Soundevice Digital and United Plugins have announced the release of Plamen, a versatile new multi-band saturation plug-in. Equipped with five independent bands and five different types of saturation processing, the processor can be used to subtly enhance buses or full mixes, or apply more obvious distortion to single instruments and sound sources.
The plug-in’s five bands are all equipped with idential sets of parameters, along with a choice of five different saturation modes. American, British and German modes each emulate the sound of different consoles, whilst Magnetic recreates tape saturation, and Clip models the sound of an overdriven A-D converter. The approach not only makes it possible to target different frequency ranges with different amounts of processing, but also means different types of saturation can be applied to each, too, allowing Plamen to offer much more control than is possible with many alternative plug-ins.
A Gain parameter provides adjustment of the band’s input level, with the amount of processing determined by a Mojo contol, and an Output dial allowing gain structure to be maintained. For those wishing to drive things that bit harder, an AGC control offers an additional 10dB of input gain which is automatically volume-compensated. Mute and Solo controls are provided to audition each band’s processing, or create band-limited effects.
There are a set of global parameters along the top of the GUI, with Input and Output level controls joined by a Dry/Wet blend control for instant parallel processing, and a Tape Wow parameter which allows users to introduce some tape-style pitch variation. 2x, 4x and 8x oversampling options are present, along with an output level limiter. There are also Analog and Linear Phase modes for the adjustable crossover bands, the latter of which the company say offers optimal performance but at the cost of additional latency.
A range of presets are included, and Plamen also offers some helpful functions such as built-in undo and redo commands, and A/B comparison tools for quickly auditioning different settings.
Compatibility
Plamen is supported on PCs running Windows 8 and above, and Macs running macOS 10.10 or higher. It is available in VST, VST3, AU and AAX plug-in formats.
Pricing & Availability
Plamen is available now, and is being offered for an introductory price of €19 until 10 October 2023, after which it will cost €89.
