpass—Compressor—EQ(High/Mid/Low)—Timing—Lowpass

Gate’s an implementation of Digital Black. The Highpass can help tighten up the action of the compressor, which is the specialty comp that first came out as ButterComp: it’s a very soft and gentle compressor. EQ was originally its own plugin, and a fantastic grab-and-go broad-stroke tone shaper. Timing is there just in case you need to delay a track a tiny bit against another track, by ear: it’s easier than sliding tracks by a sample or two in the arrange window. And the Lowpass is a special algorithm, great at shaping things like guitars. It goes after the gate and compressor just so it can further soften any artifacts the dynamics might have produced.

The whole thing is designed to be run off a MIDI controller such as the NanoKontrol: you can fit everything onto that, plus a fader, pan and an aux for a reverb send. Set it up assigned to the selected track, and you can go through adjusting or automating stuff by ear, without even having the plugin interface open. There’s nothing so useful as adjusting sound, by ear, without being drawn into thought about the numbers. CStrip is designed to give you a huge amount of control over the basics, like that, in a great sounding way.

CStrip is $50.