Mix Tools

PULSEDUCK

Name: PULSEDUCK
Brand: Signature Algorithms
SKU: pulseduck
Availability: InStock

An insert ducker, not a compressor: every hit ducks identically.

Free 29Download and activate by 30th November

See the measurements

Free for a limited time. Create a free account, or sign in, and PULSEDUCK is added to it: a full licence, not a trial. Download it and activate it inside the plug-in by 30 November and it stays yours for good; a free licence not activated by then expires. Download it here, with all 22 plug-ins in one installer, or on its own.

AU (macOS)
VST3
AAX
macOS Universal
Windows 64-bit
v1.0.0

What it does

Drawn, not detected.

The depth of ducking is drawn as a curve rather than derived from the input's own level, so every hit ducks identically regardless of how loud the source is. That is what makes it a rhythmic tool rather than a dynamics one.

Place it on a bass, synth, pad, instrument or effects return, and it steps that signal out of the way of the kick: either the whole signal, or only the content below a crossover, so a bass can lose its sub around the kick while its harmonics and note definition stay put.

Sixteen original curves ship with it, from a near-invisible 3 dB dip to a hard gate. Or draw your own: drag the wave itself to move a control point, drag a segment to bend it, double-click to add a point, alt-click to remove one. The line follows the pointer, so the shape is drawn rather than dialled.

Key features

Three ways to decide when

Host mode runs a free-running envelope against the musical grid from host PPQ position. Sidechain mode fires one shot per detected transient from an audio onset detector. MIDI mode fires one shot per note-on, with sample-accurate offset.

Two ways to decide what

The whole signal, or only the content below a fourth-order crossover, whose two bands sum back flat to within 0.1 dB.

Sixteen curves, plus your own

Dragging a factory curve copies it into your own first, so the sixteen cannot be damaged. The handles only appear when the pointer is in the display or your own curve is in use, so the display stays clean while you are listening rather than editing.

One kick, one trigger

The sidechain detector looks for a rise rather than a level, focused on kick energy, with a threshold and a hold after each trigger. Each kick fires exactly once, from quarter notes at 90 BPM to eighths at 174 BPM.

Zero latency by default

Lookahead is off, and when engaged the plugin reports exactly the samples it uses, not a worst-case allowance held permanently. Lookahead is deliberately non-automatable: changing reported latency mid-transport is disruptive in every DAW and fatal in Pro Tools.

The crossover always runs

It costs nothing measurable, and skipping it when idle would leave stale filter state and a 25 ms settling dip on re-engage. A crossover saved in a session is in place from the first block of playback.

Opens at a size that fits

A fresh insert opens at 44 % of the screen it finds, measured on whichever axis is tighter, and never so small that the readouts stop being readable. A size saved in a session comes back exactly, capped at what the current display can show.

Session compatibility is a commitment

Parameter IDs, ranges and order are permanent, with session and preset state versioned independently of the product version and a migration path for old sessions.

The interface

PULSEDUCK with a hand-drawn custom curve, its control points visible on the waveform. — PULSEDUCK · 1 of 2

PULSEDUCK in Sidechain mode on the Deep House curve, ducking below a 220 Hz crossover with 8 ms of lookahead, the display warning NO SIDECHAIN until a key is routed. — PULSEDUCK · 2 of 2

How it works

The signal path, as the plugin’s own documentation states it.

host transport · sidechain onsets · MIDI note-ons ──► TRIGGER
      ──► phase ──► CURVE ──► AMOUNT, OFFSET ──► smoothed gain

input ──► LOOKAHEAD ──► CROSSOVER ──┬── low band ──► × gain ──┐
                                     └── high band ────────────┴──► OUTPUT ──► out

At FULL the crossover passes the whole signal to the ducked path.

Audio

Audio demos for PULSEDUCK are not published yet.

We would rather show you nothing than show you a demo that was not recorded through this plugin.

Measured

PulseDuckBenchmark · Apple Silicon · 48 kHz · 512 samples · one stereo instance · engine tests · pluginval and auval from the release audit

CPU: host sync, full band: 0.063 % of a core
CPU: host sync, crossover split: 0.063 %
CPU: sidechain, everything on: 0.078 %
CPU: 192 kHz, everything on: 0.328 %
CPU: 16-sample blocks, everything on: 0.089 %
Latency by default: 0 samples
Crossover reconstruction: flat to better than 0.1 dB
Allocation in processBlock: none, in engine or plugin layer
pluginval: strictness 10, both formats
auval: passes

Figures are produced by this plugin’s own test suite and benchmark, on the hardware and sample rate named above. They are not estimates.

Controls

TRIGGER

HOST / SIDECHAIN / MIDI: What fires the envelope: the host's grid, a transient on the sidechain input, or a MIDI note-on.
CURVE: Sixteen originals, or Custom once you draw on the wave.
RATE: 1/1 to 1/32, with dotted and triplet values. The grid in Host mode.
LENGTH: 10 ms to 2 s: how long a one-shot takes in Sidechain and MIDI mode.
SYNC: In Sidechain and MIDI mode, takes the length from RATE instead.

ENVELOPE & SIDECHAIN

AMOUNT: How far the curve ducks, 0 to 100 %.
OFFSET: Nudges the envelope against the beat, ±50 % of the cycle.
CROSSOVER: 40 Hz to 20 kHz. Only content below it ducks; at FULL the whole signal does.
THRESHOLD: How loud a sidechain hit must be to fire, −60 to 0 dB.
SENS: How sharp a rise counts as a hit.
HOLD: How long the detector waits before it can fire again, 5 to 500 ms.
SC: Listen to the sidechain as the detector hears it.

OUTPUT

LOOKAHEAD: Off by default, up to 20 ms, reported exactly. Non-automatable.
OUTPUT: ±24 dB.
BYPASS: The same switch as the power button in the header.

Display and presets

Curve display: Drag a point to move it, a segment to bend it; double-click adds a point, alt-click removes one. REDUCTION reads the gain reduction, and NO SIDECHAIN warns when Sidechain mode has nothing routed to it.
Preset: Previous, next, or click the name to browse; SAVE writes a user preset, drawn curve included.