Foal

Foal is a post-limiter loudness tool for mastering.

It started with a simple question:

What would it sound like if the waveform was magnetic?

Foal takes the incoming signal, looks at its existing positive and negative sample peak limits, and pulls the waveform toward those limits. The closer the waveform gets to its own peak boundary, the stronger the pull becomes.

This makes Foal different from simply adding gain, clipping harder, or placing another limiter after your limiter. It changes how the waveform moves inside the space that still exists between the current signal and its own peak limits.

The result can be more perceived loudness, density, movement, and forward energy, but also coloration and distortion. Foal is not designed to be invisible. It is a tool for the final stage of mastering, when the master is already finished or close to finished, and you want to see if there is still something left.

Foal is meant to be placed after your final limiter.

Not before. After.

Magnetic processing

Foal makes the waveform behave as if it is magnetic. One pole is the waveform itself. The other pole is the maximum peak position of the incoming signal.

Foal does not simply pull everything toward 0 dBFS. Instead, it uses the signal's own positive and negative peak limits as the magnetic boundaries. The waveform is then pulled toward those limits. Hence the placement post your final limiter/clipper.

Compress and Clip

Foal has two main ways of feeding the magnetic stage.

Compress is the cleaner way. It lifts the signal into the magnetic stage in a more controlled way and can bring out some of the air, density, openness, and movement often associated with compression, without working like a traditional compressor.

Clip is the more saturated way. It reshapes the signal before it becomes magnetic, adding more density, distortion, and character.

From version 1.01 and later, the clipping stage starts softer at lower drive levels and moves closer to hard clipping as it is pushed harder, without becoming pure hard clipping.

Features

• Post-limiter loudness processing for mastering.
• Magnetic waveform stage based on the signal's own sample peak limits.
• Compress control for cleaner drive into the magnetic stage.
• Clip control for more saturated and characterful drive.
• Rewritten clipping behavior from v1.01 and later.
• Protect control for magnetic inertia and peak control.
• Detection section with threshold and sidechain filter.
• Channel Link control for stereo behavior.
• Warm control for low-end movement and weight.
• Loudness Difference meter.
• Loudness-matched comparison.
• Dry/Wet blend.
• Delta monitoring.
• Bypass.

Formats

• Mac: VST3 and AU.
• Windows: VST3.