Big Man Labs has released Bigulator, a circuit-level model of a rare analog mastering clipper. The plugin is available for Windows, macOS and Linux in VST3, AU, AAX and CLAP formats, priced at $42 with a 14-day free trial.

Circuit Modeling Without Envelope

The original hardware is unusual: a VCA in series with the audio, its control port driven at audio rate by a peak-skimming rectifier. As a result, there is no envelope, no attack and no release. Gain reduction at any instant depends only on the waveform at that instant. Bigulator was derived from the schematic and fitted to measurements of the real unit.

According to the developer, the result sits somewhere between a clipper, a limiter and a saturator. Winding the threshold down changes the behavior gradually, so the processor moves from clipping toward saturation.

Multiband Clipping and Digital Extras

Bigulator extends the hardware concept with features the analog unit could not offer. For instance, you can split the signal into up to three freely overlapping bands, each running its own instance of the model. Moreover, both minimum phase and linear phase crossover engines are included. Linear Phase Deep offers steeper separation at the cost of more latency, which is always reported and host-compensated.

In addition, the output stage includes a multi-voice digital clipper with four voicings: Tight, Punch, Smooth and Smoother. Oversampling goes up to 16x to reduce aliasing. A phase-matched parallel MIX control keeps the blend comb-free, even in multiband mode.

Controls and Workflow

Threshold, Ratio and Asym are the core controls. Asym exposes the hardware’s channel imbalance as a knob, adding even-order harmonics. Notably, threshold and ratio interact, exactly as on the original unit. A GPU-accelerated display shows input, output and each band’s gain reduction in real time.

Features

• Circuit-derived model fitted to hardware measurements
• Zero attack, zero release audio-rate gain law
• One to three bands with overlapping crossovers
• Minimum Phase, Linear Phase and Linear Phase Deep crossovers
• Asym control for even-order harmonic color
• Oversampling up to 16x
• Phase-matched parallel blend
• Digital sum clipper with four voicings
• GPU-accelerated real-time gain reduction display
• VST3, AU, AAX and CLAP on Windows, macOS and Linux

Price
$42 (one-time purchase, all formats and platforms included)
14-day free trial available

More info: Big Man Labs | Bigulator