Podcast Plugins are under development. The first release is scheduled for 1st of March 2025.
Podcast Plugins are easy-to-use plugins for speech enhancement, specifically designed for podcasters who can't or don't want to dig deeper into the craft of sound engineering.
The bundle consists of two plugins:
This plugin is inserted on the individual audio tracks of all speakers. It wil take care of level, equalisation and dynamic processing.
screenshot of Podcast Plugin Track
This plugin is inserted on the audio master bus of the DAW. It will shape the sound some more and take care of levels and dynamics.
screenshot of Podcast Plugin Master
The DSP is written in Faust by Klaus Scheuermann.
The plugins are made by ƒalkTX using DPF.
The logo and signet are by Peter Schlossnikel.
Programming guidance and lovely bits of foss code have been provided by Robin, magnetophone, Jakob, Dario. Thanks <3
PodcastPlugins are supported by the PrototypeFund.
Podcast Plugins are cross-platform and will work on the following operating systems:
Supported plugin formats are CLAP, VST, VST3, LV2 and AU.
Download the installers for your operating system here. (link tba)
The installer will put the plugin files in the appropriate folders on your system. The next time you start your DAW, they will be available.
The installer will work for intel macs and silicon/arm macs.
As the installer is not signed, you will have to allow the installer to run. Please learn more for your macOS version here.
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After installation, two plugins are available in your DAW:
TRACK is the actual speech-enhancement plugin. It goes on each individual track of each speaker.
For example:
You recorded two speakers with two microphones to two individual tracks: Please load an instance of TRACK on to each track.
screenshot of DAW with TRACK Plugin
The default setting of the TRACK plugin will be fine in most cases. You can close the plugin window and just let it do it's thing.
If you want to tweak the sound further, read advanced settings.
MASTER is an automatic leveling and mastering plugin which will take care of the final touch of your podcast. It goes on the master channel of your DAW project.
screenshot of DAW with MASTER Plugin
The default setting of the MASTER plugin will be fine in most cases. You can close the plugin window and just let it do it's thing.
If you want to tweak the sound further, read advanced settings.
With the two big knobs in the middle, you can tweak the sound of your speaker:
TIMBRE controls if the speaker should sound warmer or brighter.
The middle position will work for most voices. It's more or less a question of taste. Extreme settings (+/-5) will still sound good.
STYLE controls the estethics of the processing. It ranges from natural to radio-ish.
The middle position will work for most voices.
natural features decent dynamic range control while keeping the natural sound of the voice.
radio-ish features heavier dynamic range compression, known from the sound of speakers on comercial FM radio stations.
Here you can control the volume of the incoming audio before it hits the plugin's processing, although the following leveler stage will take care of the correct loudness anyway. It makes sense when you want to take care of the loudness yourself and the leveler therefore is bypassed.
The green and red brackets indicate a good and bad level.
The standard loudness for podcasts is -16dB LUFS. If for some reason you want to work at a lower loudness (or higher, not recommended), you can set it here.
With the two big knobs in the middle, you can tweak the overall sound of your podcast:
TIMBRE controls if the overall sound should sound warmer or brighter.
The middle position will work fine in most cases. It's more or less a question of taste. Extreme settings (+/-5) are not so much recommended.
STYLE controls the estethics of the processing. It ranges from natural to radio-ish.
The middle position will work fine in most cases. Extreme settings (+/-5) are not so much recommended.
natural features decent dynamic range control while keeping the natural sound of your podcast.
radio-ish features heavier dynamic range compression, known from the sound of comercial FM radio stations.
Here you can control the volume of the incoming audio before it hits the plugin's processing, although the following leveler stages will take care of the correct loudness anyway. It makes sense when you want to take care of the loudness yourself and the leveler therefore is bypassed.
The standard loudness for podcasts is -16dB LUFS. If for some reason you want to work at a lower loudness (or higher, not recommended), you can set it here.
The DSP is written in Faust by Klaus Scheuermann.
image of signal flow diagram
The plugin's processing consists of 5 stages:
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Input Gain: nothing fancy here ;)
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Spectral Balancer: The audio is split into 20 bands. Each band is normalized against the wideband loudness of the audio resultig the actual momentary frequency spectrum of the incoming signal. The resulting curve is compared to a target frequency curve carefully chosen based on 20 years of vocal mixing experience. 20 bandpass filters are then adjusted, so the spectrum of the audio matches the target curve. Actually there are two curves to interpolate between with the TIMBRE knob: a warmer one and a brighter one. The intensity of the Spectral Balancer can be adjusted with the strength parameter.
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Leveler: a nicely tweaked leveling algorithm with an adjustable target loudness (in LUFS).
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Multiband Dynamics: classic multiband compressor/expander with two presets to interpolate between: natural & radio-ish.
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Brickwall limiter: a lookahead limiter to avoid peaks.
image of signal flow diagram
The plugin's processing consists of 5 stages:
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Leveler 1: a nicely tweaked leveling algorithm with an adjustable target loudness (in LUFS).
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Tilt EQ: a soft tilt EQ consisting of two shelves which can be adjusted with the TIMBRE knob.
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Multiband Dynamics: classic multiband compressor/expander with two presets to interpolate between: natural & radio-ish.
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Leveler 2: a second leveling stage, very slow and subtile.
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Brickwall limiter: a lookahead limiter to avoid peaks.
PodcastPlugins use DPF as a plugin framework.
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