Reasonable Audio has released Preamble, a free preamp distortion plug-in that captures the input stage of a particular bucket-brigade delay pedal, without the delay.
Preamble is designed to shape a sound on its way into the next stage of a chain. On guitar, it smooths out an edgy DI before it hits the amp and adds touch sensitivity that follows how hard the player picks. Drums, bass and synths gain character too, and the input level decides whether the result is a gentle polish or a full-on buzz. Pushed hard, intermodulation distortion adds discordant tones of its own.
The model was developed by training a series of neural models on the pedal and A/B-testing each one against it by ear, with detailed measurements alongside, on quiet and loud material and across bass and midrange.
Preamble started life during the development of Buckets, a bucket-brigade delay plug-in from Reasonable Audio due in early 2027.
Key Features
- The input level sets how much saturation and compression the modelled preamp adds.
- Autogain keeps the output level steady as the input is pushed, so changes in tone can be heard without a jump in volume.
- Lo Cut and Hi Cut filter only the processed signal, and a Mix control blends in the dry signal for parallel processing.
- Each stereo channel runs through its own instance of the model, so the stereo image is kept.
- Oversampling (2x or 4x) keeps aliasing down when bright sounds are pushed hard.
Pricing & Availability
Preamble is free and requires a free Reasonable Audio account to activate. It was released on 11 November 2026 and is available for Windows, macOS and Linux in VST3, AU, CLAP and AAX formats. An iOS version (AUv3) is coming soon.
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