VOODOO: three glowing valves in a smoked glass window above three band cards, each with DRIVE, BIAS, WIDTH, GHOST and GAIN, mid and side pages, global DENSITY, AIR, MIX and IRON

VOODOOFull interface, dark skin · img/voodoo-gui.jpg

JK Labs · Character and saturation

Voodoo

Name: VOODOO
Price: 79 GBP
Availability: InStock
Author: JK Labs

Weight in the low end, bite on the drums and width on the master, without losing control of the rest of the mix. Multiband mid/side tube saturation, measured from real circuits.

Three bands, each with its own mid and side. Three saturation circuits built from measurements of real valve and transformer hardware. GHOST keeps the punch, WIDTH stays mono-safe, and the MIX knob blends clean. Mac only, AU and VST3.

macOSAU + VST3Universal binaryTwo machines

Designed and measured by Jon Kong, the engineer behind 500M+ streams and four Beatport number ones, with mix and master credits for Carl Cox, Hot Since 82, Michael Bibi and Patrick Topping.

£79One-time · GBP

Buy the licence Hear it first

Licence key for two machines, move it yourself any time
AU and VST3 for macOS 10.13 or later, Apple Silicon and Intel
Every 1.x update included
Factory presets and the full manual

Secure checkout by Polar, VAT handled. Card, Apple Pay and Google Pay. Receipt and key by email within a minute. Want the free demo when it lands?

See it and hear it

Hear it first

WalkthroughVideo coming · set the YouTube ID in the page

Four short passes from real sessions. Press play, then flip between Dry and VOODOO while it runs.

DRY

MID DRIVE 87.8GHOST -26.4WIDTH 114%

Drums

Mid band driven, GHOST pulled back: the snap comes forward and the tails get tighter.

Audio coming

DRY

LOW DRIVE 71BIAS EVEN 40WIDTH 145%

Bass

Two bands, even bias: weight in the lows, bite on top.

Audio coming

DRY

SIDE DRIVE 47.8WIDTH 110%HARMONICS

Synths

Sides only: the centre stays put and the width opens up.

Audio coming

DRY

MID DRIVE 53SIDE LOW 35AIR 46.9

Master

Mid and sides driven together: more life and more width across the whole track.

Audio coming

Why VOODOO

Five reasons VOODOO works differently

Push an ordinary saturator for weight in the low end and the hats go gritty, the vocal fuzzes and the sides smear into the centre. VOODOO gives you control over where the saturation goes, so you can add character without dragging the rest of the mix with it.

01 · Measured

Fitted to real circuits, not drawn by eye

Every voice comes from bench measurements of real valve and transformer hardware, measured against the original signal to isolate the character of the circuit. Where the hardware does something a simple curve cannot, VOODOO reproduces the behaviour rather than approximating it.

02 · Bands and Mid/Side at once

Every band has its own mid and its own side

Most saturators give you bands, or mid and side, or treat them as one global setting. VOODOO gives you both on every band: separate DRIVE, BIAS, GHOST and GAIN for the centre and for the sides of the lows, the mids and the highs. Glue the kick in the middle, push the top of the sides, and nothing else moves.

03 · GHOST

Saturation that keeps its shape

Saturation makes things longer: push the drive and every tail comes up with it. GHOST fixes that. Turn it left and it pulls the tail back down as the sound decays, like a transient designer built into the saturator. Turn it right and it puts the drive on the hits and keeps the decay clean. Set per band, and separately for mid and side.

04 · Mono-safe by design

Make width from mono, then saturate it

WIDTH sits before the saturation on each band. Above 100% it manufactures side content from a mono source, and the circuit then colours that new width. Above 100%, WIDTH adds side information while the original mono sum stays bit for bit untouched.

05 · A MIX knob that works

Blend without the comb filter

Most multiband plugins comb-filter the moment you blend dry and wet, because the crossover shifts the phase. VOODOO blends the dry and saturated signals without that phase cancellation, so 50% mix is clean. Parallel saturation that sounds like the two halves together.

Three voices

Three saturation characters, built from real hardware.

Valve

Glue that stays glue through the breakdown

Even harmonics, the second far above the third, so it thickens without grit. It makes the same harmonics on a quiet passage as a loud one, so glue stays glue through the breakdown.

Harmonics

Edge on the hits, body stays clean

Odd harmonics behind a steep threshold. Transients cross it and sustain does not, so drums get their edge and the tail stays clean.

Tube

When you want the plugin to grab

The valve stage driven hard. Push it and the circuit holds the peaks itself, so reach for it on a bass or a vocal that needs holding in place.

The valve window

Three bands. The glow is the meter.

The three valves are the active channel's LOW, MID and HIGH. They glow brighter as you drive, the hue shifts with BIAS from peach for even harmonics to cyan for odd, and the dividers between them are the crossovers. Drag one and the frequency reads on the divider as it moves.

Two and three bands keep their own divider positions, so going 3 to 2 to 3 hands your original crossovers back untouched.

