Burnish

A mastering suite for Ableton Live, built as a VST3 audio effect. Version 0.1.0.

Eighteen modules go in any order on one signal chain: equalisers, multiband and vintage dynamics, a true-peak Maximizer, saturation, stereo width, tape, and tools for the low end and the spectrum. Around them sit loudness metering, a bypass that matches levels so the comparison is fair, and dither for the final file. It goes last on the master channel.

If you'd rather not build the chain yourself, ASSIST listens to the song and builds one toward a genre target or a reference track of your own, then gives you a handful of controls to adjust what it decided.

The Burnish panel: a header with presets, snapshots and ASSIST; the signal chain as a row of module tiles; the selected equaliser with its curve over a spectrum analyser; and the I/O panel on the right with meters, loudness and dither

What it does

Signal chain: One tile per module, in signal order. Drag to reorder, click to open, solo or switch off any of them. A meter on each tile shows how much that module is changing the level.
Equalisers: Two eight-band EQs with seventeen filter shapes, minimum or linear phase; a six-band dynamic EQ; a passive-style vintage EQ; and Match EQ, which moves your track's tonal balance toward a reference.
Dynamics: A four-band compressor and limiter with upward compression, a vintage feedback compressor, a variable-mu-style vintage limiter, and Impact for the punch inside each band.
Maximizer: A true-peak look-ahead limiter with six modes including a multiband one, soft clipping, upward compression, transient emphasis, and LEARN GAIN to land on a loudness target.
Colour and space: An exciter with seven kinds of saturation per band, Vintage Tape with head bump and speed, and an Imager with per-band width, STEREOIZE and a vectorscope.
Low end and spectrum: Bass Control and Low End Focus for the bottom octaves; Clarity, Stabilizer and Spectral Shaper, which listen to the spectrum and adjust as the song moves.
ASSIST: Pick one of eleven genre targets or load a reference, choose how strong, press START and play the loudest part. It builds EQ, bass, clarity, dynamics, width and loudness toward the target, with a tonal balance meter showing your song against it.
I/O and delivery: Peak, RMS and LUFS meters, integrated, short-term and momentary loudness and true peak to ITU-R BS.1770 / EBU R128, GAIN MATCH, MONO and SWAP, and dither from 24 down to 8 bits with five noise shaping curves.

Every control is a host parameter. Twelve factory chains, presets for each module, undo, and four snapshots for A/B comparisons.

Video

Walkthrough video — not up yet.

Documentation

Guide (PDF) — a tour of the panel, a first session in Live, building a chain by hand, ASSIST, every module in turn, and dither and exporting for streaming, downloads, CD and vinyl.

Every control is also described in the project README.

Download

Builds are on the releases page. Every archive includes the guide. VST3 only — there is no Audio Unit build, so Burnish will not load in Logic.

Installation notes are on the front page.

Source

github.com/taddeimania/burnish — C++ and JUCE, AGPLv3.