Example plugins
These are free plugins we built with Ruse, some for ourselves and some for others. Download one and load it in Logic or any other Audio Unit or CLAP host.
Version 0.1.0 for Macs with Apple silicon, macOS 11 or later. Apple has notarized every plugin.
Env Auto Wah
Env Auto Wah sweeps a resonant band-pass filter with the level of the signal you play into it. A peak envelope follower, linked across channels, sets the filter's center frequency on an exponential scale between Min Freq and Max Freq. Louder playing opens the filter. Direction set to Down closes it instead.
Envelope
Attack runs from 0.1 to 200 ms and Release from 1 to 2000 ms. A short attack catches each pick. A long release lets the filter fall slowly.
Sensitivity
Sensitivity scales the follower's level by 0 to 24 dB. A quiet pickup can then open the filter fully.
Sweep range
Min Freq spans 100 Hz to 2 kHz and Max Freq spans 500 Hz to 8 kHz.
Resonance
Resonance sets the filter's Q from 0.5 to 12, from a broad vowel to a sharp quack.
Direction
Up opens the filter as the level rises. Down closes it.
Mix and meter
Mix blends the wah with the dry signal. A read-only Envelope meter shows the follower's level.
Env Saturator
Env Saturator raises or lowers the drive of a waveshaper with the level of the input. Drive equals Base Drive plus Amount times the envelope. A positive Amount saturates hard playing more and leaves soft playing clean. A negative Amount reverses that. At the default settings, a 220 Hz sine at −30 dBFS keeps its harmonics 68 dB below the fundamental. The same sine at −6 dBFS puts them 16 dB below.
Envelope
Attack runs from 0.1 to 200 ms and Release from 1 to 2000 ms, as in Env Auto Wah.
Drive
Base Drive covers −12 to 36 dB. Amount covers −24 to 36 dB.
Curve
Tanh rounds the peaks smoothly, Soft clips with a gentle cubic knee, and Tube saturates the positive half harder than the negative half.
Level compensation
Above 0 dB of drive, output falls by half the drive in decibels. Extra drive then adds harmonics with little extra volume.
Tone
A low-pass after the shaper runs from 1 kHz to 20 kHz and takes the edge off the top.
Mix and meter
Mix blends the saturated signal with the dry signal. A read-only Envelope meter shows the follower's level.
Fractal Delay
Fractal Delay nests copies of itself. Every echo spawns a smaller copy of the whole delay pattern, scaled in time by the Ratio and in level by the Decay, four levels deep.
Time
Time sets the length of the outermost delay from 20 to 1000 ms, and with it the scale of the whole pattern.
Ratio
Ratio runs from 0.2 to 0.9 and scales one level to the next. Lower values nest tight clusters inside each echo. The default, 0.618, is the golden ratio.
Decay
Decay drops the level of each nested copy by 0 to 24 dB.
Feedback
Feedback returns up to 0.9 of the outermost delay to its own input. The nested delays get half as much. The pattern then stays clear at high settings.
Damping
A low-pass in each feedback path, from 1 to 20 kHz, darkens every repeat.
Mode and mix
Normal keeps the echoes in place and Ping-Pong bounces them between left and right. Mix blends the dry and delayed signals.
Bus Compressor
Bus Compressor is a feed-forward compressor with a soft knee, a parallel mix and a gain reduction meter. It is a single Ruse dynamics block with the controls wired to knobs.
Threshold and ratio
Threshold runs from −60 to 0 dB. Ratio runs from 1 to 20. A ratio of 4 turns a 4 dB rise into 1 dB.
Knee
Knee sets the width of the soft transition around the threshold, from 0 to 24 dB.
Attack and release
Attack runs from 0.1 to 100 ms and Release from 10 to 1000 ms.
Makeup
Makeup adds 0 to 24 dB after the compressor.
Mix
A Mix below 1 blends the compressed signal with the dry one, which is parallel compression.
Meter and bypass
A read-only Reduction meter shows the gain turned down right now, up to 30 dB. Bypass passes the audio through unchanged.
Harmonic EQ
Harmonic EQ places its bands on the harmonics of one fundamental. Boost, cut or tilt the overtones of a tone, favor the odd or even harmonics, or notch the harmonics of mains hum.
Fundamental
Fundamental sets the pitch whose harmonics the bands follow, from 20 Hz to 2 kHz.
Harmonic range
Harmonics gives 1 to 32 bands. First sets the lowest harmonic affected. A First of 2 leaves the fundamental alone.
Gain and tilt
Gain boosts or cuts every band by up to 24 dB. Tilt adds up to 12 dB for each doubling of the harmonic number. A positive Tilt brightens the overtones.
Odd and even
Odd and Even add up to 24 dB of boost or cut to the odd or the even harmonics alone.
Bandwidth and stretch
Bandwidth sets each band's width as a fraction of the fundamental, from 0.02 to 1. Stretch moves the upper bands sharp, the way a piano's strings do.
Mix and bypass
Mix blends the equalized signal with the dry one. Bypass passes the audio through unchanged.
Warm Saturator
Warm Saturator pushes the signal into a soft or hard clipper, then rolls off the highs with a one-pole low-pass.
Drive
Drive pushes the signal into the clipper by 0 to 24 dB.
Mode
Soft rounds the peaks with a tanh curve. Hard cuts them flat.
Tone
Tone sets the cutoff of the low-pass after the clipper, from 200 Hz to 16 kHz.
Built with Ruse
Fractal Delay, Bus Compressor, Harmonic EQ and Warm Saturator are assembled from Ruse blocks. Each one is a manifest and a graph, with no custom code. Ruse has no envelope follower block yet, so Env Auto Wah and Env Saturator carry custom DSP written in safe Rust. All six pass the seven Ruse gates and Apple's auval. Each plugin processes 1 to 64 channels and reports no latency.
Install
Unzip a download. Copy the Audio Unit to the Components folder and the CLAP to the CLAP folder, then rescan plugins in your host.
~/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components
~/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/CLAPRequirements
- A Mac with Apple silicon, running macOS 11 or later.
- A host that loads Audio Unit v2 or CLAP plugins, such as Logic.
Not built yet
- Intel, Windows and Linux builds.
- Oversampling. Very high drive on the saturators can alias.
- An editor window. Your host shows its generic controls.
Questions
Open an issue on GitHub or write to hello@symbia-labs.com.