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Version 1.1.0

GTS Drive Strip

A transformer-drive channel strip, measured from the hardware up. Seven drive characters in three banks, six compressor families fitted to the classics, and a way to hear exactly what it is adding.

GTS Drive Strip

Transformer-drive channel strip.

  • D · DIGITAL Grit · Rectify — crunchy
  • A · ANALOG Warm · Silk · Tape · Hearth — warm & natural
  • G · GOLD Gold — expensive, tuned
  • Three voicing banks, seven measured drive characters, with flux-bloom saturation
  • Six compressor families — Clean, VCA, FET, Opto, Vari-Mu, Bus — every one fitted to measurements
  • Delta monitoring: hear only what the plugin is adding, nothing else
  • Auto-level input and output planes — loudness-honest in and out
  • Resonant filters with MIDI keytracking · 4-band EQ with adaptive Q
  • Soft-knee or hard ceiling on a 16×-oversampled output clip
AUVST3CLAP macOS 11+ · universalWindows — in development
Buy — $79 Try it free for 14 days Launch price $79 through December 31 · list $129 · 1.1.0 shipped
The GTS Drive Strip plugin interface: CHARACTER deck with drive banks and filters above the analyzer window, CONSOLE deck with EQ, compressor and clip below.
The whole face. Every shot on this page is rendered from the real plugin with real audio running through it — the analyzer, meters and gain-reduction arc show actual program material, not a mock-up.
What is in 1.1

Two decks and a window.

The CHARACTER deck — banks, drive, filters — sits above the analyzer window; the CONSOLE deck — EQ, compressor, clip — below it. The window draws the composite filter and EQ curve over the live spectrum, so the picture between the decks is a picture of what the chain is doing.

GTS Drive Strip with delta monitoring engaged: the chassis framed in amber, spectrum showing the difference signal.
Delta monitoring. Output minus input, so you hear the saturation's harmonics, the EQ's lift and the compressor's movement — and nothing else. Verified as a true difference to −143.8 dBFS. The chassis frames in amber the whole time it is on, because the way a difference monitor hurts you is silently.
The DRIVE panel: D, A and G bank orbs above the four Analog voicings and the hero drive knob.
Banks, not a longer list. D, A and G are three tuned personalities. Switching bank re-themes the accent and swaps the roster underneath the same four slots, so existing automation never rescales.
The analyzer window showing the composite filters and EQ transfer curve over a live spectrum.
The window. The composite FILTERS + EQ transfer curve, drawn over the live spectrum with a draggable handle at each band. There are no Q knobs: Q follows gain by a law fitted from console-EQ measurements. Scroll a handle when you want explicit Q.
The input and output rail: LEARN button mid-window, LUFS-S arc, and the plane rail from BACK to FRONT.
Loudness-honest, both ends. LEARN calibrates the input against a −18 LUFS reference and freezes it. The output rail moves the mix back or forward in depth, ±6 dB in 1.5 dB steps, without touching your trim.
The drawer open on DRIFT: distance, random, speed and stereo controls with the activity dot lit.
Drift. Static saturation is a photograph. Drift moves the drive and filters the way hardware wanders — from a pure LFO to a smoothed random walk, free-running or tempo-synced. It lives in the drawer with keytracking; an activity dot means an engaged Drift is never invisible.
Five small-multiple panels showing measured gain-recovery curves for the FET, VCA, Opto, Vari-Mu and Bus compressor characters.
Ten reference compressors went on the bench. The digital baseline was set aside — it is the reference for no character, not a character — and the nine analogue units fell into five release characters. Every curve here is measured, not modelled: a 2 kHz tone driven 18 dB over threshold, held three seconds, then released.
Formats
AU · VST3 · CLAP
Platform
macOS 11+ · Apple Silicon + Intel
Windows
In development
Drive path
4× oversampled
Clip stage
16× oversampled
Latency
Reported to host, constant
MIDI
Note input for keytracking
Presets
16 factory + user presets
CPU
4.40 % of one core @ 48 kHz
Validation
pluginval 10 · clap-validator 34/0 · auval
Sessions
1.0 and beta sessions load unchanged
License
Perpetual · 3 machines · serial + keyfile · no iLok
Try it free

Fourteen days, the whole plugin.

Leave your name and email and the installer link arrives in your inbox. Open the plugin, click its name in the header, and start the trial — nothing crippled, nothing watermarked.

  • Version 1.1.0 · AU / VST3 / CLAP · macOS 11+ · Apple Silicon + Intel
  • When the trial ends it passes audio untouched — never silence — until you add a serial
  • Perpetual license, three machines, no iLok, no subscription

Buy — $79

Launch price $79 through December 31 · list $129. The serial arrives by email the moment you buy, with the installer link; activation is one click in the plugin, and offline machines get a keyfile from your account page.

News
Not ready for $79?

GTS Drive Lite: free, out this week.

Three of these voicings — Grit, Hearth and Gold — on one knob, level-matched as you turn it, with LEARN and the plane rail. Same measured DSP, just less of it. Free always and forever: no serial, no time limit.

−207 dB

Null-tested, every build

Shipping DSP must cancel against its lab reference. GTS Drive Strip's C++ engine nulls against the Python model it was fitted from at −207 dBFS — float64 rounding noise. If it cannot, it does not ship.

Published

Measurements you can read

Distortion plots generated by the same harness that gates the release, posted with the product. Lab output, not marketing claims.

4.40 %

Of one core, per instance

Measured at 48 kHz on Apple silicon across a hundred instances. The cost is the always-on drive path; turning the whole feature surface on moves it by 14 %.

Yours

Perpetual licenses

Serial + keyfile activation. No iLok. No subscriptions. Buy it once, keep it working.

Harmonic distortion versus drive for each GTS Drive Strip voicing, measured at 1 kHz with a minus 18 dBFS input.
Harmonic distortion against the drive knob, per voicing, at 1 kHz and −18 dBFS in. Gold stays near 1 % at the cranked setting and under 5 % flat out; Rectify passes 30 %. This is what "measure first, listen always" produces — you can see the character before you hear it.
Changelog How these plugins are built Questions? Email Rob