Cotorro Audio has released Quintuber, a VST3 emulation of five popular vacuum tubes found in many types of audio electronics each known for their unique tone and distortion characteristics.These can be used one at a time or dialed in freely for all five tubes thanks to the plugin’s flexible parallel processing. An unyielding serial processing mode is also available where each tube’s output is fed into the next one.
The plugin covers the following tubes:
- 12AX7, a high-gain staple in guitar amplification. Great for aggressive vocal treatments.
- 12AT7, a tube known for its punchy, airy tone.
- 12AU7, a low gain tube with tons of headroom. Great for subtle enhancement of any type of material.
- EF86, a pentode tube exceptionally rich in harmonics. Works wonders for vocals.
- 6SN7, found in many hi-fi amplifiers and prized for its linear function. Works best for stereo bus, vocals, and mastering.
To maximize efficiency Quintuber disables processing for an emulated tube when its mix-level is set to zero. The plugin’s powerful oversampling options will deal with any aliasing artifacts with ease. Quintuber also offers global controls for input, mix (wet-dry), and output. A look-ahead limiter sits at the end of the signal path with a threshold of -0.1 dB to catch any naughty stray signals.
A randomize button is there to provide quick inspiration limited to a maximum of three simultaneously driven tubes to avoid excessive saturation.
This plugin has been verified by Pluginval at strictness level 10.
Quintuber is available for $49.99. A free demo version with periodic silence is also provided.
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