Article Preview - Blue Cat Audio Plug-ins

Ever wanted to analyse every track in a project at once, or record their dynamic variations as MIDI Controller information? Blue Cat Audio's unusual plug-ins implement some original and very clever features.

Sam Inglis

FreqAnalyst Multi can display data for up to 16 tracks in a single window.

The last couple of years have seen plenty of novel plug-ins emerging from French developers. Although this is the first time their products have been reviewed in SOS, Blue Cat Audio are among the most prolific programmers around, with a line-up that already encompasses too many processors to list. These range from simple freeware utilities and modulation effects to sophisticated mastering tools bristling with unique features. For review purposes, I've chosen to look at four of their most innovative plug-ins which, as far as I know, have no direct equivalent from other manufacturers.

All the Blue Cat processors and effects are available by download only, and prices for individual plug-ins range from 29 to 89 Euros, with some attractive bundles on offer too. Windows XP and Vista are supported, and you can choose whether to download VST or Direct X versions. Authorisation is by means of a serial number.

Skinning A Blue Cat

Blue Cat Audio go to great lengths to encourage users to create custom interfaces for their plug-ins. You can download the necessary resources from their site, along with skins created by other users, and Blue Cat even offer their own skinning 'language' to other developers. This is great, and enables them to implement some neat ideas such as variable opacity, but I can't help wishing that Blue Cat had put as much work into documenting the features and uses of their plug-ins. Each of them comes with a fairly lengthy PDF manual, but the bulk of this is taken up with information about skinning. Fortunately, there are some nice tutorials on the web site, but some of these plug-ins are pretty deep, and it's not always easy to find out what the parameters are for through trial and error.

The worst offenders in this respect are Blue Cat's metering and analysis tools, where more information is really needed if you want to make sense of what you're seeing. There's a total of seven plug-ins in this section of their range, including a couple of cut-down versions on offer as freeware. I chose to look at the 79 Euro FreqAnalyst Multi real-time spectrum analyser, which is perhaps the most unusual, as it allows you to display analysis curves for up to 16 tracks simultaneously in one window.

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