Multiband saturator
Smelter
Heat, split four ways.
- Up to 4 bands
- 8 drive styles
- LFO + envelope mod
- 31 presets
Smelter splits your sound into up to four bands and gives each one its own saturation. Warm the lows with tape, put bite in the mids with a transistor, soften harsh highs with a dark tone. A live spectrum shows input and output, and Auto Gain keeps the level steady so you judge the colour, not the volume.
- 4
- bands, with crossovers you drag
- 8
- saturation styles
- 8
- modulation slots
- 31
- presets in seven groups
The whole window
Click or tap to see it full size.
What it does
Drag the crossovers
Choose one to four bands and drag the handles on the spectrum to set where they split. Solo a band to hear it alone, or bypass it to leave it clean.
Eight styles
Soft Tube, Hot Tube, Tape, Transformer, Transistor, Diode, Fuzz and Fold. Each band has its own style, Drive up to +36 dB, Tone, Mix and Level.
Auto Gain
Holds the output at the input's loudness while you push the drive, so you hear what the saturation adds rather than how much louder it got. Master Input, Mix and Output sit on the right.
Movement
Two LFOs with seven shapes (including Random and Drift) that can sync to tempo, and two envelope followers that listen to the input or any band, wired to any band's controls or a crossover through eight slots.
Oversampling
Off, 2x, 4x or 8x. Use 2x while writing and turn it up for the final bounce.
Presets for real jobs
Taming hat bleed on a snare, fattening toms, a warm bass DI, de-harshing a vocal, gluing a master, plus a few that move in time with the song.
Signal chain
- Input
- Split into 1-4 bands
- Drive + Tone per band
- Mix + Level per band
- Sum
- Auto Gain
- Mix
- Output
Modulation can move any band's Drive, Tone, Mix or Level, or the crossovers.
31 presets
START
- Init
DRUMS
- Snare - Tame Hat Bleed
- Snare - Fat & Cracking
- Kick - Thump & Click
- Toms - Bigger Not Boomier
- Overheads - Tame Cymbals
- Drum Bus - Glue
- Drum Bus - Smash
- Drums - Hit Harder (dynamic)
- Room Mics - Crush
BASS
- Bass - Warm DI
- Bass - Growl
- Sub Bass - Audible
VOCALS
- Vocal - Warm & Forward
- Vocal - Gritty Edge
- Vocal - De-Harsh
- Vocal - Lo-Fi Radio
GUITARS & KEYS
- Acoustic - Sheen
- Electric - Thicken
- Keys - Tape Warmth
- Synth - Harmonic Lift
MIX BUS & MASTERING
- Master - Subtle Glue
- Master - Analog Warmth
- Master - Tight Low End
- Master - Air & Presence
- Master - Tame Harsh Top
- Mix Bus - Loud & Dense
- Master - Kick-Aware Lows (dynamic)
CREATIVE
- Pumping Grit (tempo)
- Slow Motion Crossover
- Fold Wobble (tempo)
Specs
| Type | Audio effect, stereo |
|---|---|
| Put it on | Anything: a drum, a bus, a vocal, the master |
| Latency | About 1 ms at 2x |
| Quality | Off, 2x, 4x or 8x oversampling |
| System | Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit. VST3 plugin and standalone app. Mac version planned. |
| Licence | One key for everything on your order, checked offline. No iLok, no account. |
Smelter
$20Yours to keep, on every computer you own. Try the free demo first: everything works, with a short gap every 45 seconds until you add a key.
Or get all nine for $79. Need help? Read the Smelter manual or support.