Blue Cat Audio

I first bought this plug-in to be able to use my VSTs in ProTools 11, which only supports AAX. It's very easy to get familiar with it, I haven't needed a manual, it's pretty didactic. It is really well though-out, the routing possibilities are unlimited: A chain of plug-ins (PRE) linked to one or more parallel chains and ends in a chain of plug-ins in series (POST). It would've been nice to be able to rename the macros! However, I must say that the guys at Blue Cat are really responsive: A soon as I got the plug-in I suggested it would be nice to be able to change the name of the macros, which isn't possible yet, but it will be in the next update! THANK YOU! It's worth noting that it consumes very little resources and that it makes no difference in terms of resource-consumption whether you use the plug-ins directly in the DAW or you use Patchwork. It's also very handy for people who like presets: You can make customizable Channel Strips with your favorite plug-ins, for instance! Or even a "home-made" multi-band compressor with several of your favorite compressors and the filters to go with them... In short, the possibilities are HUGE. I didn't give it the perfect mark because nothing is perfect, but it will certainly deserve it after several updates (which are pretty common from Blue Cat, it's nice to have a plug-in in constant evolution).

Blue Cat Audio's Gain Suite is a series of free simple plug-ins for a variety of different formats. It's available for both Mac and PC operating systems, and in pretty much any plug-in format I can think of, including RTAS, VST, and all the other majors. Included in the Gain Suite is three different plug-ins including Blue Cat's Gain, Blue Cat's Stereo Gain, and Blue Cat's Widening Gain. You can link them up if you want to use more than one at once, which is a pretty cool feature. Each also has a few different skins to choose from in terms of visuals. The process of downloading and installing the plug-ins was quick and simple, as you can access them directly from Blue Cat Audio's website. Using these plug-ins couldn't be any easier as they are just for gain up or down, kind of like Pro Tools' trim plug-in, but a bit more in depth. No manual is necessary for use with these plug-ins, nor do I know if they even make one. SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE Right now I'm running Blue Cat Audio's Gain Suite in Pro Tools LE 8 and on a Mac Book Pro lap top. The computer has a 2.2 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo processor and 4 GB of RAM, while I'm running Pro Tools with a Digi 002R audio interface and monitoring with a set of Adam A7's. These plug-ins take up such a small amount of processing power, that the vast majority of users won't have anything to worry about. If you think you're on the fence you might as well try them out since they're free anyway. OVERALL OPINION While maybe not the most illustrious plug-in suite, Blue Cat Audio's Gain Suite is a free bundle of useful plug-ins nonetheless. They're perfect for use when you don't want to have your DAW's automation going, as you can automate outside of it with these. Blue Cat has a bunch of free plug-ins that are definitely worth snatching up and I'd encourage you to head over to their site and do it now!

The Blue Cat Audio Plugins Pack is a free bundle of software that is available in a number of different plug-in formats and for both Mac and PC operating systems. Included in the bundle is Blue Cat's Chorus, Blue Cat's Flanger, Blue Cat's Phaser, Blue Cat's Gain Suite, Blue Cat's FreqAnalyst, and Blue Cat's Triple EQ. All of these for the price of none! You can download the bundle straight from Blue Cat Audio's website, which should take all of two minutes. Installing it is very easy, as they have the plug-ins available in almost all plug-in formats including for RTAS. Using the plug-ins is generally really simple, as these plug-ins are built for user friendliness and none of them are very complicated. I've never seen a manual for any of these plug-ins, as that really shouldn't be necessary. SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE Running the plug-ins in this free bundle have never been an issue for me. Right now I'm running the Blue Cat Audio Plugins Pack on my Mac Book Pro that has a 2.2 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo processor and 4 GB of RAM. I use them in Pro Tools LE 8 that I use with a Digi 002R audio interface and I monitor with a set of Adam A7's. The plug-ins in this free bundle are made so that they won't take up much processing power, and this is quite evident while running them. The idea is for these to be compatible and usable on systems of all shapes and sizes, so pretty much everyone will be good in terms of performance unless you really have a slow system. OVERALL OPINION There's really no reason not to have the Blue Cat Audio Plugins Pack on your system. Perhaps if you've got all the plug-ins in the world you may not need it, but I have a ton of plug-ins and still have these installed just in case. I don't use them on a daily basis, but every once in and while I'm glad that I have them. For those who don't have any or many plug-ins at all, this is the perfect way to get started with some as these are free, easy, and sound pretty good considering the latter two. If you're thinking about it at all I'd encourage you to head over to Blue Cat Audio's site right now and download this free bundle!

