Global stages (master bus)

Outboard-EQ ships a bus-wide processing suite that sits before and after the 8-band EQ. SubTight, PowerSag, Coils, PurestAir, MonoMaker, Tilt, Equal-Loud Bypass, Output Trim, Input/Output Gain stages with clipping, and Side-Saturation are all in the same plugin — the EQ doesn't need a chain of helpers to finish a master.

Input stage (concentric knob, left side)

Input Gain

±24 dB pre-EQ gain. Drive the EQ harder for more character-stage saturation, or pull back if the signal is too hot.

Input Clip

Soft-clip threshold from −12 to 0 dB. Catches transient peaks before they hit the EQ.

Input Stage on/off

The small dot on the side enables the stage. Default is off — fresh instances are unity.

Input Side-Sat

0 to 1 drive on the Side channel only. Adds harmonic content to the stereo information without touching the centre.

Output stage (concentric knob, right side)

Output Gain

±24 dB post-EQ make-up gain.

Output Clip

Soft-clip ceiling from −12 to 0 dB. Catches anything the master output is about to push too high.

Output Stage on/off

Same as Input Stage.

Output Side-Sat

Same as Input Side-Sat but post-EQ. The internal drive is scaled to a subtler curve since the signal is already coloured.

Global character chain

These sit between the EQ and the output meter:

SubTight

Soft-slew sub-bass tightener. Extracts the sub band with a one-pole LP, slew-limits it, and subtracts the residual from the signal. Tightens low end without changing the audible curve.

• Amount 0 to 1, Freq 30 to 200 Hz (defaults to 80 Hz), On/Off.

PowerSag2

Vintage PSU sag emulation. Loud transients pull the rails down briefly; recovery is slower than the transient. The signal "leans" on heavy moments.

• Amount 0 to 1, Speed (0.5 = legacy 200 ms envelope), Inverse (0 = attenuate, 1 = boost / "PSU rebound").

Coils2

Transformer/coil saturator. Asymmetric tanh soft-clip + DC bias produces 2nd-order harmonics; Cheap knob mixes hard-clip on x² for 3rd-order.

• Sat 0 to 1, Cheap 0 to 1.

PurestAir Global

Slew-limiter in the high band. Clamps the per-sample high-frequency slope so sibilance softens without losing transients.

• Amount 0 to 1, Intensity 0 to 1 (0.5 = legacy hardcoded value).

Slew Highcut

Slew-rate-limited soft highcut. Limits the per-sample delta of the signal — no fixed cutoff, just softer transients.

Capacitor

Vintage cap-coupling warmth. Subtle high-shelf roll-off above 10 kHz + low-mid lift at 250 Hz.

• NonLin 0 to 1 (0.4 = legacy ON intensity).

Mono Maker

Mastering-grade mono maker. 12 dB/oct Linkwitz-Riley on the Side, Mid bit-perfect.

• Freq 0 to 300 Hz (0 = off), Amount 0 to 1.

Tone Slant (Tilt)

Signed slope in dB/oct (−6 to +6), tilted around a 1 kHz pivot. A pair of broad RBJ shelves with opposing gains.

Final stages

Equal Loudness (K-weighted Bypass Match)

BS.1770-inspired K-weighting filter (60 Hz HP + 1.5 kHz HS +4 dB), 400 ms RMS follower, makeup gain ±6 dB (200 ms smoothed). Makes A/B-ing the bypass honest by matching loudness pre vs. post to within ±0.5 dB. Default on.

Output Trim

±12 dB master trim with 20 ms smoothing. Post-EqualLoud, pre-dither.

Monitor Iso

L / R / Mid / Side solo-listen (or Off = passthrough). Sits after the Output Meter so the meter always shows the unaltered programme even when you're soloing a side.

Anti-Denormal + Dither

PRNG substitution for samples below 1.18e-23, plus mantissa-aware float dither that scales TPDF noise to the LSB of the current float exponent. Eliminates float-truncation artefacts when stacking many plugin instances.

Tips

• Leave Equal Loud on. Mastering decisions made on unequal loudness are wrong decisions.
• The Input/Output Stages are off by default for first-start parity. The small enable dot lights up the first time you move a ring or disc.
• For a quick "make it sound like analog" pass on a mix bus: SubTight 0.3, PowerSag2 0.2 / Speed 0.5, Coils2 Sat 0.15, PurestAir 0.3 / Intensity 0.5. Tape and op-amp are per-band; Coils and PurestAir are the bus-wide equivalents.

See also

• Hardware character (Op-Amp & Tape) for per-band character.
• Output meter
• Stereo and M/S for Mono Maker context.