$15








ClipStar is a soft clipper effect plugin, designed to prevent peaks in a subtler way than hard clipping, increase loudness and add pleasing saturation.

Where ClipStar differs from other clippers is that it can leave the low frequencies untouched, where distortion is more evident, and allow a greater boost in gain without noticeably degrading the signal.

You can use ClipStar for peak protection, for loudness gain or for sympathetic distortion depending on your mood and the phase of the moon.



• Vintage style soft clipper with low frequency bypass and comprehensive metering
• In gain & Out gain adjustable to +/- 30 dB
• Soft clip limit can be set from 0 to -30 dB
• Low frequency bypass cut off from 0 to 1000 Hz
• Low frequency gain can be adjusted from +/- 30 dB
• Subtle colouring from a home-made blend of harmonics, saturation and noise
• Optional hard limiting on final output
• Metering covers stereo input, output and gain reduction. All meters show actual and peak levels
• Adjustable peak meter hold time
• Double-click knob resets
• Developed with SE 1.1





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The download is 10.3 MB and includes the ClipStar plug-in and a pdf manual



Because ClipStar prevents peaks going over 0dB, one of the uses is to increase loudness, without squashing all the dynamics or losing the transients. Below is an image from a full mix (see Audio demo files below) showing the levels when normalised and using ClipStar. You can see it boosts the overall levels, but isn't destroying the dynamics or transients.





As the bass bypass feature is unusual for a clipper, below is a diagram showing the signal path of ClipStar






Download demo VST (10.3 MB) - This zip contains the demo version of ClipStar to allow you to fully evaluate it before purchasing. It is fully functioning but you will get 1 second of silence every 20 seconds.

The manual is also included with the demo



The demo VST is the best way to test the capabilities of ClipStar, however below are some audio demos to give you a taste of what it can do
The audio demos are purely ClipStar, no other effects or processing are used. Each demo is a comparison, in the order described below

Orange Drums - normalised (-15.0dB RMS), ClipStar (-11.4dB RMS) [thanks to The Control Centre for the drum loop]
Acoustic Drums - normalised (-17.6dB RMS), ClipStar (-13.1dB RMS)
DnB drums - normalised (-17.6dB RMS), ClipStar (-11.7dB RMS)
Guitar - normalised (-15.3dB RMS), ClipStar (-11.0dB RMS)
Bass - normalised (-15.1dB RMS), ClipStar (-9.7dB RMS)
Chiptune full mix - normalised (-20.9dB RMS), ClipStar (-15.4dB RMS)





ClipStar was developed using the latest version of SynthEdit, SE 1.1
Plug-ins developed with this version of SynthEdit have no problems at all with multiple instances on multi-core processors. This problem is only related to plugins developed with SE 1.0



The presets demonstrate the range of ClipStar, from subtle peak limiting to extreme distortion. These presets can sound totally different depending on the source material and may not have any effect or could distort depending on the level of the material that you try it on. The settings will almost always need to be adjusted to the volume and dynamic range of the audio you are running through it. So the presets are a demonstration and a starting point, but you should expect to tweak each one a little if you want to get the best out of ClipStar.



ClipStar has been tested and work in Cubase 4.5.2, Sonar 8.5 LE, Ableton Live Lite 8.2.1, FL Studio 9.1, Reaper 3.72, Renoise 2.6, energyXT 2.5.4, energyXT 1.4 and Podium 2.39

You should however always test the demo versions in your choice of hosts/system before purchase



A big thanks to Jonathan Styles at SUKaudio, for the brilliant toggle graphic used on the GUI

Un grand merci to sink, for beta testing

Thanks for the 3rd party modules from Chris Kerry, Dave Haupt, Kelly Lynch, Daz Disley, Christian Budde and Scoofster

Also a huge thanks to g200kg for the fantastic freeware knobman, used to make the controls on most of my GUIs



All plugins are Windows VST only. Please check the included End User License Agreement (EULA) before installing. You are encouraged to try the demo version before purchase. You can get updates on plugins by subscribing to my newsletter