FabFilter at 20 - Two Decades Of Distinctively Superior Plug-ins
by Scott Jay
12th August 2024
Sponsored by FabFilter
The FabFilter Software Instruments logo in 2024
Two decades might not be a long time in some industries. Sectors that move at a slower pace, are not as hostage to trends and fads, and of course those that are not reliant on digital development in an ever-evolving ecosystem will never mark 20 years as the same milestone as those in the high-tech arenas. Your average carpentry shop, knife maker, tire maker, heck, even piano builder, to bring it closer to our business, might be fully expected to hit 20 years and think nothing of it.
Things are different in the digital audio plug-in world. Since FabFilter started the pro audio world has seen a large number of companies arrive with fanfare and fizzle out to the digital graveyard. Twenty years ago native systems barely existed - expensive TDM cards were still a Thing - and requiring outboard hardware to run DSP was completely normal, and indeed, acceptable. The early wild-west days of third party plugins, whether TDM, eventually RTAS, VST or even Audio Units in their infancy were a novelty in some ways - often just a nice-looking graphic with disappointing sonics. Studios that ran strictly native plugins were actually looked down upon, for a little while anyway. Additionally, the cost of the computer power required to run even a handful of plug-ins - some “not quite there yet” was astronomical compared to what an entry-level laptop can run now - more powerfully, and at a far lower price in relative terms.
One Vision
It’s March 17, 2004. A new company, FabFilter Software Instruments, issues a press release.
“FabFilter One promises exceptional sound quality and innovative filter design,” it boldly read. It started out as a simple VSTi and standalone piece of software for the at the time universally-used Windows 98/NT/2000.
In Amsterdam, in the Netherlands, Floris Klinkert and Frederik Slijkerman built a product - a simple synth plug-in, in fact, and shipped it. Retailing for USD $79 at launch (that’s $131 in 2024 money!) - it would be a lot of people’s gateway drug to the FabFilter pantheon, but for a while of course, it would be the only plug-in in their FabFilter folders.
Maarten De Boer has been with FabFilter for a decade and knows all their stories and history, so it’s him I’m chatting with about the past, the present, and the future of the Dutch developer.
“We're located in the city center of Amsterdam with a view on one of the oldest canals. Our office is pretty spacious for a small team. We have a lot of synthesizers at the office, tons of magazines and our new addition, a vinyl player. It's a great atmosphere!” he smiles when I ask him about what the FabFilter office looks like today.
“We're playing a lot of vinyl in our office at the moment. We recently acquired (a record) player and went to a record store with the team. Everyone picked out 5/10 records and they're on rotation constantly. There's a lot of variety, from Kraftwerk to Burial, to Hendrix and Pink Floyd to Tribe and Miles Davis,” he says with an obvious love for the past masters in his voice.
And it’s the past I want to start with - maybe not quite as far back as Hendrix or even the early days of Miles Davis, but about twenty years. I ask how the company was willed into existence.
“FabFilter was founded with the release of FabFilter One, a software synth that was very heavily based on the Korg MS-10. Basically, a digital version. It is quite crazy how similar the filter sounds compared to the analog one we have here in our office. Floris and Frederik were of course very excited when they sold their first plug-in. In those days the plug-in market was still relatively small but the excitement around digital production tools grew very quickly and it was exciting to be a part of the development,” Maarten tells me about the initial release.
Surprisingly - or maybe unsurprisingly, knowing what we now know about FabFilter’s dedication to support, FabFilter One is still available to this day. In fact, this writer personally remembers getting in on a very special offer in about 2009 or so for just €5. But today you can have it for just $49, marking quite a decrease in the retail price across the decades.
Maarten assures us that it’s still a popular seller, especially now having been expanded to all major plug-in formats and across most major platform changes with various OS and CPU types. “FabFilter One is still sold today almost identical to the very first release! Of course (there have been) little tweaks here and there to keep it up-to-date but it sounds exactly the same as it did on first release,” he confirms.
