Soundtheory announce Kraftur

Published 24/6/24

Add power without sacrificing dynamics

Soundtheory have announced the launch of their long-awaited second plug-in, Kraftur, an innovative processor designed to elevate the power and density of a sound while preserving its original dynamic qualities.

The company say that they have delivered new, proprietary DSP methods for the plug-in, and that the algorithms behind the processing are capable of avoiding the artifacts that come with more traditional approaches to soft clipping. As a result, Kraftur promises to add clarity, punch or presence to almost any audio material, and can be used on individual sources or buses as well as being applied to a full mix — with more extreme settings it’s possible to introduce some more obvious distortion effects.

The majority of Kraftur’s GUI is occupied by input/output meters and a large visual display that uses Soundtheory’s new VisionTone, which represents the signal as colour-coded lines that are based on the human ear’s perception of sound. A triangular control allows users to blend seamlessly between single- and multi-band processing, while a Drive control determines how much saturation is applied, with Offset and Knee parameters controlling how the plug-in reacts to transients.

Low, Mid and High Shift controls follow, making it possible to adjust how much processing is applied to different frequency ranges. Helpfully, Kraftur features a Match button that applies loudness compensation to the processed signal, making it easier to compare the difference between processed and unprocessed signals. Finally, a Clip button engages a soft clipping stage at the plug-ins output to avoid signals exceeding a user-defined ceiling value.

Compatibility

Kraftur is supported on PCs running Windows 10 or higher, and Macs running macOS 10.13 and above. VST, VST3, AU and AAX plug-in versions are available. Authorisation is carried out via PACE’s iLok system, although a physical dongle is not required.