Fruitless Research has launched Clew, a free spring reverb plugin for macOS and Windows.
Clew is based on the long two-spring tank found in many guitar amplifiers, but it is not a convolution reverb playing back a recorded impulse response. Instead, it uses physical modeling to emulate how a signal travels through the spring itself.
Simply put, a real spring disperses different frequencies at different speeds. This creates the familiar metallic splashes and short upward chirps that our ears associate with this kind of reverb.
In Clew, the Decay control works like the damper on a physical tank. Its 1.2-to-4-second range changes how much energy is lost on each trip through the spring without moving the timing of those drips and chirps.
Stereo mode is also a lot more interesting than a standard width control. It runs two slightly detuned tanks, one for each channel, so stereo material keeps its image while mono sources return with more width. Mono mode uses a single tank.
Limit places a fast, stereo-linked limiter before the tank to catch transients that might otherwise produce too much “boing.” With Limit switched off, Drive moves from subtle grit to a more aggressive amp-style snarl without simply making the output louder.
Low Cut filters the wet signal before it enters the springs, while Mix, Output, and tail-aware Auto Gain handle the final balance. Clew also includes 10 factory presets that serve as starting points for various classic spring reverb sounds, such as Amp Tank, Surf, Dub Tank, and Pro Spring.
The live Wet Tail display is a nice touch. It shows eight seconds of the reverb Clew is generating from your audio, with the two tanks drawn in different colors in Stereo mode.
Fruitless Research also offers seven paid plugins, including Fifty-Fifty tape, Keelson bus compressor, Jointer clipper, Firmament plate reverb, Trammel compressor, Amnesia delay, and Remanence transformer color. The complete paid collection costs $319.
Fifty-Fifty is a $99 tape processor inspired by a Japanese half-track stereo machine, while the $79 Keelson combines VCA-style bus compression with output-transformer coloration. Jointer costs $59 and handles true-peak clipping for louder masters and controlled transients.
The collection also includes two spatial effects. Firmament is a $59 physics-modeled plate reverb, while the $49 Amnesia models a bucket-brigade analog delay and lets you manipulate the delay time as a playable effect.
Trammel is a $49 fast solid-state compressor with a simple threshold-free workflow. Remanence is the most affordable paid plugin at $39 and offers three types of output-transformer coloration for adding weight and character. Like Clew, all of these plugins use animated displays that show what the processing is doing in real time.
To get Clew, complete a $0 checkout with your email address. No account is required, and the emailed license is checked offline without a dongle or activation limit.
The download is a single installer that includes all eight Fruitless Research plugins. It is 201 MB on macOS and 45 MB on Windows. Run the installer, select the formats you want, then paste Clew’s license into the plugin.
Clew is available in AU, VST3, and AAX formats for macOS 10.15 or later (Intel and Apple Silicon). Windows 10 or later supports 64-bit VST3 and AAX.
This article contains affiliate links, which means BPB may earn a commission if you purchase through those links at no extra cost to you.Download: Fruitless Research Clew (FREE)
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Last Updated on September 10, 2026 by Tomislav Zlatic.
