ManualSalford Channel plugin →
On the panel: swept high and low pass, four swept EQ bands at +/-18 dB with a Q knob on both mids and saturation on every band, a compressor with its own attack knob, HARD KNEE and SC HPF, a deep expander/gate with hold and release, and DYN PRE EQ to swap the order.
Where the signal meets the desk. How hard you hit this stage is part of the sound.
Input level into the desk's input amplifier. Turning it up does not just make things louder - it drives that stage harder, and each desk gives way in its own way.
LINE (the default) is the input stage as it is. MIC changes nothing with DRIVE at zero; with DRIVE up it pushes the input stage much harder - about 15 % distortion at half DRIVE on a loud signal. The level stays matched, so it changes the grit and not the volume.
Flips the polarity of the channel.
The high pass sweeps 20-300 Hz. The low pass sweeps from 4.5 kHz up past the audio band. Each has its own IN switch.
Four swept bands, +/-18 dB, with Q on both mids.
Moves the compressor and gate ahead of the EQ. Off (the default) matches the panel: EQ first.
30-300 Hz. A bell until LF SHELF is lit, then a low shelf.
Bell, 100 Hz - 1 kHz, with a Q knob.
Bell, 500 Hz - 4.5 kHz, with a Q knob.
2-21 kHz. A bell until HF SHELF is lit, then a high shelf.
A near-peak compressor and a gate deep enough to shut a track off.
THRESHOLD, RATIO (1.2:1 to 16:1), ATTACK and RELEASE (up to 10 s). HARD KNEE collapses the knee; SC HPF keeps low frequencies out of the detector. COMP IN switches it.
THRESHOLD, RANGE (deep enough to shut completely), HOLD (up to 4 s) and RELEASE. EXPAND makes it an expander; FAST speeds it up. GATE IN switches it.
The output amplifier, the fader, and the imperfections that make a desk a desk.
Pushes both amplifiers past where they start to give way, with DRIVE IN to switch it. Level-matched, so it changes the distortion and not the volume.
Each EQ band has its own saturation. Off is bit-exact; turned up, it adds the desk's own harmonic flavour to that band.
Cycles Off / Wonky / Wonkier; its lamp lights on Wonky and changes colour on Wonkier. The two sides of the channel stop being identical: the EQ is very slightly different on each side, and the compressor behaves slightly differently too. A small amount of movement between the speakers, the way two channels of real hardware never quite match.
The button beside the presets: 2x (the standard), 4x, 8x, 16x or 32x. Heavy DRIVE and band SAT can add a harsh, out-of-tune grit to bright, loud sounds; higher rates take it out. Each step roughly doubles the CPU, so 2x is the everyday setting. Up to about 70 % DRIVE, 4x already takes the grit out; full DRIVE or full SAT needs 16x or 32x, which are heavy enough to save for the final bounce. MIC with full DRIVE keeps some grit at any rate, most of all on Salford.
Cycles through FLAT, SMILE (a gentle low and high lift), FROWN (the reverse), MID and HIGH. FLAT is bit-exact. It sits on every channel, so a gentle setting across a whole session adds up.
Output trim, pan and channel fader. PAN is unity at centre and only attenuates. The fader has a console taper: 0 dB sits about three-quarters up, so the range you ride is spread out and the bottom is compressed.
Every meter sits in one bridge beside the fader: IN and OUT, gain reduction (GR) and gate attenuation (ATT).
MUTE silences the channel. BYPASS takes the whole desk out of the path.