We are a small husband and wife team quietly making some of the best music software in the world. No venture capital, no big team, no massive marketing budget. Just us. Hear the difference. Trial now to find what you’ve been missing. Cytomic products meticulously recreate famous pieces of analog hardware which of course already sound great. By modeling every component, at every setting, we make software that does too. You can push our software *just like* you can the hardware and it will always give you the same warmth and tone, while not maxing out your CPU. Don’t believe us? Why not download our trial…?
Yes, you can trial our plugins. zero risk, zero obligation! Please download the appropriate trial version of the plugin(s you are interested in. The trial has full audio quality but does have some limits:
- Automation is disabled, you have to use the graphical interface to edit the plugin settings
- The about box will show every five minutes
- You cannot save settings in songs
- You cannot save presets to disk
Downloading the current trial version is the first step in the purchase process.
Cytomic’s plugin, The Glue, was licensed by Ableton for use in their products from Live 9 and up. If you are a current Ableton Live user trying to decide if buying The Glue as a standalone plugin is worth it, here is a brief run-down of the differences between the two:
Cytomic’s The Glue plugin and the Glue Compressor device in Ableton Live share most of the same core DSP, apart from the newly added stereo link feature. The plugin version can vary how much stereo linking is present from 100%, which is the default, all the way down to 0%, which behaves as a dual-mono compressor. The Ableton version is fixed at 100%.
The other differences are external to the core DSP, and they are to do with sidechain filtering and oversampling. The Glue plugin supports up to x64 oversampling, with linear phase, intermediate phase, and minimum phase options, and you can automatically switch to a higher rate on render.
The sidechain filter is a gentle 1 pole high pass, which is best for de-emphasis of bass. There is also an option to include DC blocking filters both pre- and post-compressor.
The Glue Compressor device in Live supports up to x2 oversampling with linear phase (right click on title bar of the device to get the menu), and has a single filter section from EQ8 to do sidechain filtering.
Both will give you great results, but the Cytomic version has the option for much higher oversampling, so if you’re pushing things, or want the highest quality possible on render, then the plugin version is still worth purchasing. The plugin version also means if you use a different DAW you are covered.
We are proud to work with Ableton and you can read more about our partnership here (https://cytomic.com/ableton-and-cytomic/)
There is a lot of discussion of whether hardware or software is better, and there are and always will be pros and cons to each, and fans of one or the other. Cytomic has chosen specific classic pieces of hardware to model because they have stood the test of time and are still loved and much used today.
The term “analog modelling” is pretty broad, anything can be termed a model of something no matter how bad the model is. A straight line can be said to model a circle under certain conditions, but if you actually wanted a circle and were given a straight line you wouldn’t be happy! So we don’t blame you if you think analog modelling plugins are a load of BS, since some of the stuff you’ve tried probably was.
Cytomic models circuits by preserving the location and connection of all the critical components in it. We use the same methods used in circuit simulators, but optimised to run fast. The continuous circuit equations are discretised using MNA (Modified Nodal Analysis) and then solved for using quasi Newton-Raphson iterations to converge on a solution. Equivalent circuits of groups of linear components are pre-computed to save CPU, along with a bunch of other optimisations so that the model can run hundreds of thousands of times per second. A normal circuit simulator can take 5 minutes or more to process one second of audio, our plugins do it in a fraction of a second otherwise your CPU would be maxed out!
If you want to see the depth to which Andy goes to in his modelling, trial the The Scream, where you can pop out the virtual circuit board and play with the components, or read the Cytomic technical papers.