CLIPnosis v1.7
Advanced Clipping & Saturation Processor
Overview
CLIPnosis delivers musical, versatile clipping and saturation for your tracks and mixes. Select from five clipping modes – Hard, Soft, Tube, Tape, or Vintage – each with its own character and harmonic signature, and tailor the sound from clean boost to full-on analog-style saturation.
Intelligent multi-band transient detection preserves punch and attack even under extreme drive, while adaptive lookahead limiting ensures smooth, artifact-free results. With optional gain matching, CLIPnosis ensures loud, fat results without unwanted pumping or level inconsistencies.
The saturation control adds genuine analog color with mode-specific behavior – tube asymmetry, tape hysteresis, or vintage compression characteristics. Optional oversampling up to 16x reduces aliasing, keeping your processed signal smooth and natural. Wet/dry mix control enables transparent parallel processing for maximum flexibility.
Loud, fat, and musical – CLIPnosis gives you the tools to maximize your mix with confidence.
Key Features
🎛️ Multi-Mode Clipping
- Five clipping modes: Hard, Soft, Tube, Tape, Vintage.
- Mode-specific curves emulate analog tube, tape, and vintage hardware behavior.
- Adaptive high-frequency softening based on clipping severity.
- Drive-dependent HF processing: Higher drive engages more aggressive analog-like smoothing.
- Transient preservation control (0-100%) retains punch during clipping
⚡ Harmonic Generation
- Toggle between Odd, Even or Mixed harmonics for creative shaping.
- Context-aware harmonic generation adapts to clipping mode.
- Tube mode: Asymmetric tube saturation with plate loading and transformer coloration.
- Tape mode: Authentic tape saturation with hysteresis, bias effects, and record/playback modeling.
- Vintage mode: Classic hardware compression with soft-knee characteristics.
- Saturation control (0-100%) adds analog-style warmth and intensity.
📈 Gain Matching & Metering
- Real-time clipping percentage monitoring
- Crest factor display for dynamics analysis
- Intelligent RMS-based gain matching compensates for level changes from drive/saturation
- Keeps perceived loudness constant while adjusting drive parameters
- Per-channel RMS calculation with intelligent stereo averaging.
- Gain limiting prevents extreme compensation artifacts.
- Independent output gain control for final level adjustment
🖥️ Oversampling & Anti-Aliasing
- Polyphase IIR oversampling up to 16x with superior low-frequency preservation.
- Maximum quality mode enabled: All oversampling stages use optimized coefficients for best frequency response.
- Automatic coefficient adjustment for oversampled processing ensures accurate DC blocking.
- Sample-rate compensated DC blocking maintains fixed 5Hz cutoff regardless of sample rate or oversampling factor.
- Crossfade transitions (10ms) when changing oversample rates prevent clicks.
- Optimized for both single and double precision processing.
- Seamless integration with any DAW without extra latency.
🎚️ Intuitive UI
- Resizable window from 75% to 200% while maintaining aspect ratio.
- Persistent window size saved with your project.
- Simple sliders for Drive, Transient Preservation, and Output Gain.
- Wet/Dry mix control blends dry and processed signals for parallel processing.
- Rotary knobs for Saturation and Mix with floating value displays.
- Floating value labels display parameter values while adjusting.
- Buttons cycle through modes, oversampling levels, harmonics, and gain matching.
- Comprehensive tooltips provide quick guidance for all controls.
🔧 Technical Excellence
- Dual DC blocking (pre and post-processing) with sample-rate compensation.
- Fast approximations for computationally expensive operations maintain audio quality.
- Thread-safe parameter handling with proper change gestures.
- Efficient memory management with error handling for oversampling allocation.
- Double-precision processing support for maximum quality.
Technical Details
| Plugin Type | VST3 |
| Supported OS | Windows 10 and above |
| Space Required | 6 MB |
| Version | 1.6 |
Neolyth (verified owner) –
Alus really shows its strengths here.
What makes this plugin stand out immediately is its ability to preserve drum transients even under heavy clipping and saturation. That kind of precision, paired with musicality, puts it right at the top of the list among clippers.
Equally impressive is the harmonic control. The option to switch between Odd and Even harmonics—a feature I’ve long wanted but rarely found implemented the way I like—adds a whole new dimension to shaping tone.
The feature set doesn’t stop there: 16x oversampling, dedicated saturation and drive controls, and a latency‑matched dry/wet mix knob for seamless parallel processing. On top of that, you get five distinct clipping modes—Hard, Soft, Tube, Tape, and Vintage—covering a wide range of sonic flavors.
It feels like a collection of “wish‑list” features finally brought together in one plugin. Out of the 2,500 plugins I’ve tested, including countless clippers and distortions, this one could very well become my go‑to. Time will tell, but it’s already a serious contender for favorite status.