An Eruption Of Sonic Possibilities
‘One’ went through several version iterations with expanded capabilities, more compatibility (including OSX/AU) and improved efficiency over the months that followed, but it wasn’t until v3.01 was on the market that FabFilter would unveil their next release - and it was a dedicated filter plug-in, as is befitting of their company name. Volcano was announced on May 25, 2005, both extracting and expanding and improving upon their exceptional digital filter construction know-how that was perfected with One. Available from launch as a VST2 or AU plug-in, this was the first signal processor in their lineup, and it too is still available to this day.
The Q-Zone
Between 2005 and 2009 FabFilter was prolific - they released a multi-voice synth in Twin, a simplified (and cheaper) version of Volcano in the filter plugin Simplon, a beautiful and powerful delay called Timeless and Pro-C, the first of their ‘Pro’ lineup of plugins which are the most fully featured and most powerful plug-ins they make, notable for both their extremely high-end sonics and their versatility. Gearspace users talk about their application in both music and audio post production forums with equal proportion. In 2007, RTAS versions of all their plug-ins were made available for Pro Tools LE users. Before November of 2009 came v2 upgrades of most everything. And then in November - the 16th to be exact, FabFilter Pro-Q was announced. This is the plug-in that would deservedly propel them into the stratosphere of developers, if such a thing existed.
Although FabFilter One’s GUI is largely unchanged over the years, some of the other plugins - like Volcano - have seen makeovers worthy of a reality TV show. Volcano 2 (above) and 3 (below) show just how far their graphic design work has evolved.
Maarten waxes poetic about this one, understandably. “Without a doubt, our most popular product is Pro-Q, currently in its third version - Q 3. When Pro-Q was first released there weren't any plug-ins around that allowed you to interact with the eq curves and interface the way it is widely adapted now. A lot of plug-ins looked like they were recreations of analog hardware, rotary knobs and sliders,” he says. And he’s right of course - analog emulations were all the rage, with very few plugins really thinking forward in terms of what was possible in a GUI. It’s futuristic, yes, but the plug-in itself is also deeply configurable. With such a vast amount of filter types and EQ curves at one’s disposal, with linear-phase or minimum-phase options, mid-side processing and more, this isn’t just one EQ - it’s a small collection of EQs, all with a very transparent sound quality and notable for its ability to correct things, rather than color them.
British engineer/producer Peter Dowsett reviewed the plug-in on Gearspace back in 2012, and the first line of his thoughts sums everything up entirely - “I’ll cut straight to the chase: FabFilter Pro-Q is the most elegant, intuitive and enjoyable EQ I have ever used and, dare I say it, “The best on the market”.
Other forum reviews are similarly positive:
The ease of use is one of the best parts - click anywhere to create a band, then play with it until it sounds good. The plug-in is also quietly the favourite of the FabFilter crew - “we use it all the time!” says Maarten enthusiastically.
Pro-Q would go on to see updates to v2 in 2014 and the current - and legendary - v3 in 2018, which added a dynamic EQ function that lifted the sonic potential to new heights.
But wait, there’s more!
Before Pro-Q3 was released however, there were more ideas from the ever-expanding, but still tight team at FabFilter. The Micro mini-filter came out in 2010 for just 15 euros for people who wanted a taste of this excellent filter design. It was at the same time top-notch, top-shelf, and a top plug-in, despite the simplicity.
The Pro-L limiter and Pro-G gate plugins expanded the Pro series in 2011/12. The Saturn distortion and saturation tool, the Pro-DS de-esser, the Pro-MB multiband compressor and the Pro-R reverb would all see the light of day between 2014 and 2018. FabFilter was building a toolset that was rivaled by only a few other developers - and always trying to keep the prices fair for the working/hobbyist engineers, but reflective of the high-end tech under the hood.
