Valves tube overdrive plugin interface by AudioThing

Valves: Vintage Tube Overdrive Effect by AudioThing Free Download

Rated 4.7/5 on Plugin Boutique (1,587 ratings)

Valves is a vintage valve emulation plugin from AudioThing that combines tube overdrive, a multimode resonant filter and a cabinet/EQ section. It is available in VST3, VST2, AU, AAX and CLAP formats for Windows and macOS.

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Free trial available from the developer

01Overview

Valves is an effects plugin from AudioThing built around a modelled valve stage. The developer describes the valve section as based on classic vintage tubes, with added grit and a custom gain control. Alongside it sit a state variable filter and a cabinet/EQ section with a selection of modelled cabinets. The plugin offers up to 16x oversampling, which helps keep the saturation clean at higher drive settings.

Best for

Guitar overdrive
Bass saturation
Amp tone shaping
Track warmth and grit
Creative filter distortion

Developer: AudioThing
Category: Saturation
Store: Plugin Boutique

02Key features

What you get

Vintage valve emulation with added grit and custom gain control
Multimode state variable filter with LP, HP, BP and Notch modes
Two-pole or four-pole filter slope selection
Filter can be placed pre or post valve stage
Eight modelled cabinets with bass and treble EQ
Up to 16x oversampling for reduced aliasing
35 included presets with a randomizer
Resizable plugin window

03In depth

Tube Overdrive, Filter and Cabinet Sound

The valve stage is the core of Valves. It adds tube-style overdrive with a gain control that can be pushed for heavier grit or kept subtle for warmth.

The filter is modelled on a classic ladder design and can run in two-pole or four-pole mode. It offers low pass, high pass, band pass and notch responses, and it can be placed before or after the valve stage, which changes how the distortion interacts with the filtered signal.

The cabinet/EQ section includes eight modelled cabinets with bass and treble controls. Use it to emulate several types of guitar amplifiers or to further shape the overdrive.

Workflow, Presets and Interface

Valves includes 35 presets and a preset system with a randomizer, which is useful for finding starting points quickly. The window is resizable, so the controls can be scaled to suit your screen.

The plugin supports 16x oversampling, a setting that reduces aliasing from the nonlinear processing at the cost of more CPU load. Because the filter and cabinet sections can be combined with the valve stage, the signal chain can be shaped in several ways without adding extra plugins.

04Specs