Blue Cat Audio's FreqAnalyst is a free frequency spectrum analyzer plug-in. It is available along with a number of other free plug-ins in Blue Cat Audio's freeware plug-in pack, which I'd highly recommend downloading. You can download the FreqAnalyst along with the other free plug-ins from Blue Cat directly from their website, a process that should be pain free and only take a minute. Learning how to use the plug-in is also really simple, although they do give you some parameters to work with that you might not normally see on a frequency analyzer. Basically, you've got a full graph to show you where the signal is at frequency wise, but then you've got a series of parameters that control an envelope, threshold parameters, and a transformation section. I don't really use these parameters too much as I mostly just use this plug-in for monitoring the frequency spectrum of a full mix or sometimes an individual track. A manual won't be necessary for most users, nor do I know any information about it. SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE I'm currently running the Blue Cat Audio FreqAnalyst plug-in in Pro Tools LE 8 on my Mac Book Pro lap top computer. The computer has a 2.2 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo processor and 4 GB of RAM to work with, and I'm running Pro Tools LE 8 with a Digi 002R audio interface. I've only thus far had a need to run a single instance of this plug-in at a time, and I've never had a problem doing so. You might start to see some performance issues if you were to use a few of these at once within a session, but I'm not sure why anyone would need to do that... OVERALL OPINION Blue Cat Audio's FreqAnalyst is a very useful plug-in, and when you consider that it's free, it makes it all that much better. It's very easy to use and generally shows you just what you need to see. I have a few other frequency analyzer plug-ins, including RND's Inspector plug-in which is also free. I'd recommend trying out both of them to see what works best for you. It's worth it to have both anyway since they are free, as I've got both on my system. Being that it's free, you might as well download the full Blue Cat Audio freeware plug-in pack, as it's got a number of useful effects and other plug-ins, including this FreqAnalyst which I'd definitely recommend checking out!

Blue Cat Audio's Phaser is a free plug-in that is available in pretty much any plug-in format. You can get it for both PC and Mac systems, and it's available in RTAS, VST, Direct X, and AU formats. Just go ahead and download it directly from Blue Cat's site and follow the step by step installation instructions as you normally would, and you're set to go. The interface of the plug-in is much like a few of the other Blue Cat Audio free plug-ins, so if you've got the whole freeware bundle you should be accustomed to this sort of look and feel. It does have a few different skins to choose from if you want to change the look around a bit. The plug-in has a series of simple knob/slider parameters (depending on the skin) that control gain, stages, depth, rate, dry, wet, feedback, and wave shape, from which you have either sine wave or triangle wave to choose from. A manual should not be necessary for use with this plug-in. SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE Right now I'm running the Blue Cat Audio Phaser as an RTAS plug-in for Pro Tools LE 8. I'm running it on a Mac Book Pro lap top that has a 2.2 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo processor and 4 GB of RAM, while I run Pro Tools LE with a Digidesign 002 rack version. I listen through everything with a pair of Adam A7 monitors. Even if you don't have that quick of a system, you should be able to handle this and the other Blue Cat plug-ins. You might as well try it for yourself since it's free anyway. OVERALL OPINION It's definitely more than nice to find a whole bundle of free plug-ins that are compatible for Pro Tools, as you won't find nearly as many out there as you would those in VST format. The Blue Cat Audio Phaser is one of these plug-ins, and is definitely worth having no matter what system you have. While it's not the best phaser I've ever used by a longshot, it still sounds good enough and offers up a lot of control and room to mess around with sounds. If you don't already, I'd encourage you to head over to Blut Cat Audio's website and download their bundle of free plug-ins now!

The Blue Cat Audio Blue Cat's Chorus is a free plug-in that is available in pretty much any plug-in and operating system format that you can think of. I've been running an RTAS version of this plug-in for Mac, but it's also available for PC. Installing the plug-in should only take a minute, as you can download the plug-in directly from Blue Cat Audio's website and have it up and running within a matter of minutes. As far as the interface is concerned, it's a pretty simple one. As seen in the picture above, there are a few different skins that you can use for the plug-in, but the configuration of the parameters will of course be the same no matter what your interface looks like. The parameters that it has are for gain, delay, depth, rate, dry, and wet, as well as an option to choose either a sine or triangle wave. A manual isn't necessary with this plug-in, but I can't speak to it's make up sine I haven't seen it. SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE I'm currently running the RTAS version for Mac of the Blue Cat Audio Blue Cat's Chorus plug-in, as right now I've got a bunch of free Blue Cat Audio plug-ins on my system at home. This system consists of Pro Tools LE 8 and a Mac Book Pro with a 2.2 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo processor and 4 GB of RAM. I run Pro Tools LE 8 with a Digi 002R audio interface. Blue Cat's Chorus plug-in won't take up much of your processing power at all, so I can't foresee too many users having performance problems with it. OVERALL OPINION It's tough to find free plug-ins that are available in all plug-in formats and for both Mac and PC operating systems, but that's exactly what you'll get with the Blue Cat Audio Blue Cat's Chorus as well as their other plug-ins. Of course the plug-in doesn't have the most realistic chorus tone I've heard, but it's still usable for sure, and considering the plug-in is free I can't really do any complaining. I've only been using this plug-in for a relatively short amount of time, but I'm finding myself using it more and more when I need some simple chorus. At the price of free, there's no reason not to try it for yourself!