Less Tube · saturation · free

Valve saturation with the curve on screen

Less Tube adds valve saturation with two models: Triode for even-harmonic warmth, Iron for transformer weight in the lows. The transfer curve and a live harmonic display show what your settings do while the music plays, and a bias control sets the balance of even and odd harmonics.

Less Tube interface

Two models

Triode: soft, even-harmonic warmth. Iron: a transformer stage that saturates the lows first.

Live harmonic fingerprint

The evens and odds your settings produce, at the level you are actually driving, while the music plays.

Loudness-matched auto gain

A/B is about character, not level: the wet path glides back to the input's perceived loudness.

Delta listen

Solo the difference between input and output to hear what the valve contributes. With bypass on, delta plays silence, which doubles as the bypass test.

Multiband drive

Two crossovers, three regions, one latency on every path.

Specifications
FormatsAU, VST3
Latency48 samples, reported exactly
Oversampling4x, polyphase FIR
ModelsTriode, Iron
Factory presets6
Channelsmono, stereo, mid/side placement
Measured
Alias fold, bare stagemore than 80 dB below the fundamental, 7 kHz tone at maximum drive
Alias fold, full pathabove 60 dB, locked by test on every build
Small signal responseunity, every model

Two more models, Pentode and Vari-Mu, arrive later as a paid addition. Triode and Iron stay free, and nothing you save today will ever remap: the model parameter reserves all four slots from day one.