The valve window, three valves lit, two gold crossover dividers at 140 Hz and 2.6 kHz

Valve windowimg/voodoo-valves.png

Jon Kong · JK Labs

Built from real hardware. Shaped for the way I mix.

I measured these myself: a harmonic generator, a valve stage and a transformer, on a bench, driven hard, so what came back was the circuit and nothing else.

Then I wired them into combinations that do not exist as a box. Each of VALVE, HARMONICS and TUBE is a hand-picked chain of the measured stages, put together the way I wanted them on my own rack and could never find for sale.

Built from fifteen years of mixing and mastering records for artists including Carl Cox, Anyma, Hot Since 82, Michael Bibi and Patrick Topping.

5.4%distortion from the VALVE generator at minus 30 dBFS, where the valve and transformer beside it make 0.09%. A curve's harmonics always track level, so VALVE is built another way

30 → 15decibels in to decibels out on TUBE. The valve limits itself; the transformer sets the ceiling

0.0 dBdifference in bypass. Bit-identical to the input, and at factory default the plugin nulls

Everything in the box

Features

One, two or three bands with draggable crossovers. One band removes the crossover from the path entirely.
Stereo or Mid/Side, with independent DRIVE, BIAS, GHOST and GAIN for mid and side on every band.
Three measured voices, VALVE, HARMONICS and TUBE, in A and B slots level-matched to a tenth of a decibel.
GHOST makes drive follow transients, positive or negative, per band and per channel.
BIAS and WIDTH per band: even to odd harmonics with a live readout, and mono-safe width made before the saturation.
IRON, DENSITY, AIR and MIX globally, plus DRIVE ×2 for when 100 is not enough.
DELTA, MATCH, MONO and SIDE listening tools. DELTA plays only what was added; MATCH gives you a loudness-matched comparison so you judge the sound, not the volume.
True bypass that nulls bit-identical, and a click on any control's name bypasses it across every band.
Oversampling off, 2×, 4× or 8×. Off is light enough for every bus; 8× is there for the master.
A/B snapshots, factory presets, resizable interface with DARK and LIGHT skins, hover help and the manual built in.

Free demo · coming soon

A free demo is on the way. Get it first.

The demo will be the full plugin. Every voice, every band, Mid/Side, presets, the lot, for twenty minutes of audio per instance, then a reload for another twenty. It is being finished now. Leave your email and it comes to your inbox the day it is ready. Mac only, AU and VST3.

Questions

Before you buy

Which formats, DAWs and Macs does it work on?

AU and VST3 on macOS 10.13 or later, as a Universal binary for Apple Silicon and Intel. Logic, Ableton Live, FL Studio, Bitwig, Reaper, Studio One and Cubase are all covered. It passed pluginval at the strictest setting on both formats and Apple's auval in Logic. Pro Tools needs AAX, which VOODOO does not ship.

Is there a Windows version?

No. VOODOO is Mac only. If that changes, everyone on the demo list hears first.

When is the demo coming, and what is limited?

It is coming soon. Join the list above and it comes to your inbox the day it is ready. It will be the full plugin, limited only by time: twenty minutes of audio per instance, then reload for another twenty.

How does the two-machine licence work?

Your key activates on two Macs at once. Moving to a new machine takes a deactivation in the plugin's licence panel, or from your Polar customer portal, then activating on the new one. You manage it yourself.

Can I get a refund?

No. Instant delivery of the key means sales are final. Listen to the film and the before and after examples on this page first, or join the demo list and try it on your own sessions when the demo lands.

Product information

Specifications, downloads, changelog

Specifications

Formats	AU, VST3, standalone app
Operating system	macOS 10.13 or later
Processor	Universal binary, Apple Silicon native and Intel
Licence	Key based, two machines, self-service deactivation
Demo	Coming soon: full plugin, 20 minutes of signal per instance
Oversampling	Off, 2×, 4×, 8×
Validation	pluginval strictness 10, auval

Downloads

VOODOO installer for Mac: comes with your licence key in the Polar order email
Owner's manual (PDF)
Find my licence key (Polar customer portal)

Changelog

1.0 · First public release. Three measured voices, 1/2/3 bands, Mid/Side, GHOST, IRON, DRIVE ×2, DELTA and K-weighted MATCH, A/B, oversampling to 8×, dark and light skins.

Voodoo

Hear it first

Drums

Bass

Synths

Master

Five reasons VOODOO works differently

Fitted to real circuits, not drawn by eye

Every band has its own mid and its own side

Saturation that keeps its shape

Make width from mono, then saturate it

Blend without the comb filter

Three saturation characters, built from real hardware.

Glue that stays glue through the breakdown

Edge on the hits, body stays clean

When you want the plugin to grab

Three bands. The glow is the meter.

Built from real hardware. Shaped for the way I mix.

Features

A free demo is on the way. Get it first.

Before you buy

Specifications, downloads, changelog

Specifications

Downloads

Changelog

Hear what it does to your mix