The God Particle by Crane
I acquired that new plugin from Cradle, presented by Jaycen Joshua: The God Particle.
Since there was no user manual and very sparse information, I extensively tested myself to understand the process and how to use it in my work.
This plugin is designed to sit on your master bus and be almost the only process needed. But it can also be used as an instrument group process.
The first control to be hit with the incoming signal is the “input” with the relative knob and a smart level indicator with a box that turns fully green when the signal is in the ballpark. Then the fun starts. And It is divided into three sections, all individually switchable:
Section A is a 3-band EQ. The low band is a shelving curve centered around 160Hz, similar to a wide Pultec low band boost, but with no resonance with a +/- 6dB range. The mid-band is a bell curve with a Q factor 0,2 – centered at 650 Hz with a +/- 6dB range. The High-band is again a shelving filter centered at 10KHz. The slope is gentle and will somewhat affect frequency below the 10Kz point. The frequency response drops at the Nyquist frequency point. See the graphic plot.
Section B is the “God Particle” itself. Rotating the knob from 0% to 200%, you will get an increased amount of harmonic distortion, primarily centered in the low end, as seen in the following graph. There is a rough correspondence between the Harmonic distortion percentage to the range control if you imagine 2.00 instead of 200. 50% equals 0,5 harmonic distortion. The graph shows that it is biased toward the low end, even if there is a pretty evident spike on the 15K point that will help to make the high end sweeter (quite similar in look to the infamous 15k tone generated by the SSL SL4000 series mini-screen). And is very beneficial to the overall sound if used judiciously.
The bonus here is a very intriguing display that tries to mimic the enrichment of the sound. Nice but utterly useless as a meter.
Section C is a good Multi-Band Limiter. There are no parameters except the gain reduction control in the form of a pot with the limiter gain expressed in dB. The Eq section appears to affect the multi-band limiting profoundly.
Section D is positioned over the “gain reduction” label and is made by three display meters with a box that becomes fully green when the relative band is around the “sweet spot” for that band. There is no precise value or frequency range indication, but there is a strong relation with the EQ bands, even if the Highs seem more sensitive in the 8KHz range. Better information about how it works could be beneficial.
After the process, you have control of the output, so if you are interested in a fair comparison with the unprocessed signal, you can match it here. In the default state, the signal increases by a full 7dB. Bring it down to around -7dB to start matching to output to the input. Fine-tune it by ear.
I found no presets in the preset window, except the “default” one, apparently the Joshua starting point. And there is the possibility to scale the UI from 50% to 200%.
There is a hidden page that allows you to choose the oversampling processing. From 1x time to 8x with the resulting increase of required DSP power. It is also possible to change the metering for “RMS & Peak” mode to a “Short-term LUFS and Peak.” Lastly, there is the possibility of switching off the Particle animation.
This is it, folks. It is possible to download and try the plugin for 15 days. The average cost is, for now, around 119 $.
I hope that short review will help you with that plugin.
My verdict:
I like the plugin; having so much in only one processor is helpful. I am not sure I will use it in every mix, but it is a valid alternative to other all-in-one plugins like the “CLA Mixdown by Waves” or the good old “PSP Vintage Warmer 2”.
I will probably still use my preferred combination of mix-bus processing: Bettermaker EQ->Vertigo VSC-2->Fabfilter Pro-L2. I had good results also using it as a final limiter, just after my regular mix-bus chain.
©2023 Max Carola
Mixer | Producer | Composer
Links:
https://cradle.app/product/the-god-particle/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOFCpYsZXVk