TL;DR
808Screamer is our very first plugin release, delivering truly top-tier tone with some rare standout features:
- Key Tech Highlights
1. Selective Precision: Focuses on crucial frequency bands and levels to optimize both sound quality and CPU efficiency.
2. Even-Order Harmonics: Unique implementation of even harmonics that balances tone richness with performance.
3. Nonlinear Level & Tone Knobs: Faithfully recreates hardware quirks for a more authentic feel.
4. Better Oversampling: Ensures consistent tone regardless of the oversampling setting.
5. Clear Input Gain Guidelines: Provides a reference to help users dial in a sound that’s close to the original hardware.
- Pricing Model
1. Core plugin features are free; paid upgrades include enhanced GUI and extra functions.
2. Offers both one-time purchase for the paid GUI and subscription memberships, giving paying users extra perks.
3. Different paid GUIs are sold separately—no bundles—so users can pick the style they like best.
4. No holiday sales or discounts to keep pricing fair and avoid impulse buys driven by sales.
Introduction
If you're reading this, you're probably thinking: Another new company? Another screamer plugin? Just a re-skinned tanh code?
Well, honestly, the main reason we started this company wasn’t to chase profits. It was to meet our own needs. We were looking for plugins on the market that fit what we wanted, but sadly, nothing really checked all the boxes. So, we decided to roll up our sleeves and build a lineup of plugins tailored exactly to our vision. And now, here’s our first release: 808Screamer.
Stick with us for a minute—what follows won’t be filled with boring marketing buzzwords or overly complex tech jargon. We’re coming at this from a user’s point of view. We want to share what we’ve learned about screamers and why we felt the need to put out yet another screamer plugin.
Key Tone Features
- Selective Precision
We believe that because of how the human ear works and the nature of music, modeling should focus more on the key frequency bands and amplitude ranges that really matter. Other companies usually judge modeling accuracy based on how faithfully the hardware’s entire signal processing chain is replicated, which tends to make the precision consistent across the whole frequency response.
But honestly, most people don’t care about sounds outside the 20 Hz to 20 kHz range, and accuracy at input levels below -90 dB or above 0 dB isn’t that critical either. We zero in on the important parts of the sound, which lets us deliver better listening experience while keeping CPU usage reasonable.
- Even-Order Harmonics
The original hardware generates a lot of even-order harmonics, which play a crucial role in shaping its tone. But most competing plugins on the market don’t actually replicate this feature.
Staying true to our selective precision approach, we developed a unique way to handle this. Because accurately modeling even-order harmonics can be a serious CPU hog, we first focused on precisely capturing the hardware’s odd-order harmonics to nail the overall response. Then, we carefully added in the even-order harmonics to strike the right balance.
- Non-Linear Level & Tone Knobs
The Level and Tone knobs on a screamer actually affect the signal in a nonlinear way—different knob positions change the harmonic characteristics. Most competing plugins don’t replicate this.
We think this is a really important feature. Without it, you end up with a tricky problem: either the plugin doesn’t match the hardware’s behavior when used as an overdrive, or it doesn’t sound right when used as a booster. So even though implementing this adds quite a bit of CPU load, we decided it was worth it to get it right.
Side note: The reason we started with a screamer is that, in our own music production, we really wanted a high-quality booster plugin. We noticed most screamer plugins on the market don’t meet our expectations when used as boosters.
- Better Oversampling
We wanted to make sure that whether oversampling is on or off, the plugin’s harmonic distribution and frequency response stay pretty consistent within the 20Hz–20kHz range. We use a lot of third-party plugins ourselves, and we’ve noticed that in many of them, switching oversampling settings can drastically change the tone. At first, we thought it might just be in our heads, but after doing some careful testing, it turns out that in most cases, oversampling really does have a big impact on both harmonics and the overall frequency balance.
Usually, during arranging, we work with lower oversampling settings to save CPU, and then bump it up for the final export. So our goal was to keep the plugin’s harmonic behavior and frequency response as close as possible in both cases—the only real difference being how much aliasing is present.
- Clear Input Gain Guidelines
For modeling plugins, most users want an experience that feels close to the real hardware. But many plugin makers don’t provide clear official guidance on input gain. Even if the modeling itself is super accurate, if the plugin doesn’t line up with a guitarist’s usual habits and intuition, the final tone can end up pretty disappointing.
With this info, we want to help you get the best sound possible and a usage experience that feels true to the hardware.
Our plugin is calibrated so that a 1000Hz sine wave at 0dBFS equals 12.2dBu. Using the plugin with this setting will give you a sound that’s closest to plugging your guitar straight into the hardware. You can test this yourself with an oscilloscope or a multimeter to find the most accurate value for your audio interface. Of course, you can also check your interface’s manual for the theoretical specs to help you calibrate.
We chose this standard because we found that on many common audio interfaces, the input gain set to zero is pretty close to this value. This way, less geeky users can get a solid experience without having to tweak anything.
