Big Man Labs have released Bigulator, available for $42.00.
Bigulator is a painstaking, circuit-level model of an obscure analog mastering clipper that takes a radically different approach to controlling audio levels.
Most dynamic processors rely on an envelope generator: a detector circuit calculates attack and release times to smoothly pull down the volume over a set window.
Bigulator completely throws out the envelope stage:
- No Attack, No Release, No Envelope: A Voltage Controlled Amplifier (VCA) sits directly in series with your audio stream.
- Audio-Rate Control: Its exponential control port is driven directly at audio rate by a thresholded, peak-skimming full-wave rectifier.
- Instantaneous Response: Gain reduction happens strictly sample-by-sample. Because there is no “memory” or history in the circuit, Bigulator effortlessly chops peak transients without smearing the audio that immediately follows it.
Rather than relying on generic black-box curves or artificial saturation algorithms, BigMan Labs derived Bigulator’s law directly from original hardware schematics and fitted it to measured captures of the physical unit across its entire control range.
While Bigulator faithfully mirrors the original analog front panel, it also expands on hardware quirks that gave the original unit its character:
- Threshold & Ratio: Fine-tune precisely where the peak-skimmer kicks in and how aggressively it tames transients.
- Asym (Asymmetry): In the physical hardware, the two halves of the peak-skimmer circuit suffered from a slight bias-trim imbalance, causing one half to skim fractionally earlier than the other. This tiny real-world imperfection is what generated pleasing even harmonics (symmetrical clippers can only generate odd harmonics). Bigulator gives you direct control over this: set it to 0% for pure symmetry, keep it at center for the exact hardware capture, or crank it up to 10x for rich saturation.
Features include:
- 1, 2, or 3 Band Multiband Crossover: Run independent instances of the clipper circuit across custom frequency bands using minimum-phase or linear-phase crossovers.
- Up to 16x Oversampling: Analog circuits don’t suffer from digital aliasing, but digital clippers do. Bigulator includes selectable oversampling (1x to 16x) to keep your high end crystal clear.
- Digital Sum Clipper: Features a dedicated output stage with four custom voicings and its own ceiling parameter for ultimate control over final output levels.
- Real-time Visualization: Includes a GPU-rendered scrolling display showing sample-accurate gain reduction alongside a live transfer curve.
- Phase-Matched Dry/Wet Blend: Parallel clipping made effortless without phase cancellation.
Bigulator is available to PC, Mac and Linux users (VST3, AU, AAX and CLAP).
For more information on Bigulator, click here:
NOTE: Some of the links you click on may be affiliated. Clicking and purchasing using these links helps support and fund The Beat Community. Thanks for your support.
