Signal Perspective releases Pyrite

[Kuig]

Hi!
Just wanna let you know I released a new plugin. It's called Pyrite!
It is a virtual analog preamp for Mac, Win and Linux, (with a simple but nice compressor).



I always thought that emulations of objects such as preamps were not very useful, but I made one as an exercise... The result confirmed my suspicions
I decided to add some interesting features to make the most of all the hard work I'd put in, and in fact it does deserve a place in some chains from time to time, so I decided to share it (again as donationware).

You can find more info here:
https://www.kvraudio.com/product/pyrite ... erspective

Please let me know what you think!

[billinder33]

I always thought that emulations of objects such as preamps were not very useful, but I made one as an exercise... The result confirmed my suspicions

I find this comment interesting and perhaps in line with my own perceptions, but I'd be interested if you could share a little more detail on your perspective and what specifically you learned through this process.

[Nug Wrangler]

Thank you

[Kuig]

I always thought that emulations of objects such as preamps were not very useful, but I made one as an exercise... The result confirmed my suspicions

I find this comment interesting and perhaps in line with my own perceptions, but I'd be interested if you could share a little more detail on your perspective and what specifically you learned through this process.

Well, I think what usually makes a preamp stand out is how it interacts with an instrument's electronics. That's something you cannot achieve with a plugin. In this specific case, the hardware is so well done that the line-in signal passes through it almost untouched - you have to push quite hard to encounter saturation - but the mic input is colored by the transformer according to the previous point.
Additionally, preamps are sometimes used to tame hot peaks and transients before recording, which makes emulating them useless for that purpose (unless you record with a lot of headroom and at a very high sampling rate, but then quantization noise starts playing a role).
Finally, I've never heard a virtual analog piece of gear that can provide the high-frequency silkiness of real analog equipment (and this is also valid for Pyrite), but maybe that's just a subjective and placebo-like matter.

Keeping this in mind, I tried to create something that could still be used in a mix. I implemented saturation as gain-compensated and improved the EQ section. I also added a compressor with limited controls so people would focus on the sound rather than the numbers, as HW forces you to do.

Regarding what I learned: transformers are colorful and difficult to model properly (at least for me). I also expected more mid-range coloration from the device, but I was surprised by its linear behavior.

[billinder33]

Yeah seems like it would be hard to model something meant for an inbound signal and have it work the same way on the signal retroactively. Cool concept though, and the demos on your site highlight the usefulness of the device. Nice job!

[VladK]

What is strange is that EQ in the UI is placed between Saturation and Compression, while the processing chain is:
Transformer -> Saturation -> Compression -> EQing -> Output trimming
Other than that, this is a cool exercise