Blue Cat's Re-Head: Headphone Mixing Room Plugin by Blue Cat Audio Free Download

At the core of Re-Head is a head response model that imitates how your own head and skull shape what you hear from loudspeakers. Blue Cat Audio says this gives a more natural tone when you monitor on headphones.

The plugin also processes the stereo field to reduce the hard-panned sound common in headphone listening. You can adjust the position and angle of the virtual speakers, flip the left and right channels, and change the brightness to suit your ears and your headphones.

A built-in EQ and spectrum analyzer let you check and shape the result without leaving the plugin.

Re-Head includes an impulse response (IR) loader. You can load an impulse response of a room you know well, such as your usual mixing space, so headphone monitoring feels closer to that environment. The IR loader can also compensate for the character of your actual headphones.

The plugin is described as having no latency, so it can sit in a tracking chain where timing matters. Blue Cat Audio notes that Re-Head is not meant to replace your favorite studio monitors. It is best understood as a way to make switching from speakers to headphones less dramatic.