P.S. We’ll be adding a detailed calibration guide in the community soon, and the paid GUI will include a quick calibration feature to make things even easier.
About the Pricing
- A Fairer Pricing Model
As we mentioned earlier, our main goal isn’t to make a big profit, but a reasonable income is necessary to keep our development going. We’ve bought tons of legit software ourselves, but honestly, aside from the ethical side of things, it’s often hard to notice much difference between crack and paid versions.
When designing our business model, we wanted to break away from the usual approach. We want paid users to genuinely enjoy the perks of supporting us, while free users can still benefit from advances in music tech. So, if you want to support us, here are two options:
1. One-Time Purchase for Paid GUI: For each plugin, we offer a free GUI plus multiple paid GUI options. Don’t worry—the core sound and features are the same across all GUIs. Paid GUIs just add more convenience and a smoother experience. Plus, buyers get extra perks and services.
2. Subscription Membership: Join our subscription and get access to all paid GUIs. Even if your membership expires, you keep using the last GUI version you had. Subscribers also enjoy plenty of extra benefits and services.
In short: the core plugin features are free, and paid stuff covers better GUIs plus extra features and services. We hope this way more people can use our plugins, and we get better feedback from everyone. For more details on pricing and features, keep an eye on our website—we’ll be updating it with more info soon.
- Why Charge for the GUI?
Our users are true artists, each with their own unique aesthetic. Some prefer skeuomorphic (realistic) designs, others lean towards flat, minimalist styles, and so on. That’s why offering paid GUIs makes total sense — everyone can pick the look they dig, instead of being stuck with just one design the developer provides.
Importantly, the paid and free GUIs deliver the exact same sound quality and core features. This way, you can decide based on what fits your workflow and budget. Usually, the plugins you use the most and rely on deserve a little investment to unlock smoother workflow and a better experience. For those you use less often, the free GUI still gives you the same killer tone, just with a slightly less polished interface.
Imagine two scenarios:
1. You’re an electronic music producer and need to process an electric guitar for a track here and there. Since the guitar isn’t your go-to instrument, you might only use the plugin once on that song. In this case, the free GUI makes perfect sense — why pay for a one-time use? And don’t worry, even the free GUI nails the tone, so your music stays top quality.
2. You’re a rock star and electric guitars are your bread and butter. You use guitar-related plugins on every track. Here, investing in the paid GUI pays off big time, giving you a smoother workflow and better user experience. The time and energy you save means more focus on your music, not wrestling with plugin interfaces.
- Why Different GUIs Are Sold Separately?
Creating each GUI — from the visual design to the coding — takes time and resources. On top of that, offering them individually helps us gather more accurate feedback about which styles people actually like. That way, we can keep improving and better serve our paying users in the future.
We also didn’t want to bundle all the GUIs together into one big package, because that would mean you’d end up paying for designs you might not even like or use. Selling them separately keeps things fair and flexible.
Of course, all paid GUIs offer the exact same features — most of the time, you’ll just pick the one that fits your taste and workflow, with no need to buy more than one.
- Will You Have Holiday Sales Like Black Friday or Summer Promotions?
Nope — music plugins aren’t impulse buys or fast-moving consumer goods. We don’t want users making purchasing decisions based on whether there’s a discount happening. We've all been there: needing a specific plugin urgently, but it’s not Black Friday — so we’re forced to buy it at full price and feel bad about it. Or, during a big sale, we grab a bunch of plugins just because they’re discounted, only to realize later we didn’t really need them and end up with buyer’s remorse.
We want people to buy our paid features because they actually need them — not because a timer or flashy deal pushed them into it. That’s why we don’t do seasonal sales. What we do promise, though, is fair and honest pricing based on development costs and product quality.
That said, we will offer discounts for annual memberships and returning customers. If you’re someone who truly supports what we’re doing, we’ll absolutely do our best to give back.
Bottom line: if you know you really need one of our plugins, you can buy it anytime — the price is always as good as it gets.
Conclusion
Thanks so much for taking the time to read this. This is a pre-release version, and for now, it only includes the free GUI. Since this is our very first release, we’ve done our best to test it thoroughly — but there’s always a chance that some bugs or oversights slipped through.
If you run into any issues while using the plugin, please don’t hesitate to reach out. We’ll do our best to fix things as quickly as possible. Once we’ve addressed anything we feel is serious or disruptive, we’ll move forward with the full official release, including the paid GUIs. We don’t want anyone who supports us to pay for something that isn’t rock solid.
Of course, if we’re lucky and there aren’t any major bugs, the paid GUIs might drop just a few days after this pre-release.
Either way, we hope you enjoy using 808Screamer in your music, and that it finds a meaningful place in your creative process. We also hope you can feel the love we put into it — our passion for music and our obsession with great tone.
Go ahead, download it, try it out, and let us know what you think. We’ll keep improving the plugin, adding new features and making it even better over time.
Thanks for your support — we’re just getting started, and we can’t wait to bring you more.
https://www.patreon.com/deepsoundlab
