CarbonDSP has announced the release of their first four plug-in offerings:
- Vellum: vocal reverb with both simple and advanced controls to easily get great sounds.
- Carbon CL-610: transparent model of the famous Spectra Sonics 610, up to 32x oversampling for high-end clarity.
- Biased: a free tube preamp modelled at component level with dynamic bias adjustment.
- Black Ion 76: A modeled UREI 1176 — real feedback topology, plus the modern controls the hardware never had.
All four are VST3 and Standalone for Windows, 64-bit with macOS coming soon.
Vellum – Vocal Reverb
A reverb designed for one job rather than for everything. Its front panel is deliberately small — each control is a macro over several internal parameters moving along a curated curve, so there is no setting that sounds broken.
CarbonDSP says the control that sets it apart is DUCK: a side-chain taken off the input that pulls the finished wet signal down while the vocal is present and lets it back up in the gaps. It does not shorten or damp the reverb — the tail continues behind the vocal untouched, so the space stays consistent while the words stay intelligible.
Features:
- DUCK — lowers the wet signal under the vocal without shortening or damping the tail.
- Four distinct spaces — Room, Plate, Hall and Air are four separate networks, not one reverb with the decay turned up, spanning roughly 0.6 to 5.6 seconds.
- Measured impulse display — three per-band energy decay curves, a live T60 marker, and gain reduction traced live over them while audio plays.
- No latency — no lookahead anywhere in the signal path.
Biased – Component-Modeled Tube Preamp
Biased models a preamp at component level rather than as a curve. Two cascaded gain stages run into a real grid-bias point that shifts dynamically with signal, a power supply that sags under drive, and independent input and output transformer saturation. Because the bias point moves rather than sitting fixed, the same setting responds differently to a quiet passage and a loud one.
Features:
- Component-level valve model — cascaded gain stages, a dynamic grid-bias point and supply sag under drive, rather than a fixed transfer curve.
- Independent input and output transformer saturation — colour available with no valve drive at all, from the iron and the ageing capacitors alone.
- Capacitor-ageing — control across three capacitance sizes, from tight and modern to loose and worn.
- Live signal-path visualizer — waveform lanes from input to output, a transfer-curve plot taken from the same math the audio thread runs, and a heat ramp that glows hotter as the valve is driven.
Black Ion 76 – FET Limiting Amplifier
Black Ion 76 is modeled on the UREI 1176 FET limiting amplifier. It reproduces that input-driven compression character around a bespoke nonlinear gain element, then adds the controls the original never had. Ratio emerges from real feedback loop gain rather than from a feed-forward approximation.
Features:
- True feedback topology — ratio from real loop gain, checked against a validated reference on every build.
- Nonlinear FET grit stage — second-harmonic dominant, 0.2% to 5% THD as drive and gain reduction increase.
- NUKE mode — Four discrete ratios plus All-Buttons-In ‘Nuke’ mode with a continuous blend between the two responses.
- Advanced controls — sidechain high-pass, parallel Comp Mix with no routing, post HPF/LPF, Auto Makeup and a transformer-drive control.
- Oversampling — up to 16x, plus Stereo, Dual-Mono and Mid-Side detection.
Carbon CL 610 – Transparent Compressor/Limiter
Modeled on the Spectra Sonics 610 Comp/Limiter. A compressor and a peak limiter running at once on a single threshold — one slow and musical for level, one fast enough that transients never get past it. There is no threshold control at all: you drive material into a fixed knee, so changing the ratio does not change how hard you are hitting it. Set the drive once and audition ratios freely; the point of comparison holds still. Measured movement of the knee across the entire ratio range is 0.008 dB.
Features:
- A knee that does not move — turning the ratio does not change how hard the plugin is being hit.
- Two detectors, one threshold — a slow musical path for level and a sub-microsecond path for transients, sharing one gain cell.
- A release that listens — program-dependent, 50 ms to 10 s.
- Peak control in nanoseconds — with oversampling selectable up to 32x.
- Parallel compression built in — a blend control with the output amplifier downstream of it.
- 32 level-matched presets — calibrated by measurement rather than by ear.
Availability
For all free plug-ins: Create a free account at www.carbondsp.com and download them from your account page:
- Biased
- Vellum
For paid plug-ins, CarbonDSP is instituting an introductory system where any new plug-in released will be discounted until the end of whatever month they release the product in. So these two new plug-ins will be available for an intro price until August 31st:
- Black Ion 76: $29 introductory, regular price $59.
- Carbon CL 610: $49 introductory, regular price $89.
Both have a fully functional 7-day demo with no account required.
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