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Multiband Dynamics
Harmonic Multiband Compressor
Saturation that shapes the compressor.
A 6-band multiband compressor built around the Harmonics Engine: dual-stage saturation that can drive the detectors, saturate the bands, or excite the summed mix. The saturator-into-compressor workflow, engineered into one unit.
Signal path
Why it exists
Engineers have run saturators in front of compressors for years, and not for the distortion: the added harmonics round the transients the detector sees, so the compressor grabs differently, smoother, deeper, more musical. That trick is the reason this plugin exists. The Harmonics Engine builds it into a 6-band compressor as a dual-stage system: drive the detectors only and the compressor responds like a slower vintage unit while your audio stays clean, saturate the bands audibly and the compressor squeezes the harmonics with the signal, then excite the summed mix on the way out. No extra inserts, no gain-staging between plugins.
The Harmonics Engine
Saturation, wired into the compressor.
01 · Drive
Drive the detector, not the signal.
IN DRIVE pushes a tanh soft clipper, and in DET ONLY mode it saturates only the sidechain feeding each band's detector. The rounded peaks make the compressor ignore micro-transients and squeeze the body of the sound instead, the way slower vintage optical and tube units behave. The audio you hear stays completely clean. The result sounds like a steadier, more even take, as if a patient hand were riding the fader.
02 · Audible
Or saturate the bands for real.
Flip to AUDIBLE and the drive hits the audio path itself, per band, before compression, so the compressor reacts to and squashes the saturated signal. That is the dense, aggressive wall-of-sound move. 2x or 4x oversampling keeps the top end free of aliasing, with the dry path delay-compensated to stay time-aligned. What you hear is thickness: the track turns into one dense sound instead of separate hits.
03 · Excite
Finish with a smart-filtered exciter.
OUT EXCITER works on the summed mix. It isolates just the added harmonics, runs them through a dynamic low pass that stays open around 18 kHz at low drive for air and closes toward 2 kHz at high drive for warmth without fizz, then blends them back in. COMP auto-matches the level as you drive, so louder never fools your judgement. What you hear is shine on top at low drive, then body and warmth as you push further.
04 · Foundation
On a multiband that fights fair.
Under the engine sits a six-band compressor on an allpass-compensated Linkwitz-Riley tree, verified to sum flat within half a dB at the crossover points. Draggable crossovers and thresholds on the live spectrum, gain reduction curtains per band, a full compressor per band, A/B with Copy and Link All. What you hear is your mix coming back together sounding like itself, just more controlled.
Where it earns its keep
Built for the jobs you actually have.
Drum bus density
DET ONLY drive makes the compressor lean into the body of the kit instead of snapping at every transient. Vintage-slow response, zero added distortion.
Bass that reads small
AUDIBLE drive on the low bands adds harmonics the compressor then controls, so the bass carries on phone speakers without wrecking the low end.
Mastering control
Tighten a wandering low end on crossovers that sum flat within half a dB, with COMP matching loudness so you judge character, not level.
Air without EQ
A touch of OUT EXCITER at low drive works like a high-frequency exciter: isolated harmonics filtered around 18 kHz, blended in behind the mix.
What's in the unit
Real pixels, not promises.
The Harmonics Engine
A dual-stage saturation system wired into the compressor's signal path: Harmonics IN per band before compression, Harmonics OUT on the summed mix.
Detector Only mode
Saturate only the sidechain the detectors hear. The compressor responds smoother and deeper, like vintage optical and tube units, while the audio stays clean.
Audible Pre-Sat, oversampled
Per-band tanh saturation before compression, with 2x/4x oversampling against aliasing and a delay-compensated dry path.
Smart-filtered exciter
The OUT stage isolates the added harmonics and filters them dynamically, from 18 kHz air at low drive to 2 kHz warmth at high drive, then blends them back.
Crossovers that sum flat
Six bands on an LR4 tree with allpass compensation, flat within half a dB, probed at the crossover points themselves.
A display you mix on
Live spectrum, draggable crossovers and thresholds, and per-band gain reduction curtains in each band's hue.
The Harmonics Engine, stage by stage
| Stage | Where it works | What you hear |
|---|---|---|
| IN, Detector Only | The sidechain only, per band | Smoother, deeper compression with zero added harmonics; vintage opto and tube behaviour |
| IN, Audible Pre-Sat | The audio path, per band, 2x/4x oversampled | Saturation the compressor then squeezes; dense, aggressive walls of sound |
| OUT, Exciter | The summed mix, harmonics isolated and smart-filtered | Air at low drive, console-thick warmth at high drive, level auto-matched |
Everything in the box
- Harmonics Engine: dual-stage saturation wired into the signal path
- IN DRIVE: tanh soft clipper, 0 to 100 %, per band after the crossover split
- DET ONLY mode: saturates only the detector sidechain, audio stays clean
- AUDIBLE mode: pre-compression saturation the compressor reacts to
- OUT EXCITER: post-sum harmonics, isolated and blended back
- Exciter smart filter: dynamic low pass from 18 kHz air to 2 kHz warmth
- COMP: automatic level matching as you drive, no loudness bias
- 2x/4x oversampling on audible saturation, delay-compensated dry path
- Six bands on a Linkwitz-Riley LR4 crossover tree
- Allpass compensation: flat sum within ±0.5 dB, verified at the crossovers
- Per band: threshold, ratio, knee, attack, release, makeup, range
- Per-band Down/Up mode: downward compression or bounded upward compression
- Range control caps the gain change per band, 0 to 60 dB
- Lookahead up to 10 ms, latency reported to the host automatically
- Blendable RMS-to-peak detection and sidechain high pass per band
- Pre and post spectrum analyzer: 4096-point FFT with display tilt
- Draggable crossovers and thresholds on the live spectrum
- Per-band gain reduction curtains in each band's hue
- Mix control to 200 %, A/B with Copy, Link All, undo/redo
- VST3, AU and AAX, Windows and macOS
Specifications
Questions engineers ask
What is the Harmonics Engine?
A dual-stage saturation and excitation system integrated into the compressor's signal path. Harmonics IN saturates each band before compression, either the detector sidechain only or the audible signal. Harmonics OUT excites the summed mix through a smart-filtered exciter. It replaces the saturator plugins engineers chain around their compressors.
Why put saturation before a compressor?
Because the compressor hears it. Harmonics round the transient peaks the detector reacts to, so the compressor ignores micro-transients and squeezes the body of the sound, behaving like slower vintage optical and tube units. DET ONLY mode gives you exactly that response change with zero audible distortion.
Why do multiband compressors smear the sound?
Most split the spectrum serially, and each split adds phase shift that the other bands never receive. The bands then refuse to sum back to the original. This unit applies every split's allpass across the whole tree, so the bands recombine flat within half a dB.
Is it good for mastering?
Yes. The crossovers sum flat, the dry path is delay-compensated under oversampling, and COMP auto-matches loudness as you drive so you judge character, not level.
Does it add latency?
Only when per-band oversampling or lookahead is engaged, and that latency is reported to your DAW automatically so everything stays aligned. With both off it runs at zero added latency.
Is there a free trial?
Yes. Every Vitric plugin ships with a free 14 day trial: the full plugin, every feature, no locks. Installers and trial keys land on the downloads page the day the store opens. When the 14 days end, the plugin keeps loading in your sessions in a graceful demo mode.
More from the line
Harmonic Multiband Compressor
The saturator-into-compressor workflow. One insert.
Drive the detector, saturate the bands, excite the sum. The compressor finally hears what you hear.