United Plugins offer the Autoformer ($99 value) plugin by Soundevice Digital as a FREE download for a limited time.
Autoformer is available for FREE download until May 1st, 2022. We previously covered Autoformer as one of the four available options in a Plugin Boutique “free with any purchase” deal.
I’m glad to see it pop up again for anyone who missed it that time, including myself!
Autoformer is a few things in a single plugin. It has three stages, the Preamp, the Balancer, and the Compressor.
There are a few ways to look at plugins that do multiple things. Some people prefer a plugin to focus on a single task, and I’ve sometimes shared that opinion. But, when I have that opinion, I’m looking at a plugin that cuts corners or has a confusingly unintuitive GUI.
When a developer gets it right, I’ll drop my opinion and say it’s awesome. The priority is to get great results, and if I can get great results faster, that’s even better.
The Preamp stage has two knobs, Gain and Mojo (saturation), and offers three types of analog-inspired character via the BR, US, and GE buttons. Those buttons represent classic British, Punchy American, and vintage German tube consoles.
The concept comes from the Front DAW plugin, offering vintage console flavors from your bedroom.
Beyond the Preamp stage, the rest of Autoformer is designed to be much more transparent.
The Balancer stage (leveler) is a clever but straightforward volume rider. It has a main knob for adjustments and a Seer knob to set the desired lookahead. It’s an easy way to smooth out any volume inconsistencies and allow the track dynamics to shine properly.
The Compressor focuses on fixing or enhancing dynamics with fast, modern compression, with little to no color. Again, the controls are nice and simple; it features Gain, Squash, Time, Ratio, and Mix knobs.
Finally, an Output knob lets you control the signal leaving the plugin.
Five LED meters are in the middle of the GUI, allowing you to monitor each plugin stage rather than just input and output.
In any plugin, it’s often the tiny details that make it or break it. One small thing that I’m glad to see is that you can bypass each stage, which is sometimes overlooked when dealing with multi-stage plugins.
I could imagine Autoformer being a good starting point for various uses and simplifying the plugin chain in other cases.
The most important thing is that I will not miss this one twice, it’s mine!!!
United Plugins provided additional clarification for BPB readers: “For the readers – to get their license during the FREE period, they have to “buy” the license for $0 in our shop – which means they have to check out, as usual, to get the license to their account (but they are not paying).”
Autoformer is available in VST2, VST3, AU, and AAX formats for macOS (10.10 and later) and Windows (8 – 10). M1 Silicon Mac supported.
Download: Autoformer ($99 value, FREE until May 1st)
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27 Comments
Babis Q
onUsed three browsers… Their site fails at the last step and the order can’t be completed on my side.
James N
onHey, Babis
It worked fine on my end with Safari. Are you still having the same problem?
Cheers
James
Babis Q
onI don’t know probably hates my email or something which is a generic yopmail one that I use for freebies that require accounts.
I can’t get pass through the FastSpring popup. I click on “Place Order” and it reports that it can’t process it.
James N
onI used a gmail account, and it worked fine, but maybe try Tomislav’s suggestion of signing up first, then starting the checkout process – hopefully that does the trick!
Tomislav Zlatic
onJust tried it in Chrome (already had a United Plugins user account). The checkout worked without issues. Maybe you should sign up first and then try to complete the checkout?
james
onCheckout worked for me with firefox on linux. And to be clear- if checkout works in this env, it will work anywhere. The last step requires a payment portal call, and there are some cloudfront scripts that need to be allowed if you’re locked down.
Jamie M
onGod, April just keeps on giving for plugins
James N
onWe’ve had a very good run of late, let’s hope there’s no end in sight!
Robin van Es
onSite is offline for maintenance….
Bob
onYou can also get it free at bestservice
Aris
onYou can get it at plugin boutique too.
Tomislav Zlatic
onThanks for the tip! Added that link to the article because some readers were encountering checkout errors on the United Plugins website.
Babis Q
onThanks worked like a charm on Plugin Boutique!
James N
onGlad you got it one way or another, Babis!
Aris
onSoftube’s transient shaper has 88% off on plugin boutique and is currently at 11$.
James N
onGreat shout, I didn’t pick up the PHAT 2 free gift yet, so you’ve made my choice easier.
Cheers, Aris!
Tomislav Zlatic
onThat’s an epic deal, thanks Aris!
PureFire
onThanks so much James, BPB & Unitedplugins – Soundevice Digital, this sounds awesome, i will put this to good use 😉🙏❤️
James N
onYou’re welcome, Purefire! April has been great so far!
Cheers!
Nadir Mapp
onAlready got it but April is on fire
Tomislav Zlatic
onApril is the new Black Friday.
Numanoid
onThis freebie reminded me to finally register Front DAW, had it lying around since 2019 (blush ;-)
James N
onYou aren’t alone, I’m still planning to make time to go through everything I have, and make sure I’m using them all (or at least installing them all) haha
Tomislav Zlatic
onThat’s a great little plugin. Been using it a lot as a quick distortion/mojo tool.
Olaf
onthanks! i got it to give it a try.
Michal Ochedowski
onJust in case anyone was wondering, why the GT button is always switched on, even when user switches it off, saves the project and loads it again. I contacted United Plugins and they were very fast to reply. They are aware of this bug and will investigate it further.
Tomislav Zlatic
onThanks for the info!