Iron Glass Mastering EQ for VST3 AU AAX Available Now

[leckel1996]

Iron Glass is now a full plugin (VST3, AU, AAX)

A few weeks ago, I posted a free JSFX version of Iron Glass on gearspace, only expecting a handful of downloads. I was honestly shocked by the feedback I got. I was already working on porting the plugin when I released the JSFX version, but development quickly took a different direction.

The JSFX approximated analog behavior using stacked layers of interconnected DSP, which was a cool experiment, but didn’t end up giving the results I was going after. This version is built on several very accurate circuit models, so the tubes, both transformers, and inductor network are solved as actual circuitry rather than imitated. The payoff is the thing real hardware does, and most plugins do not. I don’t want to start rambling off adjectives that have a different meaning to each person, so I’ll let you decide how it sounds.


What the plugin consists of:


• Five parallel bands in a circuit modeled inductor network

• Tube and iron stages with adjustable character. Think of these as changing the characteristics of the tubes and transformers, not how hard they’re being driven

• High and low pass filters also solved as real inductors, not utility filters bolted on

• ±18 dB of linkable input and output gain, which gives you control over how hard you wish to drive the circuit

• Independent L/R or M/S processing

• Oversampling to 192kHz internally with ADAA on the inductor network for additional antialiasing

Why this approach and what makes it different:

• These are not fixed curves with saturation bolted on at the end.
• Nothing is a fixed response. The same EQ move behaves differently depending on how hard you drive it. Pushing the inductors hard will raise the frequency and cause the Q to drop slightly.
• I’m not cloning a specific piece of hardware. Each stage was tuned by ear.
• The transformers respond like transformers do. The iron remembers how it just saturated and settles in the moments after, and that memory is a big part of the depth and the feel after a transient. This phenomenon is where I got the name Remanence Audio from.

Formats and systems:


• macOS: VST3, AU, and AAX, universal binary for Intel and Apple Silicon, macOS 11 and later

• Windows: VST3 and AAX, 64 bit, Windows 10 and later

• Fully offline licensing, with a fully functional 14 day trial

Iron Glass is available now from Remanence Audio at https://remanenceaudio.com for an intro price of $50 for the first two weeks, then $75 after. I look forward to hearing it on your music!

[bmanic]

.. first impression after 5 minutes of tweaking is:



This is possibly the finest plugin EQ available right now. This is _supremely_ good. I'll need to test it a lot more but first impressions are utterly astounding.

EDIT: .. and purchased. This thing is incredible!

[leckel1996]

.. first impression after 5 minutes of tweaking is:



This is possibly the finest plugin EQ available right now. This is _supremely_ good. I'll need to test it a lot more but first impressions are utterly astounding.

EDIT: .. and purchased. This thing is incredible!

Woah!! This is incredible praise from you. It’s so cool hearing how a theory that turned into a relentless approach to not cut corners at any stage has paid off. Thanks for being my first sale

[dblock]

.. first impression after 5 minutes of tweaking is:



This is possibly the finest plugin EQ available right now. This is _supremely_ good. I'll need to test it a lot more but first impressions are utterly astounding.

EDIT: .. and purchased. This thing is incredible!

How would you stack it up against Massenberg eq6? Is it in or near that league?
It's about as ugly as EQ6.

[bmanic]

I'm so glad you created this amazing EQ! I can't quite put it into words how impressed I am. This has already been such an amazing year for plugins and to be able to utterly destroy my cynical jaded old ears with something as trivial as an EQ plugin, is absolutely crazy.

I do have one feature request. Would be lovely if in M/S mode and when unlinked, the Input and Output gains could also be controlled separately, just like the Gain on the EQ bands. This would be useful for driving mid vs side differently, giving even more flexibility in the harmonic spread of things (and for compensating gain loss/boosts separately for mid and side).

I would also like if the Input and Output gain knobs had at least +/- 24dB of travel..

Other than that, I feel like the plugin is pretty much perfect. Easy to operate and great fun to use. I also immensely appreciate the amazing filters! Maybe allow them to go just a tiny bit higher (hpf) and lower (lpf) for mixing duties? For mastering, they are amazing sounding and super useful!

[bmanic]

How would you stack it up against Massenberg eq6? Is it in or near that league?
It's about as ugly as EQ6.

