Hot Glass
by Stillwell Audio · Saturation · Valve saturation
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Hot Glass is a valve saturation plugin whose drive control is gain-compensated, so it adds harmonics without raising the level.
It runs with 4x oversampling and costs $59.
Best for: Vocals, Bass, Guitars, Keys & Synths, Drums, Mix Bus. Genres: all genres.
Keywords: tube, auto-gain, oversampling, bass, vocals, glassy, keys, A/B compare, bus processing, circuit-modelled, clean, drums, enhancement, full mix, hardware emulation, mix bus, mixing, perpetual licence, single-band, warm.
What it does
Hot Glass is Stillwell Audio's valve (tube) saturation plugin, built to add "the density and harmonic bloom of a driven valve stage." Its main idea is that the Drive control should change tone, not just volume.
- Valve stage model: circuit modelling of a driven tube stage, for harmonic density and bloom rather than hard distortion.
- Drive: sets how hard the valve stage is pushed.
- Gain compensation: Drive has internal gain compensation, so the level stays close to constant as you add saturation.
- Output: a separate output control for final level matching.
- Honest A/B: because level is held steady, bypass comparisons show the change in tone rather than a jump in loudness.
- 4x oversampling: keeps the added harmonics clean.
This is version 4.1.7. A free evaluation copy is available, and updates are free with no subscription.
Source: Stillwell Audio product page
When to use it
Hot Glass is a focused, one-job tube stage: you turn up Drive and get thicker tone at about the same level. Compared with Decapitator, it has one saturation model instead of several hardware styles and no tone or punish controls, so it is quicker but far less flexible. Compared with Radiator, it has no EQ section, but its gain compensation makes careful comparisons easier. It goes further than Softube's free Saturation Knob, with a modelled valve stage and oversampling, though it costs money.
- Best for: warming vocals, keys, bass and buses while keeping levels matched.
- Genres: any; mostly pop, rock and acoustic mixes that want gentle tube colour.
- Look elsewhere if: you want aggressive distortion or many saturation flavours (Decapitator) or tube colour with tone shaping (Radiator).
Where to buy
- Stillwell Audio: $59
Tutorials and reviews
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