Keeping up with their users’ demands was probably the most difficult part of the job during that heady decade, Maarten recounts. But having a good team helps. “One of the biggest challenges without a doubt, is how to fit all this tech into an interface that is clear, easy to use and self explanatory. Of course, we always get a lot of feature requests as technology develops very swiftly and people get used to product fast. Everyone has their own workflow and it is a real challenge to make an interface that is a breeze to use while also sounding great. We tend to divide the tasks on who works what part of the plug-in, each broadening their level of expertise,“ he tells me.
But they are also keen to take inspiration from other great developers too where it works for them. “We are big fans of our friends at U-he, Bitwig and Oeksound (to name just a few). They all come up with great products that are exciting to use and push the boundaries of the technology. Hats off to them!” Maarten declares.
In addition to Pro-Q3, the Pro-R2 reverb and Pro-C2 compressor plugins sit atop the pile of favorites and are worth mentioning briefly here.
With a fanbase that includes the likes of Dave Pensado, the buzzword with the Pro-R2 is ‘versatility’. A fully-adjustable EQ on the decay rate is an innovative addition to some amazing-sounding space algorithms, and another forward-thinking GUI means that you can create the reverb of your dreams - and all while minimizing the hit on your CPU thanks to FabFilter’s brilliance at coding efficiency.
The Pro-C2 is another “do-it-all” example of its kind - a mega versatile dynamics plugin that works on everything from bedroom vocals to high-end mastering. With an ease-of-dialing in that is particularly loved by Tony Maserati, the Pro-C2 has 8 compression modes, lookahead processing and 4x oversampling.
Suffice to say we could deep-dive the entire FabFilter collection in this article and still not cover everything, but there aren’t enough available words allocated to adequately cover it all. The best thing you can do is check out their generous demos - 30-day unrestricted trial periods are available for all their products. For the cash-conscious, there are some good bundle deals available too.
It’s 2024, and FabFilter has a powerful assortment of products in their range, divided into three simple categories - Pro, Creative, and Basic. With each of those having their own price and feature tier, they cover a wide spectrum of processor types and are firm favorites in the Gearspace community. I ask Maarten why most Gearspace plugin fanatics love FabFilter so much. He thinks about it for a second.
“That is a big compliment. I'm not sure, I hope of course because they like our products and the support we offer. We take our customers very seriously and we want to make a good honest product that helps people to achieve their artistic goals faster and easier,” he opines. I ask what the future holds for FF, but he is understandably cagey about revealing future plans, like a magician protecting their tricks. “We generally don't share any information about future releases. The technology is generally at a really high level already and people's standard is quite high already too. Let's see if we can push those boundaries even further,” he remarks with a grin.
In the end though, FabFilter’s own website puts it succinctly enough.
“It's the sound that counts.”
For more information and to try/buy FabFilter plugins please visit http://www.fabfilter.com
The FabFilter Software Instruments logo in 2024
Two decades might not be a long time in some industries. Sectors that move at a slower pace, are not as hostage to trends and fads, and of course those that are not reliant on digital development in an ever-evolving ecosystem will never mark 20 years as the same milestone as those in the high-tech arenas. Your average carpentry shop, knife maker, tire maker, heck, even piano builder, to bring it closer to our business, might be fully expected to hit 20 years and think nothing of it.
Things are different in the digital audio plug-in world. Since FabFilter started the pro audio world has seen a large number of companies arrive with fanfare and fizzle out to the digital graveyard. Twenty years ago native systems barely existed - expensive TDM cards were still a Thing - and requiring outboard hardware to run DSP was completely normal, and indeed, acceptable. The early wild-west days of third party plugins, whether TDM, eventually RTAS, VST or even Audio Units in their infancy were a novelty in some ways - often just a nice-looking graphic with disappointing sonics. Studios that ran strictly native plugins were actually looked down upon, for a little while anyway. Additionally, the cost of the computer power required to run even a handful of plug-ins - some “not quite there yet” was astronomical compared to what an entry-level laptop can run now - more powerfully, and at a far lower price in relative terms.
