CS-5501 - Channel Strip Plugin for Windows and Mac OS X
by TBProAudio   26th July 2019

Yeah, we may consider this in a future update.

Do we need a metal capable gpu to install this version?

Yes, Metal GFX card to run latest version.
But non Metal version is still available (1.4.13).

Could you add two modes of operation to the limiter so that one can toggle between Peak and ISP detection types? That would make it a one-stop channel strip and I would buy that in a heartbeat.

Thank you for this.
We may add this in a future update

Seeing how big and complex this channel strip is, giving it the ISP detection type in the limiter would make it kinda similar to VladG Limiter N°6 and one could use it on basically anything, including even full mixes. Keeping my fingers crossed, cheers.

- NEW: FET compressor mode, 76 style (FET 1)
- FIX: Ableton VST3 fader link
- FIX: compatibility of automation parameter to prev. versions
- FIX: crash preset recall (GUI scale)

Update to V2.5.4:
- NEW: purble and white theme
- NEW: routing area, show module button
- FIX: Logic, Garageband: improved fader link

2.5.3:
- FIX: "save as default" saves all plugin parameters as default

2.5.2:
- NEW: smart silence processing custom threshold
- UPDATE: smart silence processing mode moved from plugin menu to SSP icon
- UPDATE: improved UUID gen
- UPDATE: reduced GUI flickering during resizing/scaling
- FIX: possible crash if SC and SSP is used
- FIX: VST3 Ardour channel assignment

2.5.1:
- NEW: smart silence processing status icon
- NEW: 3 different thresholds for smart silence processing (16/24/32Bit)

2.5.0:
- NEW: smart silence processing
- NEW: set smart silence processing globaly

2.4.2:
- UPDATE: plugin activation with either key file or key text

A few more colours would be so helpful for putting the cs-5501 on other screens with different colours per track or busses, 8 or 16 would be nice, imagine the possibilities recalling and managing with midi controller.
If I only would use one plugin, it's definitely cs-5501! (After Dseq3)

Nice idea, thank you. We will consider this

I've finally gotten around to demoing this, and I must say I'm very impressed. It's truly the modern equivalent to Metric Halo ChannelStrip, which I think CS-5501 trumps in many ways.

I do however have a few feature suggestions that I hope the dev would consider implementing.

1) I like the colour schemes, but I find that it reverts back to the default colour when I reset the settings back to default (which I often use to quickly reset a channel strip). An option to select a colour as the default would be nice. I tried this with the "save as default" in the presets menu, but that didn't save the selected colour (or any settings for that matter, so that might be a bug, or related to the demo version).

2) When "freezing" AB-LM Lite gain, some sort of gain readout would be nice (maybe while hovering over the target button when active).

3) This might be a stretch, but it would be awesome to be able to swap the meters for a real time frequency analyzer. I actually like that CS-5501 doesn't have this by default, but sometimes it's nice to have, for example when cleaning up inaudible sub-frequencies in drum samples or virtual synths.

4) A mix-knob or some other way to adjust both odd and even saturation simultaneously. Also maybe a "sat2" so that it's possible to process mid and side independently.

Anyway, none of these suggestions are critical, and I will definitely get this after the holidays. Great work!

Thank you very much!
We will check this.
Good idea. Lets see if we can make it.
Yeah, this is on our todo list for a longer time. May be it is time to do it now :-) Will see...
Both are nice suggestions. Lets what we can do here.

Thank you for your valuable input!!

This should already work: plugin preset menu->save as default

A bit late to the party here and only just demoing this product now. It seems very comprehensive and sounds quite nice also. I've also read through (most of) this thread and am impressed with how some of the suggestions and bug fixes have been dealt with.

If I can make a couple of suggestions of my own?:
- Tube mode on the compressors (just for completeness)
- A Gain Riding module for vocals primarily
- Oscilloscope to be able to be set to time windows in musical values as well as ms (eg 1 Bar, 1/4 note etc instead of 450ms). That may help drum hits stay more or less static in the window.
- Width module to add stereo width and/or reduce low frequencies to mono with sweepable filter.
- Per module presets
- Double-click to reset parameters

Too much?? I feel a little out of place suggesting so much on what is obviously an already very complete and well thought out product.

Thanks for considering!

