Voxengo OVC-128 1.10 massively-oversampled clipper plugin released

[Aleksey Vaneev]

April 3, 2022: Voxengo is happy to release OVC-128 version 1.10, a massively-oversampled soft/hard clipping effect plug-in for professional music production applications, available in AAX, AudioUnit, VST, and VST3 plug-in formats, for macOS and Windows computers.

Version 1.10 features a fix of the fractional latency reporting, and features a slightly reduced CPU load (1-2%).



OVC-128 is a massively-oversampled soft/hard clipping effect plug-in for professional music production applications. A common use for this plug-in is hard-clipping before the final peak limiter. This is an effective approach in contemporary electronic music when loudness is boosted using a clipper plug-in while minor excessive peaks are absorbed by a final peak limiter that applies no additional gain itself.

OVC-128 features:

* 128X linear-phase oversampling
* Clipping hardness control
* Stereo processing
* 64-bit floating point processing
* Preset manager
* Undo/redo history
* A/B comparisons
* Contextual hint messages
* All sample rates support
* 38 ms compensated processing latency
* Retina and HighDPI support

Demo version of OVC-128 can be downloaded freely at the Voxengo web site: https://www.voxengo.com/product/ovc128/?eref=fo

[TMaudio]

Very nice

[crickey13]

The smoothest clipper in existence. Love it.

[dionenoid]

Unfortunately OVC-128 often has hearable high roll-offs and narrowing of the stereofield, even when not a lot of clipping is going on. I stopped using it a while back after initially being impressed.

StandardClip still the king of clippers imo. It is more transparent, has user-defined oversampling, better visualization, and various clipping modes, for less money than OVC-128.

[Aleksey Vaneev]

Well, I think "hearable high roll-offs" depends on what you compare it to. It will sound less sibilant when compared to a poorer oversampling quality. Aliasing usually gives an impression of sibilance. Stereofield? Yes, all "compression" processes reduce stereofield. Maybe it's just more apparent with OVC-128 than with another clipper.

[Ploki]

Unfortunately OVC-128 often has hearable high roll-offs and narrowing of the stereofield, even when not a lot of clipping is going on. I stopped using it a while back after initially being impressed.

StandardClip still the king of clippers imo. It is more transparent, has user-defined oversampling, better visualization, and various clipping modes, for less money than OVC-128.

lol yeah, no.

despite the popular opinion, something like a high-frequency roll off can be measured and observed easily, without even using your ears.

StandardClip has a few more options so it's not really a fair comparison, but OVC-128 is fine, it's on my nearly every single master.

[electro]

What is linear phase oversampling?

[crickey13]

Well, I think "hearable high roll-offs" depends on what you compare it to. It will sound less sibilant when compared to a poorer oversampling quality. Aliasing usually gives an impression of sibilance. Stereofield? Yes, all "compression" processes reduce stereofield. Maybe it's just more apparent with OVC-128 than with another clipper.

despite the popular opinion, something like a high-frequency roll off can be measured and observed easily, without even using your ears.

He possibly means the slight phase shift in the higher frequences OVC-128 appears to exhibit, which could account for the slight hi-freq smoothing.



It's not my measurement (I saw it in a KClip's gearslu... space thread), so maybe that's wrong, but frankly, I like the sound of OVC a bit more either way, especially when doing some soft-clipping and I own both StandardClip and OVC FYI.

StandardClip sounds more edgy and the way you would expect from a... well... standard clipper.

Both are good, but I like the character of OVC a bit more. I hope that even if it gets "fixed" in a future update, one is still able to retain that hi-freq smoothing, as it sounds damn nice and I like how clipping blends with the rest of the signal this way. I guess phase geeks might object to the non-true linear phase (I'm not even sure if it's about that), but I care about the sound and I like the way OVC sounds now anyhow.

[Aleksey Vaneev]

It's an old story already. It's not a phase shift, it's a 0.5 samples fractional delay. PluginDoctor does not measure it, it's a bit broken. Try with this latest version. Perfectly flat.

[Aleksey Vaneev]

What is linear phase oversampling?

When the phase plot does not have dips and peaks but a flat line.

[Michey]

Well, I think "hearable high roll-offs" depends on what you compare it to. It will sound less sibilant when compared to a poorer oversampling quality. Aliasing usually gives an impression of sibilance. Stereofield? Yes, all "compression" processes reduce stereofield. Maybe it's just more apparent with OVC-128 than with another clipper.

despite the popular opinion, something like a high-frequency roll off can be measured and observed easily, without even using your ears.

He possibly means the slight phase shift in the higher frequences OVC-128 appears to exhibit, which could account for the slight hi-freq smoothing.



It's not my measurement (I saw it in a KClip's gearslu... space thread), so maybe that's wrong, but frankly, I like the sound of OVC a bit more either way, especially when doing some soft-clipping and I own both StandardClip and OVC FYI.

StandardClip sounds more edgy and the way you would expect from a... well... standard clipper.

Both are good, but I like the character of OVC a bit more. I hope that even if it gets "fixed" in a future update, one is still able to retain that hi-freq smoothing, as it sounds damn nice and I like how clipping blends with the rest of the signal this way. I guess phase geeks might object to the non-true linear phase (I'm not even sure if it's about that), but I care about the sound and I like the way OVC sounds now anyhow.

V1.10 :

[Ploki]

This is the clipper i recommend to everybody.
It's no compromise but still has the lowest CPU usage, and sounds absolutely wonderful.
Roll-off soft clip to 50ish to get (oversampled) inflator style harmonics or keep it hard to have clean shaven peaks to feed the limiters. wonderful

[dionenoid]

I didn't measure anything (in PluginDoctor or whatever), i just go by individual use cases and always compare my various options by listening, whether it's for myself or my clients. And OVC-128 just never won out against others, so i stopped using it as an option alltogether.

We all have different opinions, and mine changed after initially being happy with OVC. Sorry if some of you feel offended.

[Ploki]

I didn't measure anything (in PluginDoctor or whatever), i just go by individual use cases and always compare my various options by listening, whether it's for myself or my clients. And OVC-128 just never won out against others, so i stopped using it as an option alltogether.

We all have different opinions, and mine changed after initially being happy with OVC. Sorry if some of you feel offended.

What you said just now is perfectly valid - you dont prefer it. Nothing wrong with that and nothing i’d argue against.

What you said earier (hf rolloff) is objective and can be evaluated objectively.

[crickey13]

It's no compromise but still has the lowest CPU usage, and sounds absolutely wonderful.
Roll-off soft clip to 50ish to get (oversampled) inflator style harmonics or keep it hard to have clean shaven peaks to feed the limiters. wonderful

+1

I wonder why it sounds so smooth, it's probably due to the quality SRC.