One Vision
It’s March 17, 2004. A new company, FabFilter Software Instruments, issues a press release.
“FabFilter One promises exceptional sound quality and innovative filter design,” it boldly read. It started out as a simple VSTi and standalone piece of software for the at the time universally-used Windows 98/NT/2000.
The FabFilter One GUI interface in 2024
Maarten De Boer has been with FabFilter for a decade and knows all their stories and history, so it’s him I’m chatting with about the past, the present, and the future of the Dutch developer.
“We're located in the city center of Amsterdam with a view on one of the oldest canals. Our office is pretty spacious for a small team. We have a lot of synthesizers at the office, tons of magazines and our new addition, a vinyl player. It's a great atmosphere!” he smiles when I ask him about what the FabFilter office looks like today.
“We're playing a lot of vinyl in our office at the moment. We recently acquired (a record) player and went to a record store with the team. Everyone picked out 5/10 records and they're on rotation constantly. There's a lot of variety, from Kraftwerk to Burial, to Hendrix and Pink Floyd to Tribe and Miles Davis,” he says with an obvious love for the past masters in his voice.
And it’s the past I want to start with - maybe not quite as far back as Hendrix or even the early days of Miles Davis, but about twenty years. I ask how the company was willed into existence.
“FabFilter was founded with the release of FabFilter One, a software synth that was very heavily based on the Korg MS-10. Basically, a digital version. It is quite crazy how similar the filter sounds compared to the analog one we have here in our office. Floris and Frederik were of course very excited when they sold their first plug-in. In those days the plug-in market was still relatively small but the excitement around digital production tools grew very quickly and it was exciting to be a part of the development,” Maarten tells me about the initial release.
FabFilter’s founder - Floris Klinkert (left) and Frederik Slijkerman (right)
Maarten assures us that it’s still a popular seller, especially now having been expanded to all major plug-in formats and across most major platform changes with various OS and CPU types. “FabFilter One is still sold today almost identical to the very first release! Of course (there have been) little tweaks here and there to keep it up-to-date but it sounds exactly the same as it did on first release,” he confirms.
An Eruption Of Sonic Possibilities
‘One’ went through several version iterations with expanded capabilities, more compatibility (including OSX/AU) and improved efficiency over the months that followed, but it wasn’t until v3.01 was on the market that FabFilter would unveil their next release - and it was a dedicated filter plug-in, as is befitting of their company name. Volcano was announced on May 25, 2005, both extracting and expanding and improving upon their exceptional digital filter construction know-how that was perfected with One. Available from launch as a VST2 or AU plug-in, this was the first signal processor in their lineup, and it too is still available to this day.
The FabFilter Pro-Q3 equalizer plugin GUI as it exists today
Between 2005 and 2009 FabFilter was prolific - they released a multi-voice synth in Twin, a simplified (and cheaper) version of Volcano in the filter plugin Simplon, a beautiful and powerful delay called Timeless and Pro-C, the first of their ‘Pro’ lineup of plugins which are the most fully featured and most powerful plug-ins they make, notable for both their extremely high-end sonics and their versatility. Gearspace users talk about their application in both music and audio post production forums with equal proportion. In 2007, RTAS versions of all their plug-ins were made available for Pro Tools LE users. Before November of 2009 came v2 upgrades of most everything. And then in November - the 16th to be exact, FabFilter Pro-Q was announced. This is the plug-in that would deservedly propel them into the stratosphere of developers, if such a thing existed.
Although FabFilter One’s GUI is largely unchanged over the years, some of the other plugins - like Volcano - have seen makeovers worthy of a reality TV show. Volcano 2 (above) and 3 (below) show just how far their graphic design work has evolved.British engineer/producer Peter Dowsett reviewed the plug-in on Gearspace back in 2012, and the first line of his thoughts sums everything up entirely - “I’ll cut straight to the chase: FabFilter Pro-Q is the most elegant, intuitive and enjoyable EQ I have ever used and, dare I say it, “The best on the market”.
