While Lifeline Expanse simulates the space and characteristics of real recording environments and re-amping methods, Lifeline Console focuses on mixing in a control room, offering you the sound of sought-after hardware and analogue formats all within your DAW.

Each of the plugin’s five modules brings a particular vintage flavour to your signal chain:

• Pre-amp warms and enhances the signal with colourful saturation via a customisable frequency response.

• EQ offers characterful spectral shaping with a choice of analogue circuitry.

• Compressor makes quick work of dynamics duties and contains an innovative Auto Makeup control.

• Modulation imparts the movement and life of warped records and tape speed variations.

• Wear adds the charm and imperfections of old-school playback, introducing the noise, artefacts and unpredictable nature of tape, vinyl and cassette.

Whether you’re adding gentle sheen and signal enhancement, degrading a sound into a nostalgic, lo-fi production, or anything in between, there’s a module combination for whatever you need.

 Lifeline Console in Action

Hear how Lifeline Console can add an analogue feel to any kind of audio.

Three modes help you further refine the type of drive and enhancement needed:

• Bright offers a high-end presence and sheen that can bring an airy, sparkling quality.

• Warm adds body, smoothness and presence, particularly useful for midrange frequencies.

• Dark brings weight and punch to low frequencies.

Push-Pull saturation warms the signal with a weighted frequency response and then brings the overall gain back down – leaving only the spectral character of the preamp.

Dial-in the exact character of the response using Bias, Q and Shape controls.

Lifeline Console’s EQ offers a classic parametric four-band approach with a choice of three modes:

• Gain mode offers a clean circuit for simple and precise EQ jobs.

• Vintage Circuit mode introduces additional harmonics to drive a signal when boosting.

• Dirty Circuit mode brings all-out saturation and distortion into the EQing process.

With a low cut or shelf filter, low-mid and high-mid bands, plus a high cut or shelf filter, and the ability to work in 3dB or 30dB modes, Lifeline Console’s EQ offers everything from subtle tone shaping to powerful harmonic enhancement.

The Comp module provides three compression styles to deal with different production tasks:

• Analogue smooths out signals and imparts the character of revered compressor hardware.

• Transparent gives a clean, modern response that’s great for catching peaks while retaining a sound’s body.

• Variable provides an input-dependent response that’s great for smoothing vocals, glueing busses, and for mastering applications.

Controls on the Comp module include Threshold, Ratio, Attack and Release. Lifeline Console’s unique Auto-Makeup control simplifies the make-up gain process, by listening to your audio and applying the exact amount of gain required.

Further features include a Dry/Wet mix for parallel processing, a bandpass filter for frequency-specific compression and a gain reduction meter. As with all Lifeline Console modules, the compressor offers Mid/Side and Left/Right functionality.

Tape mode introduces subtle pitch modulation where the speed and depth are compensated – an increase in speed is countered by a corresponding decrease in depth. Vinyl simulates the warping of a record, lending a moderate pitch modulation with some speed and depth compensation. Cassette achieves a more extreme pitch modulation effect as heard on compact-style tapes, an effect which is left untamed by keeping speed and depth independent.

The Modulation section’s dual X/Y pads give you graphical control over two parameter combinations: Wow Speed and Depth, plus Flutter Speed and Depth.

Wow and Flutter is found in all three modulation modes, and can even be synced to your DAW’s tempo. Their Waveform Shape can be set to Sine, Linear or Random, and a Dry/Wet control lets you blend pitch modulation into an analogue flanging or chorus-style effect.

Three Wear modes – Tape, Vinyl and Cassette bring three types of recognisable degradation to your audio, and the Age control introduces the saturation and deterioration that occurs over time in these formats.

Noise properties in the Wear module include Amp (hiss), Hum (electrical noise), Mechanical (physical movement and whir), and Dust (light artefacts).

These signals can be ducked or triggered by input audio, letting you harness noise as a creative effect. The interactive display also reacts to your audio, noise, age, artefacts and dropouts.

Create musical elements out of your Artefacts and Dropouts such as light rhythms and subtle gating by syncing them to your project tempo.