SLAB

Drum bus · 415 Studios

Your drum bus is where a kit becomes one instrument or stays eight microphones. Most people get there with a chain: saturator, transient shaper, compressor, EQ, sub tool, forty knobs between them.

SLAB is that chain as one object. Pick a preset, turn one knob per stage, blend it in. The complicated part lives inside.

Built by a working drummer and tuned on his own takes. Every switch in the film is the same take at the same instant. The only thing that changes is the plugin.

AU and VST3 for macOS. Apple Silicon and Intel. Buy $79 (opens shop.415porter.com)

Hear it

Same take, same hit. The first row is untouched; the rest is the plugin and nothing else.

DryUNTOUCHED

0:00

HI-DEFCONSOLE

0:00

MOTOWNTAPE

0:00

ARENASOLO

0:00

SMACKLOC · PUNISH

0:00

Perseverance (Nate Foley), take 1. Drums by Porter Bliquez.

Inside

SLAB plugin window on the MOTOWN preset: six large knobs, a five-way style strip, five small knobs and three meters — MOTOWN. Tape, slow glue, dark top, nearly mono.

SLAB plugin window on the SMACK preset with the LOC circuit, PUNISH and CLIP engaged — SMACK. LOC circuit, punished, blended 45%.

One chain, one knob per stage: Punch, Body, Drive, Boom, Glue, Tone, Air, Width, Mix, Output
Five drive circuits, oversampled 2x: Tape, Console, Tube, Pentode, LOC. A Punish switch adds 20 dB
LOC is a fixed-threshold limiter whose release lengthens the harder it works, into a clipper
Boom is a tuned resonator, 30 to 150 Hz, soft-clipped so it cannot run away
Glue moves threshold, ratio, timing and make-up together
Width never widens below 150 Hz, so the low end stays mono
Mix is latency compensated and linear phase: any blend is phase coherent
Ten presets your DAW sees as programs: Flat, Motown, Hi-Def, Garage, Trap, Seventies, Dusty, Arena, Late Night, Smack
AU · VST3 · Standalone. Apple Silicon and Intel. macOS 11 or later
31 samples of latency at 48 kHz, reported to the host

Signed and notarized installer. Updates free for version 1. Buy $79 (opens shop.415porter.com)

Questions

Which DAWs does it work in?

Any macOS host that loads AU or VST3: Ableton Live, Logic Pro, FL Studio, Studio One, Reaper, Bitwig, Cubase. Pro Tools needs AAX, which SLAB does not ship yet.

Windows?

Not at launch. macOS 11 or later, Apple Silicon and Intel in one installer.

Is there a demo?

Not yet. The five previews above are the plugin on a real take with nothing else in the chain, so what you hear is what you get.

How do I install it?

Run the .pkg. It puts the AU in Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components and the VST3 in Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST3. Logic validates the AU on its next launch.

Something wrong?

Email porter@415porter.com with your macOS version and DAW. Updates for version 1 are free.