I have no idea. It's like 10 years since I tried that plugin and I wasn't all that impressed by it back then. Frankly, I really don't see how these two are anywhere even in the same category. This one has MOJO for days.. whereas the MDW EQ is a brutally clean EQ and since DMG EQuilibrium, I've never had any need for others in that category. I'd be super surprised if the MDW EQ beats EQuilibrium in the clean category.. I highly doubt it.

[leckel1996]

I'm so glad you created this amazing EQ! I can't quite put it into words how impressed I am. This has already been such an amazing year for plugins and to be able to utterly destroy my cynical jaded old ears with something as trivial as an EQ plugin, is absolutely crazy.

I do have one feature request. Would be lovely if in M/S mode and when unlinked, the Input and Output gains could also be controlled separately, just like the Gain on the EQ bands. This would be useful for driving mid vs side differently, giving even more flexibility in the harmonic spread of things (and for compensating gain loss/boosts separately for mid and side).

I would also like if the Input and Output gain knobs had at least +/- 24dB of travel..

Other than that, I feel like the plugin is pretty much perfect. Easy to operate and great fun to use. I also immensely appreciate the amazing filters! Maybe allow them to go just a tiny bit higher (hpf) and lower (lpf) for mixing duties? For mastering, they are amazing sounding and super useful!

This feedback is blowing me away!

Totally hear you on those feature suggestions. I have a running list already and will work on implementing any suggestions that make sense to me from a design standpoint. I think your suggestions will make it in soon!

[jamcat]

Mastering EQ knobs need to be different colors. I think this is written into the AES bylaws.

[leckel1996]

Mastering EQ knobs need to be different colors. I think this is written into the AES bylaws.

Hahaha

I can think of more mastering EQs than not that aren’t color coded. How does color coding help your workflow? I could see it being useful if there was an EQ graph to interact with.

[jamcat]

How does color coding help your workflow?

Stronger and quicker association. "If I tweak the green knob it's going to do this..."

Also, people like a little color. It makes it feel like it's got more personality and isn't so generic, which makes people more inclined to spend money on it. If you care about that.

[leckel1996]

How does color coding help your workflow?

Stronger and quicker association. "If I tweak the green knob it's going to do this..."

Also, people like a little color. It makes it feel like it's got more personality and isn't so generic, which makes people more inclined to spend money on it. If you care about that.

I definitely care about that! Haha

I see it, and will probably revisit the GUI at some point. I’m pretty happy with what I was able to come up with, but could see the value in something that look a little nicer.

[pekbro]

Nice congratulations on the release! Looking forward to trying it out, love the Reaper version.

[billinder33]

How does color coding help your workflow?

Stronger and quicker association. "If I tweak the green knob it's going to do this..."

Also, people like a little color. It makes it feel like it's got more personality and isn't so generic, which makes people more inclined to spend money on it. If you care about that.

I definitely care about that! Haha

I see it, and will probably revisit the GUI at some point. I’m pretty happy with what I was able to come up with, but could see the value in something that look a little nicer.

An optional audio+curve frequency graph is always a useful thing for those who like visual referencing.

[bmanic]

A little audio example of Iron Glass and what it is capable of in a mixing context.

Here is a rather difficult source from Omnisphere with quite sharp transients and lots of high frequency content. Listen to how well Iron Glass deals with the transients and how naturally the image becomes slightly "3D" with some gentle shelves taking care of the 2 to 4kHz region and then compensating that loss with some air.

High quality 48kHz 24bit renders.. so download and switch back and forth in your DAW for best listening experience.

Hangdrum Glissando, original audio source (24bit 48kHz .wav, 4.6mb, Google Drive)

Hangdrum Glissando, Iron Glass EQ doing it's thing (24bit 48kHz .wav, 4.6mb, Google Drive)

[leckel1996]

How does color coding help your workflow?

Stronger and quicker association. "If I tweak the green knob it's going to do this..."

Also, people like a little color. It makes it feel like it's got more personality and isn't so generic, which makes people more inclined to spend money on it. If you care about that.

I definitely care about that! Haha

I see it, and will probably revisit the GUI at some point. I’m pretty happy with what I was able to come up with, but could see the value in something that look a little nicer.

An optional audio+curve frequency graph is always a useful thing for those who like visual referencing.

I had a curve in an earlier version, but had to scrap it when switching to a more accurate inductor network. I will likely revisit this for a future update!