Wavegrove releases Vastaus, a free high-end fixing smoother, and overdrive

Vastaus is a high-end fixer.

Turns your condensers into ribbons, ear-piercing cymbals into smooth mist, 90s black metal guitars to actually listenable material. Basically, it's a better maker.

Available free on Patreon and Gumroad for Mac and Windows.
https://www.patreon.com/wavegrove
https://wavegrove.gumroad.com/l/Vastaus
Mac: AU and VST3, Notarized installer for Intel and M1
Windows: VST and VST3

Vastaus lives on instrument channels, buses and it is known to have been spotted on the master channel too. Feel free to use and abuse it. Try to add an EQ before Vastaus and push the highs way overboard and how Vastaus reacts.

It is at its most neutral at Input Gain and Tame at 0, at which time it brings down and blocks overly harsh high frequencies present in vocal esses, smooths cymbals, guitars and pretty much anything you throw at it.

Increasing Tame brings enhances that effect, but also brings in more options with the React switch, as well as with the Bias setting. React is a mode, where Tame starts to let through some transients in a really interesting way, bringing out more detail and clarity, but still smoothing the sound. With Bias, you can further control the sound by limiting the effect to either the positive or negative side of the audio samples, generating harmonics in the process. I have heard this referred to as silky, and apparently some well-known hardware unit makers use a process similar to this.

Lastly there is Gain. With the Input Gain, you control the overall signal boost you get going into the thing, while the Output Gain works as a pad, with 100% level adding no additional volume. Boosting the input gain can bring additional high end to the signal after taming it, which is especially useful with instruments such as the electric guitar. In conjunction with the use of the Bias knob, Vastaus can even act as a leveling tool, which also boosts and extends the high end frequencies far above where they ended in the original signal.

Use the Wet knob to blend the changed signal with the original in whatever way you want.

And the best thing? It's free and supported by Patreon.

Version change list:
- 1.1.2 Fix noise shaping a bit.
- 1.1.1Tweaking the Tame algorithm for cleaner and smoother noise shaping.
Fixing a problem with divisions at noise floor levels, which caused some feedback-type stuff if FX chains were long.
Built my own oversampling system to reduce CPU usage and added 0X option.
Tweaked the knob ranges a bit.
Updated graphics to be more vibrant.
- 1.1.0 Germanium.Added settings for oversampling and to output the changed signal, delta.
Increased range of the effect and tame knob, making the wet control more useful, even at 1/3 the effect is quite strong.
Wet at full the compression characteristics are a bit different with different oversampling rates, with 2X having a bit less headroom. Increasing oversampling raises headroom and makes the effect smoother and airier.
Improved performance a bit, and added a feature removing CPU use when no audio is going in. Also, Mac issues are now fixed.
- 1.0.3 Added oversampling to reduce aliasing. Modified Tame a bit to be even smoother, while not reducing the extreme highs so much. Overall betterments.
- 1.0.2 Bias to affect also the magic smoothing section outside of Tame. Fixed bug with overdrive causing high-end artefacts at certain low frequencies.
- 1.0.1 Added Input Gain compensation, increased Output Gain range, fixed some aliasing.

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Thanks, enjoy, and best regards,
Jussi









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