Gridlock Saturation

Bluebeard / GL‑01

A saturation pedal in plugin form. One gain stage, three saturation characters, a bias control for asymmetry, a tilt tone control, a dry/wet mix and an output level, with Auto Gain that keeps the loudness steady while you change the sound.

Version 1.0.0 — Windows and macOS

Available as VST3 and AAX on Windows and macOS, plus an Audio Unit on macOS. Download details will be posted here.

Formats: VST3, AAX, and Audio Unit on macOS
Platforms: Windows 10 and 11 (64-bit); macOS 10.13+, universal for Apple Silicon and Intel
Channels: Mono in, stereo out (default), mono, or stereo
Processing: 32-bit float, 4× oversampled saturator
Latency: 6 samples, reported to the host
Parameters: 8, all automatable

The panel

Six knobs, one lever, one footswitch

Set it by hand the way you would a pedal. The readout shows the name and value of whichever control you touch, then returns to the current mode. Double-click any knob to reset it, and use the mouse wheel for fine changes.

Drive

Gain into the saturator. At 0 dB the stage is close to linear for moderate levels, and at 36 dB nearly anything reaches the flat part of the curve.

0–36 dB · default 12 dB

Mode

Picks the saturation curve: Light Traffic, Rush Hour or Traffic Jam. Switching while audio plays changes the curve immediately.

3 positions · default Rush Hour

Bias

Shifts the signal off-center to make the clipping asymmetric, which changes the balance of even to odd harmonics. A DC blocker keeps the result clean and silence stays silent.

−100 to +100 · default 0

Tone

A tilt EQ after the saturator, pivoting around 900 Hz. Turn it up for a brighter balance or down for a darker one, up to 6 dB each way.

−100 to +100 · default 0

Mix

Blends the clean input with the processed signal. The dry path is delayed to match the oversampler, so the two never comb-filter.

0–100% · default 100%

Output

Final level of the processed signal, applied before the Mix stage, so it never changes your dry signal. Set it last.

−24 to +12 dB · default 0 dB

Auto Gain

Lever up keeps the processed level matched to the input, so louder never fools you into thinking it sounds better. On by default.

Bypass

The footswitch compares against the unprocessed signal at unity gain. It is the host’s bypass parameter, so your DAW’s button stays in sync, with a lamp that is lit when the effect is on.

Metering

A 23-segment light bar shows output level from −40 dBFS to full scale, and the IN lamp glows with the input signal.

Three modes

Choose how it breaks up

Each mode is its own transfer curve, from gentle compression to hard clipping. Bias changes the balance of harmonics in the first two, whose positive and negative halves differ.

Light Traffic

Smooth, gradual, tape-like compression with a small asymmetry that adds a little even-harmonic warmth. The gentle choice for thickening a track without announcing it.

Rush Hour

Stronger asymmetry: the negative half saturates earlier, for the even-harmonic thickness of a tube stage. The default, and a good place to start.

Traffic Jam

A hard-knee clipper with slight rounding. Aggressive and fuzzy, and it gets there fast as Drive comes up.

Under the hood

How it behaves

The manual documents the actual values the plugin uses, so you can predict what a setting will do.

4× oversampling

The saturator runs at four times the host rate through a polyphase half-band filter pair, which keeps most of the aliasing out of the audible band. The latency is a fixed 6 samples, about 0.13 ms at 48 kHz.

Auto Gain you can trust

It compares slow 300 ms RMS readings of the input and the processed signal and corrects between −30 and +6 dB. It holds its setting during silence instead of drifting, and acts on the wet signal only.

No zipper noise

Drive, Bias, Tone and Output are smoothed over about 30 ms and Auto Gain over about 50 ms, so turning a knob or automating it stays click-free.

Order of operations

Input is metered, then upsampled. Each sample gets Drive, the Bias offset, the Mode curve, a DC blocker and the Tone tilt, then it is downsampled, level-matched, and mixed with the time-aligned dry signal.

Flexible channels

Mono in to stereo out is the default and copies the input to both sides. Mono to mono and stereo to stereo are supported, with both channels processed identically and no stereo link.

Resizable panel

In hosts that allow resizing, drag the window corner to scale the interface from 640 to 1609 pixels wide. The aspect ratio is locked, so the panel never distorts.

AAX note: the AAX builds in the current package are unsigned on both platforms. Pro Tools Developer loads them for testing, and regular Pro Tools needs a PACE-signed build.

Questions or feedback?

Get in touch directly — every message comes to me, and I read all of them.

inquiries@bluebeardaudio.co