Thank you for your suggestions:

- Tube mode is on our todo list
- Gain riding module is in question, not really a must have for a channel strip
- Musical values for the oscilloscope are on our todolist
- Stereo width module: we need to think about. In any case you can set EQ module to M/S and use the low cut on the side channel
- Module preset: this is a nice idea, let us think about
- Double-click reset: in our world it is ctrl-click :-)

I just upgraded to version 2.7.2 and have to say this plugin is unreal! Cusomizable Spectrum Analyzer, Oscillator ect., are you kidding? And CPU usage is just stunning for so many features. If I had to choose a plugin for the island, this is my choice! Well done mate!!

Thank you for your nice feedback.
But not possible without the valuable customer interaction.

I love this plugin, the only thing I don't really like are the dropdown menus, I find they slow down my workflow a lot. Some small QoL suggestions:

- in addition to the effect module selector, add a one-click button to quickly switch between currently active effects
- it would be great if there would be a quick way to switch between compressor types instead of having to use the dropdown menu. I prefer the way this is implemented in the Waves Scheps Omni Channel plugin, although I understand that adding 4 extra compressor type buttons would clutter the CS-5501 UI
- an effects module with a mono frequency filter and stereo imager, as in the PA Amek 9099 channel strip would be great to have

Amazing work you continue to do on this plugin... which is the best channel strip plugin IMO!

What's the chance you would develop a Linux native version?

I'm kind of a channel strip junkie...I've got ALL of them...and I mean ALL that matter...(UAD Ultimate/Fuse VCS-1 <great plugin>/Metric Halo Full bundle/All Softube Channels/Arturia full pkg/Black Rooster full pkg/P.A. (all but one of the SSL's which I have in several flavors/Brainworx/Lindell/PSP Infinistrip/Slates 500 mix thingy/Kit BB stuff/All the Waves Stuff-Omni and otherwise/NOT all of Acusticas stuff because IR convolution channel strips are crap/Antelopes AFX2DOG full package/SSL's stuff <really good>/Eventide Ultrachannel/I could go on and on...

Here's my point...you can pretty much do MORE with this plugin than most of the others...

The price for pound is a better ratio than most of the others...its highly configurable, and the options to SEE what you are doing is a very needed addition in plugin world.

This is starting to become my primary channel strip...its loaded.

Great work, impressive design and functional work flo...these guys know what they are doing.

Here is my only suggestion (and this would make it replace ALL of my channel strips)...something along the lines of an API EQ setting that automatically reduces the Q function of the EQ as you boost the gain...I know this is not trivial and its not exactly a one-to-one reduction as gain is added...but having an "API-style" Q function would be dreamy.

Thank you for this. We think you about this as a redesign of CS5501 is in the planning.

REDESIGN?!?!?!?! Any hints of what this might include?

And BTW, as I've mentioned before, CS5501 is fantastic (especially with all the improvements you have made to it!), but does a *redesign* mean CS5501 "V3" or does it mean an entirely *new* channel strip plugin (perhaps CS7701)? And does it mean you may phase out CS5501 over time as you did with CS3301?

There is not much to report at the moment.
But i guess it will be a "V3" rather than a "C7701".
And one big topic is the full dual mono capability.

Interesting -- dual mono could be useful.

And the "API-style" Q suggestion as mentioned by iomegaman could be useful too.

While we're on dream feature requests, for me, my own personal super wish list would be:

1 - Parallel routing option! Would be epic to include some more routing flexibility with at least one or two parallel paths too, with a summing slot at the end of the parallel chain where I can add one or more processors (like compressor/limiter). At this basic level, it would be easy to apply parallel compression and other similar techniques with a lot of creative power, with any of your modules in either path...

2 - Taking the above parallel concept one more step, it would be incredible to have a frequency splitter option too at the top of the parallel chain, so I could route, for example, a compressor on JUST a selected frequency range to process it down one side of the chain, then sum it all back together at the bottom of the full chain. Neat tricks with this approach.

2b - Another variation of #2 is allowing either path in the parallel chain to process just Mid or Side content. That would allow adding a compressor to just the mids, for example, and different processing for the sides in the other path, then sum them back together at the end.

3 - In theory, if you wanted to go crazy with this parallel concept (and perhaps that would be something major for CS7701) you could add 4-5 parallel chains, and with the frequency splitter, it would potentially turn this channel strip into a monster multiband mega tool, where each parallel chain could operate on different frequency ranges with different modules....

