SKnote has announced Q796, the first plug-in in a new series of plug-ins modeled on classic hardware devices. It is a stereo device with stereo sidechain. Built for mastering but great on single instruments.

Features:

• Expander: includes a pump-up mode (compresses LOW levels, makes sound full).
• Compressor:
  • Feed-forward (the modern way) and feed-back (the vintage way) modes.
  • Sidechain.
  • Negative ratio.
  • Continuous Peak-RMS set.
  • Gain reduction limit (great for invisible squashing).
  • Distortion (static and dynamic; starts over the threshold and increases with gain).
  • Long time integration (an additional very slow time constant).
• Limiter: a very fast limiter.

The "analog" interface, modeled on the hardware, is integrated in a "digital" frame, for a better control. Three separate graphs show in realtime:

• Input waveform.
• Output waveform.
• Control signal (from Peak to RMS).
• Gain reduction.

Pricing & Availability

Q796 has an MSRP of €129 and is expected to be released by the end of May, 2009, as a VST effect plug-in for Windows. A demo version of the software will be available for download before May 10th (the only limitation will be a short, low level, noise burst every 20 seconds). A sound demo is already available.