SW COLOR · VERSION 1.0

Character, with control.

Three saturation styles, a central Drive control, and a separate way to shape the movement of a track.

Start with the sound

Choose a style and turn Drive up until the character feels right.
Adjust Character and Tone, then blend with Mix if you want some clean signal back.
Enable Dynamics to soften peaks or preserve the feeling of an attack.
Set Output for your track. For a comparison with less loudness bias, try Auto Gain in Utilities.

Drive is meant to add color and can raise the level. Drive Compensation and Auto Gain are both off in a new instance.

Three ways to add character

Preamp: Density and edge. A direct starting point when you want a track to feel more present.
Tube: Asymmetric saturation with warmth and bloom. Push Drive for stronger harmonic character.
Tape: A stateful magnetic response with rounded weight and a softer upper range. Its tone changes with level.

These are original styles, rather than replicas of a particular piece of hardware.

The controls

Drive · 0–100%: How hard the signal drives the saturation stage. The blue ring and surrounding glow respond to measured activity.
Character: Changes voicing and response: Open–Rounded in Preamp, Clear–Rich in Tube, and Firm–Soft in Tape.
Dynamics · Soften / Preserve: Turn left to bring body forward and soften peaks relative to it. Turn right to emphasize attacks. Center is neutral. The On/Off switch keeps your amount when disabled. This is not a limiter and does not set an absolute peak ceiling.
Tone · Dark / Bright: Adjust the tonal balance of the processed signal.
Mix · 0–100%: Blend between the latency-aligned dry and processed signals.
Output · −18 to +18 dB: Set the final level, after optional Auto Gain.
Low Cut / High Cut: Low Cut (20–350 Hz) filters before saturation. High Cut (3–20 kHz) filters after saturation. Both affect the processed path. Each has its own enable button and starts off.
Input · Utilities: Trim the input by up to 18 dB in either direction before processing.

Two different kinds of gain matching

Drive Compensation

A fixed reference calibration offsets some of the expected level rise as you change Drive, Character, or style. It does not follow your music.

Auto Gain

Compares the input reference with the processed mix and adjusts gradually as the material changes. It helps you judge character with less loudness bias. It is bounded to ±12 dB and does not guarantee perfect perceived loudness matching.

Both options are in Utilities. Output remains available for your final level choice. Saved instances keep their existing switch settings.

Where is the oversampling setting?

SW Color handles it automatically. Saturation runs at a higher internal sample rate, then returns to your session’s rate. Automatic internal upsampling reduces unwanted digital artifacts, with no oversampling setting to manage.

Playback and export use the same processing. There is no separate export quality mode.

Sample rates and latency

The engine supports 32–192 kHz. It uses 8× upsampling through 80 kHz, 4× above 80 through 160 kHz, and 2× above 160 kHz. Reported latency is six host samples for 8×/4× and four for 2×. Your DAW can compensate for that delay.

Make the interface yours

Resize the window freely, choose an accent theme, and use A/B to compare settings. The ? button switches hover help on or off. Cmd-click resets a control on Mac; Ctrl-click is the Windows reset gesture. Use the numeric value for exact entry.

The glow reflects measured activity; it is not a waveform or distortion meter. Turn Animation off in Utilities when you prefer a still display. Bypass dims the interface.