Plamen

Name: Plamen
Price: 76.2 USD
Author: United Plugins

by United Plugins · Saturation · Multiband saturator

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Plamen from Soundevice Digital (sold by United Plugins) is a five-band saturator with a choice of preamp, tape or clip saturation on each band.

Linear-phase or analog crossovers, a parallel Mojo blend and up to 8x oversampling are included, for $100.

Best for: Mix Bus, Mastering, Drum Bus, Bass, Vocals, Keys & Synths. Genres: all genres.

Keywords: multi-band, tape, linear-phase, oversampling, bus processing, parallel processing, flutter, full mix, vintage, warm, wobble, bass, classic, drum bus, drums, hardware emulation, mastering, mix bus, built-in mix knob, mixing, vocals.

What it does

Plamen is a Soundevice Digital multiband saturator, sold by United Plugins. It is built on the idea that "every frequency band deserves different treatment", so it applies its own saturation type and amount to each of five adjustable ranges.

Five bands: four adjustable crossover points, with solo and mute on every band.
Five saturation types per band: three classic analogue preamp models, Magnetic (a tape saturation model) and a clipping mode modelled on driven A/D inputs.
Per-band controls: input gain, saturation type, output volume and AGC Boost, which adds up to 10 dB of extra input gain.
Mojo: a parallel blend on each band, plus an overall dry/wet mix in linear phase.
Crossovers: linear phase or analog-style 6 dB/octave.
Tape Wow and oversampling: a vintage tape flutter effect, and 2x, 4x or 8x oversampling.

It uses 64-bit internal processing at any sample rate up to 192 kHz and beyond, with smart bypass, latency compensation and a sleep mode on silence. Updates are free for life, and a free 15-day trial has no saving limits or noise.

Source: United Plugins product page

When to use it

Plamen is the better pick when you want analog-style warmth placed band by band on a bus or master, with a fixed set of preamp, tape and clip colours. Compared with Saturn 2, it has fewer distortion styles and no modulation system, but its five bands, per-band Mojo and linear-phase crossovers keep it focused on tonal shaping rather than sound design. Unlike Decapitator or Black Box HG-2, which saturate the whole signal, it can drive the low mids without touching the top end. Its Tape Wow flutter adds gentle pitch movement on top of the saturation, which suits lo-fi and vintage colour.

Best for: band-by-band warmth and density on drum buses, mix buses and masters.
Genres: any, especially rock, pop and electronic mixes.
Look elsewhere if: you want modulation and extreme distortion styles (Saturn 2), or one knob of full-band colour (Decapitator or Softube Saturation Knob).

Where to buy

Tutorials and reviews

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