Teal

Name: Teal
Author: Acustica Audio

by Acustica Audio · Saturation · Tube saturation

Not rated yet

Teal is a tube saturation plugin with eight saturation modes taken from five tube units, including British and Soviet preamps and an American tube compressor.

It has pre and post EQ and filters with auto gain; no price was shown on the product page.

Best for: Vocals, Drums, Bass, Mix Bus, Guitars. Genres: all genres.

Keywords: tube, auto-gain, bass, drums, vocals, warm, 50s, 60s, aggressive, bus processing, full mix, gentle, mid/side, mix bus, mixing, single-band.

What it does

Teal is a dedicated tube saturation plugin that the developer calls a "perfect colorbox without compromises", sampled from several real vacuum-tube units.

Eight modes: Rhythm (a compressor's tube preamp stage), Coffee 47 Line and Mic (a British valve preamp), Caviar 27 Ch 1 and Ch 2 (a rare Soviet tube preamp, Ch 2 more aggressive), Eminence 128 (a 1950s–60s American tube compressor/preamp), and Violet 2 Line and Mic (a British tube preamp).
Line and Mic variants: three of the units come in both a line version and a microphone-preamp version.
EQ: pre- and post-saturation stages with fixed emphasis/de-emphasis EQ and Baxandall high and low shelves.
Filters: variable high-pass and low-pass filters to focus where the saturation acts.
Auto gain: compensates level as you change the drive, for fair comparisons.
Monitoring: Delta, LR, Mid and Side listening modes.

The product page did not show a version or trial details.

Source: Acustica Audio product page

When to use it

Teal is the better pick when you want real tube character and a choice of specific units rather than a general distortion box. Compared with Soundtoys Decapitator and FabFilter Saturn 2, it covers only tube saturation, with no tape, transistor or fuzz styles and no multiband split, but its eight modes give finer shades of valve warmth. Unlike Softube's Saturation Knob, it has tone shaping before and after the drive and auto gain for level-matched listening. Compared with Klanghelm's IVGI, it takes more setting up but lets you pick between specific tube units.

Best for: tube warmth and gentle harmonic color on vocals, bass, drums and buses.
Genres: any.
Look elsewhere if: you want aggressive distortion or many saturation types (Decapitator, Saturn 2) or a quick, simple color tool (IVGI).

Where to buy

Acustica Audio: see store

Tutorials and reviews

Similar plugins

Magma BB Tubes by Waves · Tube saturation · $34.99
Magma Lil Tube by Waves · Tube saturation
TUBA by Analog Obsession · Tube saturation · Free
TuPRE by Analog Obsession · Tube preamp · Free
Phoenix LT by Shattered Glass Audio · Tube preamp emulation · Free
Manley Tube Preamp by Universal Audio · Tube mic preamp · $29

All saturation