Preamp Emulator

Preamplifiers are used in the music industry to ready an input signal for amplification or further processing in order to reduce interference.

Preamp Emulator is a simple tool available as a VST plug-in that can be incorporated in any music program designed for sound creation and processing.

The purpose is to mimic the tube preamps and to reduce the sharpness of digital tracks, making them sound warmer and closer to what the use of real tubes would produce.

Its installation varies depending of the VST host used. In most cases the downloaded file just needs to be stored in the plug-in directory of the host. For the purpose of testing we used the Reaper package.

The interface is simple as there are only a few options to deal with. There is the input control knob, a selection of two tubes and a control for setting the output level.

The plug-in offers the possibility to adjust the amount of tube saturation effect that is used for the loaded track. Input control is in charge with applying gain to the signal prior to sending it to the tube.

Working with the plug-in is not a difficult task as all you have to do is adjust the knobs to the desired level. More challenging, though, is to notice the differences between the plain file and the one that has the warmer preset applied.

Preamp Emulator installs easily and it can be a real asset to any sound producing aficionado that wants to create results closer to real sound.