Other ideas:

4 - Add 8-12 optional user-assignable macro knobs at the side of the plugin GUI that can collapse and minimize to serve as a "mini-interface" too. Why? There are a LOT of parameters in this plugin and it takes up a lot of screen real estate... which is fine, but despite the large screen real estate, a lot of it is still hidden due to the way the interface swaps out the effects modules and EQs of the GUI, so you sometimes can't see everything you want to tweak at once!

I understand the design decision on this plugin BUT it might be really cool and helpful to have 8-12 optional user-assignable knobs vertically on the SIDE of the plugin that can be tied to ANY parameters in the plugin, and then you can also minimize the plugin to JUST those 8-12 knobs. In other words, you could create mini CS5501 channel strips that reveal JUST the parameters you want to work on, and it would save a lot of screen real estate, and I could load up a whole bunch of them side-by-side as I'm working on related tracks... would be amazing.

5 - It would be cool to have a built-in sample/phase shift feature per channel -- right now you have phase invert which is great -- but phase shift would be wonderful too so I could manually nudge a channel a few samples forward or backward to adjust for phase issues... for example with stereo drum mics, to line them up better. There are other uses for sample shift such as with live streaming where you need to re-align audio to a live camera feed, etc... Would be a nice extra tool.

6 - Super size zoomed spectrum analyzer option that fills the whole plugin window. Would be helpful in some cases to see more stuff. I know this plugin is more of a "mix with your ears" kind of plugin, but sometimes it's helpful to see a bigger analyzer. I get it if this is not with the plugin concept though.

7 - Definitely for CS7701 - consider including some extra modules that would be useful in a lot of material, including exciter, imager, simple delay, etc... the sky is the limit of course, but even a few more modules would be welcome, you can always add more in the future if you want! A few other channel strips out there implement ideas like this, including micro pitch shift, delays, reverb, chorus, etc...

8 - For CS9901 or another product - Transient and body separation! This does not exist in a general channel strip that I can think of, but I might have missed it, although this does exist in Harrison's Drum Flow to a degree with drum character, and in a similar but much more advanced approach with Eventide's SplitEQ with tonals and transients. It's a great idea, I happen to love it in SplitEQ. Now if you could split the sound that way and route it down different parallel signal paths, that would be an incredible product... maybe CS9901 or a whole new product from the ground up....

So having said all that, CS5501 is fantastic the way it is. I'm not complaining. I'm just thinking out loud.

The parallel idea is something I've been wanting in a LOT of plugins, and of course there are ways to achieve that by using third-party tools such as Waves StudioRack, or using the DAW's send/returns (which is hugely cumbersome), or even in the case of Reaper, it now has FX containers, and Studio One has the FX splitter/router tool. So there are already some ways to do it... BUT then again, you wouldn't be able to route the individual modules inside CS5501, which is the whole point of adding parallel routing in CS5501 (or CS7701 or CS9901).

Anyway, cheers and looking forward to whatever you come up with! It's always great!

When will they ever rest?

Thank you for your feedback. This is priceless input for our development.
Not everything will go into the next major release, but the direction is clear.
Thank you again!

This entire thread is another perfect example of why TBProAudio is so special -- it's so evident that they listen to their customers by the steady inclusion of feature requests over time. This thread has tons of good ideas, and I just re-read the last several pages... I'm excited for whatever TBProAudio adds.

Huge thank you to TBProAudio for your great support and open mind to us!

(BTW, for those who are just CS5501 customers, go check out the DSEQ threads too and you'll see the exact same thing... tons and tons of feature improvements pulled right from customer requests!)

functionality and sound is really good in this plugin... but often I wish there would be an option to have a kind of 'condensed' view of the most important sections of the plugin to avoid the heavy tab switching.

I know its a personal preference, but I would prefer to have eq, comp, saturation and one other dynamic section (switchable between gate, deesser, comp2) on one page instead of the whole input/output & fader-section that currently takes up 1/3rd of the UI.

will see what we can do here

Nah. I personally don't want TBProAudio to turn their straightforward and already flexible channel strip plugin into an entire DAW. It defeats the purpose. I value the simplicity, and I doubt I'm the only one who feels that way.