Other forum reviews are similarly positive:
Quote:
“Let me start off by saying that this little thing is amazing. It has become my go to EQ for most tasks, and it is heavily featured in all my projects.” - Gearspace user Mmmmarcus
Quote:
“...this plugin (along with most of FabFilter's products) has become our go-to eq. It will be used more than any others for the foreseeable future and, truth be told, if digital eq technology doesn't improve beyond this point I'd be happy.” - Gearspace user elambo
Pro-Q would go on to see updates to v2 in 2014 and the current - and legendary - v3 in 2018, which added a dynamic EQ function that lifted the sonic potential to new heights.
But wait, there’s more!
Before Pro-Q3 was released however, there were more ideas from the ever-expanding, but still tight team at FabFilter. The Micro mini-filter came out in 2010 for just 15 euros for people who wanted a taste of this excellent filter design. It was at the same time top-notch, top-shelf, and a top plug-in, despite the simplicity.
The Pro-L limiter and Pro-G gate plugins expanded the Pro series in 2011/12. The Saturn distortion and saturation tool, the Pro-DS de-esser, the Pro-MB multiband compressor and the Pro-R reverb would all see the light of day between 2014 and 2018. FabFilter was building a toolset that was rivaled by only a few other developers - and always trying to keep the prices fair for the working/hobbyist engineers, but reflective of the high-end tech under the hood.
Keeping up with their users’ demands was probably the most difficult part of the job during that heady decade, Maarten recounts. But having a good team helps. “One of the biggest challenges without a doubt, is how to fit all this tech into an interface that is clear, easy to use and self explanatory. Of course, we always get a lot of feature requests as technology develops very swiftly and people get used to product fast. Everyone has their own workflow and it is a real challenge to make an interface that is a breeze to use while also sounding great. We tend to divide the tasks on who works what part of the plug-in, each broadening their level of expertise,“ he tells me.
But they are also keen to take inspiration from other great developers too where it works for them. “We are big fans of our friends at U-he, Bitwig and Oeksound (to name just a few). They all come up with great products that are exciting to use and push the boundaries of the technology. Hats off to them!” Maarten declares.
The FabFilter Pro-R2 graphic interface
With a fanbase that includes the likes of Dave Pensado, the buzzword with the Pro-R2 is ‘versatility’. A fully-adjustable EQ on the decay rate is an innovative addition to some amazing-sounding space algorithms, and another forward-thinking GUI means that you can create the reverb of your dreams - and all while minimizing the hit on your CPU thanks to FabFilter’s brilliance at coding efficiency.
The FabFilter Pro-C2 compressor plugin GUI
Suffice to say we could deep-dive the entire FabFilter collection in this article and still not cover everything, but there aren’t enough available words allocated to adequately cover it all. The best thing you can do is check out their generous demos - 30-day unrestricted trial periods are available for all their products. For the cash-conscious, there are some good bundle deals available too.
It’s 2024, and FabFilter has a powerful assortment of products in their range, divided into three simple categories - Pro, Creative, and Basic. With each of those having their own price and feature tier, they cover a wide spectrum of processor types and are firm favorites in the Gearspace community. I ask Maarten why most Gearspace plugin fanatics love FabFilter so much. He thinks about it for a second.
“That is a big compliment. I'm not sure, I hope of course because they like our products and the support we offer. We take our customers very seriously and we want to make a good honest product that helps people to achieve their artistic goals faster and easier,” he opines. I ask what the future holds for FF, but he is understandably cagey about revealing future plans, like a magician protecting their tricks. “We generally don't share any information about future releases. The technology is generally at a really high level already and people's standard is quite high already too. Let's see if we can push those boundaries even further,” he remarks with a grin.
In the end though, FabFilter’s own website puts it succinctly enough.
“It's the sound that counts.”
For more information and to try/buy FabFilter plugins please visit http://www.fabfilter.com
