Noise Engineering has announced the release of Polydactyl and Librae, two dynamics-processing plugins with compression, expansion, limiting, and distortion of many flavors. Multiband processor Polydactyl is designed for anything from subtle mixing tasks to complete sonic destruction, while Librae is made for mixing, mastering, sound design, and stereo-field experimentation.
Polydactyl is a multiband processor inspired by over-the-top and aggressive techniques but designed to be versatile enough to be used in almost any mix. It has four adjustable bands plus Pre and Post to precisely sculpt the dynamics of your audio tracks with separate per-section controls for Blend, Gain, Room, Floor, Release, and Stereo Link. The bands can be dialed in individually, or you can use the Link function to quickly apply your settings across multiple bands. Turning Link off makes it simple to get each band set to where you want it.
These controls break away from traditional dynamics-processing layouts, but simplify the workflow for dialing in subtle (or not-so-subtle) dynamics. Each section also includes its own Distortion controls, including Saturate, Soft and Hard Drive with dedicated Blend controls for clipping distortion, Zero Pop for zero-crossing distortion, and output-level controls. Each section can also be bypassed or soloed.
The clean interface provides a wide range of visual feedback. The Frequency Spectrum Meter displays the output level across the audio spectrum and is interactive: click and drag the lines to adjust the band splits. Select bands for further adjustment. Polydactyl also includes a scalable Envelope Display to show processing over time and Global In and Out VU meters. Each stage also includes a Static Curve Meter to demonstrate the compression and expansion applied to the signal, and In and Out VU Meters.
Librae is a mid/side and stereo dynamics processor with separate controls for Pre, Mid, Side, and Post stages. Designed for transparency, Librae is made for master-bus applications, but the team behind the plugin put a lot of thought into making it a capable tool for creative processing and sound design.
Many of the controls are similar to those on Polydactyl: Librae has separate per-stage controls for Blend, Gain, Saturate, Room, Floor, Release, and Stereo Link, as well as distortion controls. Librae features Saturate, Soft and Hard Drive, with dedicated Blend controls, Zero Pop, and output-level controls. The Pre and Post stages also feature shelf-EQ weight controls to adjust how the processor responds to your signal and Stereo Link sliders. Each section can also be bypassed or soloed.
The detailed graphical interface of Librae makes it easy to understand the plugin. Librae features a Goniometer displaying the correlation between the input channels and an Envelope Display to show processing over time. Each stage has a dedicated graphical display with a Static Curve Meter to demonstrate the curve applied to the signal with the signal level, In and Out VU Meters, and a Weighting Graph to visualize the detector shelf EQ weighting (with adjustable Weight High and Weight Low) on the stage input.
Like all Noise Engineering plugins, Polydactyl and Librae are designed for automation. Each comes with an extensive internal modulation matrix with LFOs and step sequencers that can be routed to almost any parameter – plus, modulators have adjustable randomization for easy humanization.
Polydactyl and Librae are intuitive to use from first open, but if you're in need of inspiration, Noise Engineering provides a range of presets to get you started, from subtle and transparent to aggressive and in-your-face. If you need more, try the random and nudge buttons to get your creative juices flowing.
Pricing & Availability
Both Polydactyl and Librae are available for US$49 each, but customers can also take advantage of Noise Engineering's Build Your Own Bundle: buy any three plugins, and automatically get half off one of them.
The team has already brought a number of their popular Eurorack modules to the plugin world: choose from synths and effects to complement these dynamics plugins.
