Yum Audio offers its Spread Light (£39 value) stereo tool plugin as a FREE download for macOS and Windows.
Spread Light is available for free download in 64-bit AU, VST3, and AAX formats as part of a limited-time launch offer. Once the offer expires, the purchase price will be £39.
Spread Light comes with a very tidy little GUI, which is also resizable if need be.
If we start at the top, the first parameter we see is the Intensity that can be set from 0% to 100%. Intensity acts like a dry/wet control, adjusting the intensity or level of all other parameters in the plugin. The Intensity control can be automated, which is handy if you want to accent certain parts of a track more than others.
The main area of the GUI is where you deal with the Tilt and Width controls. These functions are similar to those you’d find in a plugin like S1 Stereo Imager from Waves.
Spread Light has two processing modes, M/S (Mid/Sides) and HAAS. You can change between modes using the mode selection switch.
M/S mode is standard mid-side processing, which is ideal if you just want to add some width to a specific element in your song. You can do this by adjusting the Width control, and the GUI gives you a nice visual representation.
In M/S mode, the Tilt function allows you to pan your audio hard left, right, or anywhere in between. If you Tilt hard left with a broad Width setting, you’ll still hear sound from both speakers.
HAAS mode is slightly different and utilizes delay to alter your perception of direction and space. The HAAS effect is a psychoacoustic phenomenon that occurs when there is a slight delay between stereo (left/right) channels making the sound arrive at slightly different times.
When in HAAS mode, the Tilt control adjusts the delay applied. If you Tilt to the left, the sound coming from the right will have a slight delay and will be perceived as coming from the left of the stereo field.
The last control to mention is the Gain slider found at the bottom of the GUI.
There are many stereo image plugins; I also like Stereoizer from Nugen Audio, which is worth checking out, although not great when on a budget.
Yum Audio is also offering the full (more in-depth) version of Spread at a launch offer price of £55.
It seems like Yum Audio could be one to watch for interesting plugins with a creative/musical approach. For now, I’ll gladly take this lovely little freebie.
Download: Spread Light (64-bit VST3/AU/AAX plugin formats for Windows & macOS)
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10 Comments
Neytcev
onHere a note:
For Mac described as 2.2MB, then downloads 18.2
mx
onfor most plugin downloads it is like that:
the plugin itself probably has about 2.2mb,
but in the download package theres usually aax, au, vst2 and vst3 or something like that.
Neytcev
onEven AU is more than 5mb, but there is a clear description
how much is the download size, so, it is incorrect anyway …
cmd
onI don’t like to enter my phone for free stuff, I can tolerate tons of newsletters in my inbox, but SMS news and such nah. Thanks James for the news anyway! Best.
James N
onYou’re welcome, and I understand. I went ahead with the download, but I do feel adding your phone number is more intrusive than it needs to be!
I meant to add a note in the article, so thanks for bringing it up here.
Cheers!
Tomislav Zlatic
onYou’re right, I don’t like entering my phone number either. For what it’s worth, I don’t think the developer is to blame here. Their shopping card provider (FastSpring) requires the phone number for new accounts, I know this because I’ve noticed the same issue before with some other developers.
Kirill R.
onIt’s not like they ask for verification, you can just use all zeros after your region code and it works.
mx
onit is really interesting how different stereo widening tools can sound.
its worth to have more than one in the toolbox and depending on the material choose the most suitable.
with this plugin it is vrey nice that you can choose between m/s and haas-effect widening.
even nicer would be a blend-knob between the two actually.
on the other hand i could run two instances in series when i really need to play around with a combination of the two effects.
raven
onJust what the doctor ordered!!
Thanks!
Mark
onHi! Am I too late to grab this? It says 14 days trial on the site.