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Update: 2024-10-31

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SpectralPhaser is an effect that produces a phaser-like sound by applying a mask in the frequency domain. In addition to FFT, fast Walsh-Hadamard transform (FWHT) and Haar transform are available.

Note: Presets produce the expected sound only if the sampling rate is 48000 Hz.

full package contains following builds.

Linux build is built on Ubuntu 24.04. If you are using distribution other than Ubuntu 24.04, plugin will not likely to run. In this case, please take a look at build instruction.

macOS package is recommended for macOS user. I can’t purchase Apple Developer Program, therefore installation requires a workaround to bypass Gatekeeper. Details of workaround are written in Installation -> macOS Specific section.

Feel free to contact me on GitHub repository or ryukau@gmail.com.

You can fund the development through paypal.me/ryukau.

Move *.vst3 directory to:

DAW may provides additional VST3 directory. For more information, please refer to the manual of the DAW.

Notice: Some plugins don’t have presets provided by Uhhyou Plugins.

Presets are included in the plugin package linked at the top of this page. To install presets, follow the steps below.

  1. Download plugin from a link at the top of this page.
  2. Extract downloaded zip file.
  3. Open presets directory placed in extracted package.
  4. Move Uhhyou directory into an OS specific preset directory (see below).

Below is a list of preset directories for each OS.

Preset directory name must be the same as the plugin. If preset directory does not exist, create it.

If DAW doesn’t recognize the plugin, try installing C++ redistributable (vc_redist.x64.exe). Installer can be found in the link below.

On Ubuntu 24.04, those packages are required.

sudo apt install libxcb-cursor0  libxkbcommon-x11-0

If DAW doesn’t recognize the plugin, take a look at Package Requirements section of the link below and make sure all the VST3 related package is installed.

REAPER on Linux may not recognize the plugin. A workaround is to delete a file ~/.config/REAPER/reaper-vstplugins64.ini and restart REAPER.

Important: full package is not confirmed working. When using full, try removing following files.

macOS package doesn’t contain above files. Also, all packages are in “ad-hoc signing” state set by codesign command.

When trying to run plugin first time, following message may appear on macOS.

<PluginName>.vst3 is damaged and can't be opened. You should move it to the Trash.

In this case, open terminal and try running one or both of following command to unzipped .vst3 directory. Replace /path/to/PluginName.vst3 according to your install location.

xattr -rd com.apple.quarantine /path/to/PluginName.vst3
xattr -rc /path/to/PluginName.vst3

Plugin may be considered as unsigned/un-notarized application. In this case, open System Preferences, go to Security & Privacy → General, then click the Open Anyway button. The offcial Apple help page linked below has screenshots for the procedure. See “If you want to open an app that hasn’t been notarized or is from an unidentified developer” section.

If the plugin is still not working, try changing install location to /Library/Audio/Plug-ins/VST3/ or /Users/$USERNAME/Library/Audio/Plug-ins/VST3/ whichever still haven’t tried.

If all the above methods do not work, try following the steps below.

  1. Open terminal and run sudo spctl --master-disable.
  2. Go to System Preferences → Security and Privacy → General → Allow apps downloaded from, then select “Anywhere”.

Beware that steps above degrades security of your system. To revert the settings, follow the steps below.

  1. Go to System Preferences → Security and Privacy → General → Allow apps downloaded from, then select option to “App Store and identified developers”.
  2. Open terminal and run sudo spctl --master-enable.

Note This section may not relevant to macOS packages. However it’s not verified. (GitHub issue)

To use full package, following command might be used.

sudo codesign --force --deep -s - /path/to/PluginName.vst3

codesign might not be available without installing Xcode.

At first time, create color config file to:

style.json will be loaded for each time a plugin window opens.

Several color themes are available on the link below. To use, copy the text to style.json.

Below is an example of style.json.

{
  "fontFamily"        : "Tinos"    ,
  "fontBold"          : true       ,
  "fontItalic"        : true       ,
  "foreground"        : "#000000"  ,
  "foregroundButtonOn": "#000000"  ,
  "foregroundInactive": "#8a8a8a"  ,
  "background"        : "#ffffff"  ,
  "boxBackground"     : "#ffffff"  ,
  "border"            : "#000000"  ,
  "borderCheckbox"    : "#000000"  ,
  "borderLabel"       : "#000000"  ,
  "unfocused"         : "#dddddd"  ,
  "highlightMain"     : "#0ba4f1"  ,
  "highlightAccent"   : "#13c136"  ,
  "highlightButton"   : "#fcc04f"  ,
  "highlightWarning"  : "#fc8080"  ,
  "overlay"           : "#00000088",
  "overlayHighlight"  : "#00ff0033"
}

Following is a list of font options.

