Slew3
TL;DW: Slew3 is a new approach to slew clipping meant for a more analog-like darkening effect.
A Chris’s work is never done! Or at least it’s not, when it comes to refining basic tonal building blocks that apply to many plugins. It’s just recently that I updated Capacitor with an analog behavior found (quite strikingly) in certain real-world capacitors. I’m at it again.
This makes a third Slew plugin, and every one is strikingly different. Slew (original) darkens radically and makes a grungy, clipped tone (it’s in Channel, too, very subtly). Slew2, though there are some similarities in code, acts wildly different: it produces an intense rolloff that is only right up at the Nyquist frequency, and is an elegant anti-glare solution, but barely has a tone at all.
Slew3 uses ideas from Acceleration and DeBess to produce a slew clipping that’s actually reading information beyond what the samples provide: it’s like it reconstructs the wave a bit and is most effective where you’d get intersample peaks. It’s NOT an EQ: it has very striking dynamic qualities. It’s not a pure ‘glare cutter’ like Slew2, either: there’s a limit to how much it will darken. But what it’s all about is producing an analog top-end on your digital content.
This is an experimental plugin. In development, some of my audio caused it to freak out, and it took extra time to get it to behave (I suppose I could also put out the freak-out version but for now let’s stay safe, OK?). It’s not quite linear or predictable (neither is real analog) and though I feel like it might have some very serious mojo to bring, I’m also interested in whether it dies given certain kinds of audio. I’m pretty sure I have it tamed to where it won’t do anything crazy, but is it really the silver bullet? I guess we’ll find out together.
This, like my work on Capacitor2, will be very useful going forward and there’s more work to be done. My work’s supported by Patreon, which means the more work IS likely to be done, the best I can, because Patreon is way steadier and less ‘transient’ than selling stuff retail. I’m going to underscore that only if you can afford it, should you be on the Patreon: I’ll keep working for you regardless. These are times where there is real value in us working together and taking care of each other, and I mean to do my part. :)
You got to make a Soothe breh. Like described in ResEQ.
I just tried it out on a country folk mix I’m working on. The track was sounding really okay before but maybe a bit clinical. Slew3 calmed it down and added a tape-like quality. At one setting around 75% it seemed to introduce a bit of distortion, but maybe it was just exposing distortion which was already there… not really sure. Either way I found a sweet spot and it’s staying in. Nice work!
This plugin, to me, is the shrill-killer!
Thank you, Chris. There is simply nothing else like it. Your work is one of a kind.
Noel