The Ultimate Glue Compressor

The most faithful emulation of a modern yet legendary tube compressor/limiter – perfect glue for mixing and mastering.

There are several reasons to use a variable-bias tube compressor. One is the exceptional compression transparency that this kind of compressor can achieve, even when pushed into extreme gain reduction. Another – and perhaps the most common – is their ability to add cohesion or "glue" to buses, whole mixes and masters.

Unfortunately, the original hardware is expensive and difficult to integrate with "in-the-box" workflows. Software emulations exist but most owners of the hardware agree that they cannot be compared to the original unit, as there’s always “something” missing.

With its unique Topology Preservation Technology, Pulsar Mu sounds objectively identical to the hardware in every production context, and even makes improvements such as an increased signal-to-noise ratio.

Features :

Topology Preservation Technology:

Pulsar Audio's modelling technology guarantees a perfect emulation of the original device’s behavior. From the saturation of the magnetic flux in the transformers, to the precise response of the tubes, to the effects of tiny calibration defects, everything is perfectly reproduced. For more info, take a look at their technical article on the subject.

External Sidechain:

Pulsar Mu allows to define an external sidechain input, as all compressors should in the digital age. This opens a very wide range of applications: ducking, de-essing, filtering the sidechain signal with your favourite EQ, or even applying dynamic processing.

Mid-Side Processing:

Pulsar Mu comes with built-in optional M/S encoding and decoding, enabling a signal’s mono and stereo information to be processed separately with different settings. The Listen buttons simplify the setting by allowing you to listen to Mid or Sides signals in isolation, and the modern visualization can be set to monitor only the channel you’re working on, so you always know what you’re doing.

Look ahead, Look behind:

This innovative feature lets you shift the timing of Pulsar Mu’s gain reduction compared to the input. Look-ahead enables the Mu to start reacting to transients even before they happen, ensuring perfect limiting. Conversely, the look-behind delays the gain reduction, so that fast transients can be left unprocessed while the gain reduction kicks in after them. This opens up various possibilities like clipping transients separately after Mu has done its work.

Flexible Sidechain Equalizer:

The sidechain equalization section is simple but efficient. You can let your mix more transparent by preventing low frequencies from triggering compression with the High-Pass filter, adjust the response to vocals or other instruments thanks to the parametric bell filter, and keep the influence of the top-end under control with the positive or negative High-Shelf filter.

Low CPU Usage:

Pulsar Audio spent a ridiculous amount of time optimizing Mu to consume as few system resources as possible – despite the complex algorithms at work. Pulsar Mu takes full advantage of modern CPUs to do more with less. But if your computer can stand it and you enjoy making it suffer, you can always turn oversampling on, processing at rates up to 384kHz!

System Requirements & Compatibility :

* An iLok account is required to authorize this product. Optional iLok 3 dongles can be purchased from your local dealer or from www.ilok.com

Mac

• CPU: Intel Core i3 / i5 / i7 / Xeon / Apple Silicon (M1)
• Memory: 4 GB RAM and 1 GB free disk space
• Operating System: MacOS 10.8 – 10.15
• GPU: OpengGL 2.0 compatible GPU
• Monitor: Resolution: minimum 1024×768, recommended 1920×1080 ; Refresh rate: 60 Hz
• AAX Native (64 bits only), Audio Unit (64 bits only), VST 2.4 and VST 3 compatible host DAW (64-bit only supported)
• Computer, iLok 3 key and iLok Cloud supported for activation
• 2 activations provided per purchase

Windows

• CPU:Intel Core i3 / i5 / i7 / i9 / Xeon or AMD Quad-Core minimum
• Memory: 4 GB RAM and 1 GB free disk space
• Operating System: Windows 7 with SP1 64 bit, Windows 8.1 64 bit, Windows 10 64 bit
• GPU: OpengGL 2.0 compatible GPU
• Monitor: Resolution: minimum 1024×768, recommended 1920×1080 ; Refresh rate: 60 Hz
AAX Native (Windows: 32/64 bit), Audio Unit (64 bits only), VST 2.4 (Windows: 32/64 bit), VST 3 (Windows: 32/64 bit) compatible host DAW.
• Computer, iLok 3 key and iLok Cloud supported for activation
• 2 activations provided per purchase

Demo

Download the Mac DEMO VERSION of Pulsar Mu

Download the Windows DEMO VERSION of Pulsar Mu

Videos