As this week's Free Plug-in, we are featuring Little Radiator from Soundtoys, a model of an Altec tube preamp which adds old school colour and warmth.
This modeled tube pre-amp from Soundtoys is based on the Altec 1566A, a simple little preamp straight out of the Motown Era. Little Radiator drives and breaks up in very interesting ways, creating rich harmonic distortion, exactly like the 1566A.
Introduced in the early 1960s, the 1566A was a three-stage mic preamp and power supply, in a single-space rack unit, all behind an unmistakable and very green faceplate. By today’s standards, the sound of the Altec is colored and gritty, with a generous amount of old-fashioned hardware noise. After all, these devices were primarily meant to supply PA systems and could be found in churches, school auditoriums, and roller rinks all across the United States.
The Plugin itself is simple, with a heat knob controlling the amount of drive, and mix knob for parallel use and a bias switch selects between two subtly different styles of distortion based from saturation characteristics observed in different 1566A units. Noise can be switched out (unlike on the the hardware…)
How Do I Get This Plug-in?
Use the button below to go to the Soundtoys website. Purchase Little Radiator. Fill In the form with an email address and supply your postal address. Don’t worry about the price shown, you’ll zero that with the code in the next step. Go to checkout and apply the code HOLIDAYHEAT and the total will be zeroed out and your purchase will be free.
Get the download link and the activation key and install. This offer runs until January 2nd 2023 and is limited to one per customer.
Little Radiator is available for Windows, or Intel or M1 Mac as a VST, AU or AAX plugin. PACE account required.
Julian Rodgers is Editor of Production Expert. He has a background in live sound and has been a Pro Tools user since 2001. He lives by the sea in West Cornwall where he plays piano, bass and guitar equally badly and is an avid collector of microphones and opinions about all things audio.