System font can be used as fontFamily. To use different fonts for different plugins, place *.ttf file into custom font path: *.vst3/Contents/Resources/Fonts.

Notice: If the combination of fontFamily, fontBold, fontItalic does not exist in custom font path, default font of VSTGUI is used.

If fontFamily is set to empty string "", then "Tinos" is used as fallback. If the length is greater than 1 and the font family name doesn’t exist, default font of VSTGUI is used.

Styles other than bold, italic or bold-italic are not supported by VSTGUI. For example, “Thin”, “Light”, “Medium”, and “Black” weights cannot be used.

Hex color codes are used.

First letter # is conventional. Plugins ignore the first letter of color code, thus ?102938, \n11335577 are valid.

Do not use characters outside of 0-9a-f for color value.

Following is a list of color options. If an option is missing, default color will be used.

Right Click on the controls pops up a context menu provided by DAW.

Knob and slider provides following controls:

If the image is small, use Ctrl + Mouse Wheel or “View Image” on right click menu to scale.

Diagram only shows overview. It’s not exact implementation.

Characters inside of square brackets [] represents unit. Following is a list of units used in SpectralPhaser.

Output [dB]

Output gain.

Dry/Wet

Mixing ratio of input and effect output.

0 is input only, 1 is effect output only.

Side Chain

When enabled, the sidechain input is used for frequency masking.

SpectralPhaser could be used as a vocoder when both Side Chain and Latency are enabled. In this case, set Frame Size to around 2048. If Frame Size is small, the effect will be weaker.

The vocoder mode is not suitable for real-time use because latency is high.

Latency

When enabled, Frame Size will be used as latency in samples.

Waveform

LFO waveform.

Wave Mod.

LFO waveform modifier.

Phase

Initial phase of LFO.

Stereo

Phase offset of LFOs between left and right channels.

Rate

LFO frequency multiplier.

This can be useful to slightly shift the tempo sync timing.

Sync.

Interval of LFO tempo synchronization.

2 numbers corresponds to the numerals in time signatur. (left/right = upper/lower).

The plugin receives musical time as beats, where a beat has a relative length depending on the time signature. Here are some examples:

When time signature is changed, there may be a momentary loss of sync immediately after the change.

Transform

Type of time to frequency transformation.

FFT is the normal choice, FWHT and Haar will sound rough.

Attention: Changing Transform stops the sound for duration of Frame Size. This is because the buffer is reset to avoid loud bursts.

Frame Size

Length of a frame over which a transform is performed.

Frame Size also represents delay time in samples.

When Latency is enabled, Frame Size will be used as latency in samples.

When Frame Size is large and DAW buffer size is small, the sound may stutter. In this case, reduce Frame Size to reduce CPU load.

Feedback

Feedback gain of delay.

LFO modulation can be changed by the small knobs on right side of parameter value.

Waveform

Waveform of frequency mask.

Mix

Mixing ratio of frequency mask.

0 means no masking, 1 means full masking.

Phase

Phase of the frequency mask waveform.

Modulating Phase with an LFO produces a sound similar to a phaser.

Freq.

Frequency of frequency mask waveform.

Higher the Freq., more notches.

Setting Freq. to 0 disables frequency masking.

When Waveform is Noise, there is no waveform frequency, so instead the random seed value is changed.

Threshold

When a value in a frequency mask is less than Threshold, the corresponding frequency is set to zero.

Rotation

Amount of phase rotation in the frequency domain.

This only applies when Transform is FFT; when other transforms are selected, Rotation is used as an amount to swap frequency components.

Spectral Shift

Frequency shift amount for each feedback.

Texture

Scaling that changes the location of the notches in the frequency mask.

When Waveform is Noise, the frequency mask is smoothed by applying a low-pass filter.

N/A.

SpectralPhaser is licensed under GPLv3. Complete licenses are linked below.

If the link above doesn’t work, please send email to ryukau@gmail.com.

VST is a trademark of Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH, registered in Europe and other countries.