Analog saturation has long been the magic mojo that engineers have
used as their swiss army knife of mixing. It's used on drums, bass,
vocals guitars, everything. It can be used to beef things up, thin
things out, give them some edge, fry them up nice, add a bit of warmth,
pull things out of the mix, or even create a signature sound. Subtle to
extreme, analog saturation is the golden child of great mixes. That's
why we took our time, bought and listened to all the great analog
classics, and painstakingly created that magic for you in Decapitator.
Analog Feel
Decapitator is more than just an emulation of the analog sound. It
has the analog feel. You can hear the subtle changes reacting to the
track, following the dynamics of the instrument. That's what analog is
all about. Not a static snapshot (no convolution here) but a changing
responsive model of all those tubes and wires (and careful notes), and
transistors. The sound of real gear, but with the flexibility of
software. Our modeled tone control lets you shape and contour, and our
mix control lets you mix back in the dry signal without the need for
routing and submixes. The best of both worlds.
The Models
In our lab we gathered so much cool analog gear. From preamps to
compressors. From tape machines to EQ's. Vintage gear and modern gear.
All of it so we could listen to how the sound changed and moved and
created its special vibe. We picked some of the models that had the most
distinct sounds, the models that had a flavor both subtle and extreme,
and made them instantly accessible on the front panel. By adding analog
modeled tone control we increased the sonic possibilities far beyond
many of the originals and give you a remarkably flexible "analog"
palette to create with.
Bad Boy
Because we know that audio is not always nice, we've included a
convenient way to make sure it's not nice. Our "Punish" button kicks in
another chuck of gain to push it over the edge. This tool let's you
drive hard and responds just like its analog counterpart. It screams in
pain. Not your standard stomp-box distortion, Decapitator gives you
those unique qualities that only come from driving high end studio gear.
Listen to how each model has its own sound of beautiful agony when you
hit the "Punish" button and crank it up.
