Open source spectral compressor/ multi fx, ideas?
Hi everyone, I made a spectral plugin that does compression, spectral sidechain ducking and EQ adjustments.
Here's the current very early version, Linux CLAP, and Windows VST3 and CLAP. I believe if your host supports it, you should run the clap on Windows too, it's a much more modern format than VST3.
https://github.com/Taikakim/spectral-forge/releases/tag/v0.1.0
Even at this stage, based on my testing so far, the scaling of amplitudes and frequencies seems to be perfect, and the compressor part does what it should pretty well. In the image a situation can be seen where a loud filter resonance is completely removed from noise without affecting the noise itself at all. If the peak moves it's more noticeable, the human perceptory system is very good in detecting movement against noise even at extremely low levels.
The concept is a system of effects where the relevant parameters can be adjusted per bin.
Now I'm starting to work on the multi-fx part and also the technically quite challenging part of increasing the resolution on the bass frequencies (you'll see, currently the number of bands gets quite low under 500Hz so the adjustments are not so surgical but more like traditional filters). There's already smear and freeze, and I'm working on contrast.
One thing I didn't yet try out at all is the automation of the parameters. I did ask to have the sensible ones automatable, but I'll needs to review them and also see that crazy things don't happen if the user modulates one with white noise at audio rate or something.
The plugin is free, and I don't have plans to sell it. There's no license on the code, it's completely freeware.
The thing is, the plugin was made with Claude Code in just a few days. Initially I thought I'll just see if it can create some kind of simple thing that runs at all, but to my surprise it got it nearly right on the first try.
Now I've been iterating on the UI, but what I'm mainly excited about is the fact that since this is so effortless and fast, I can finally start to implement all kinds of crazy effects I've wanted to do for years, but which have been impossible to create since an accessible modular framework for spectral effects doesn't exist.
This is built ground-up to be easily expandable, and I have ideas for literally dozens of unheard of effects.
So, if there's ever was a spectral effect you wanted to see and have for free now is your chance to speak up 😁