Acustica Audio has announced that the new Ceil ($99 value) channel strip VST/AU/AAX plugin is offered is a free download until February 14th, 2019.
Ceil is a virtual channel strip which is based on Acustica Audio’s unique Nebula technology. In this case, the company has “sampled” a heavily modded Focusrite Audio ISA 430 hardware channel strip and turned it into an audio plugin. Ceil can be used in all VST, AU, and AAX plugin compatible digital audio workstations on PC and Mac.
The plugin features a compressor, a preamp section, a stereo processing module with mid/side and stereo pan controls, a filter section with a pair of HP/LP filters, and a 2-band parametric equalizer. Each section can be bypassed to reduce CPU usage. When all modules are active, Ceil consumed around 20% of available resources on our i7 4770 powered test machine running Studio One 3. With all modules bypassed, the CPU hit drops to around 10% per plugin instance.
Both the equalizer module and the filters sound very pleasant. The filters are highly transparent, especially the high-pass filter which can be used to clean up the low end without sounding unnatural. The EQ comes with two parametric bands which sound very musical even at higher boost settings. The compressor features an optional sidechain input along with a high-pass filter to help with taming bass-heavy signals. Another notable section of the unit is the gain staging module which can be used to boost volume and to mix some of the unprocessed audio with the compressed signal. This parallel-processed signal then passes through the stereo section and the filter/EQ modules.
I was quite happy with Ceil’s sound quality but my overall impression with the plugin isn’t very good. This is thanks to the constant audio crackling which occurs while Ceil is in use. This could, of course, be limited to my test machine so your mileage may vary. Apart from the audio clicks and pops while using Ceil, I haven’t noticed any other instability issues. Is the plugin running smoothly on your computer? Do let me know in the comment section below.
Ceil installation page in the Aquarius download manager.
To get your free copy of Ceil, register for a free Acustica Audio user account, download and open the Aquarius plugin manager, and click the install button next to Ceil. Once installed, the plugin will be ready to use in your digital audio workstation of choice. Do note that an internet collection is required to download and install the plugin on your computer. The free download offer will expire on February 14th, 2019. Users who have installed Ceil prior to this date will receive a permanent plugin license (which will be valid for use even after the free download offer expires).
Ceil is available for free download via Acustica Audio (311 MB download size, EXE installer, 64-bit VST/AU/AAX plugin format for Windows & MacOS).
18 Comments
Andrii Vakhnenko
onOMG! So good and responsive compressor!
Alex
onMEGA MACHINE!!!!!!!!!!!!
Turello
onOnly 64 bit…
Tomislav Zlatic
onOops, fixed! Thanks for letting me know.
ilias
onworks fine here, ok i7machine with 8gb (but big buffer),tests : reaper / mixbus32c/ vcv host, both standard and ZL versions, remember even ZL still reports a tiny bit of latency, which is to be expected due to the mechanics of acqua processing.
Tomislav Zlatic
onThanks for the comment. I’ll try increasing the buffer – hopefully, that will fix the audio issues when using Ceil.
Russ
onWorks flawlessly on my machine, use the (ZL) for low latency and the other for regular use.
ZL will need use processing power.
Any relatively new machine should have no problem running this, one might run in to issues when using multiply instances. YMMV depending on your resources.
LAGinz
onMay be just my system (Windows 7) but the installation of this caused my Studio One 4 scan function to go nuts, even affecting non-related plugins. Had to uninstall. YMMV
BattleofWills
onIs there a way to download this VST without having to install Acustica’s download manager?
Tomislav Zlatic
onNope, the manager is required for installation.
Moisés
onIt’s showing a message that I need to authorize. Anyone can help?
Dejan Brilj
onBeautiful sounding channel strip, very clean, very smooth but CPU hungry, like all the AA plugins.
Acustica Audio is far from the other manufacturers in sound quality in my opinion. Is there some trick or something to reduce CPU usage when using AA plugins?
Bijon Grille
onAcustica still eating cpu, still high latency, still rather ordinary, and still crackle bugs.
Cannabeatz
onUnfortunatly crashes Live (OSX) – both AU and VST.
CBD BEATS
onCool stuff!
Joesti
onBest sound. I just bounce track after track when working with acustica plug’s. the sound is worth it.
Joesti
onPeople who say this is ordinary don’t have good ear’s and never used hardware. These plugin’s are unbelievable. But you need to listen to everything that is happening, transient, frequencies, feeling. These plug’s do things algorhytmic plug’s can’t touch.
flatkaneda
onJust seen anyone who has already picked this up is able to upgrade to BIG CEIL, a bigger brother version with more options! The extra EQ options has definitely made me want to use it more!