Polarity-SC-Dark

Built-in Curve Presets

Musical threshold shapes

Start from built-in threshold curves for mastering, drums, bass, pads, lead sounds, and equal-loudness style balancing instead of drawing every curve from scratch.

User Curve Presets

Save your own shapes

Save custom threshold curves as reusable presets, load them again in later sessions, and delete the ones you no longer need from the plugin window.

Curve Matching

Analyze, then edit

Measure a signal's spectral shape and turn it into an editable threshold curve, giving you a faster way to build targets from real audio.

Custom Threshold Curves

Draw and shape the target

Edit threshold points directly across the spectrum, then combine them with center, slope, and curve controls to make each frequency range react differently.

GR Smoothing

More natural, less harsh

Gain reduction smoothing rounds off abrupt per-bin changes over time, producing a more natural-sounding response when the compressor is pushed hard.

Frequency Guides

Visual landmarks in the analyzer

Frequency labels and guide lines are overlaid on the spectral display so you can quickly orient yourself across the spectrum without leaving the plugin window.

FFT Spectral Compression

Thousands of narrow bands

Process the signal in the frequency domain with per-bin compression instead of a small fixed set of bands. Push it gently for resonance control or heavily for spectral sound design.

Upward + Downward

Lift and tame at once

Run simultaneous upward and downward compression across the spectrum, with independent offsets, ratios, knees, and high-frequency rolloff controls.

Pink Noise Mode

Instant spectral flattening

Use the internal threshold curve to push material toward a pink-noise slope. It can turn sharp, uneven sounds into something smoother, denser, or stranger.

Sidechain Matching

Morph one sound into another

Feed a sidechain and let the compressor dynamically follow that spectrum, useful for matching tone, carving space, or forcing one source to borrow the shape of another.

Sidechain Compression

Spectral ducking

Use sidechain activity to compress matching frequency areas in the main signal, so masking can be handled across the spectrum instead of with one broadband duck.

Dark Interface

Less glare, same engine

The GUI is no longer bright white. Polarity-SC-Dark keeps the original spectral workflow but presents it with darker colors and clearer visual separation.

Delta Monitoring

Hear what disappears

Enable Delta to listen to the difference between the dry and processed signals, so you can judge what the compressor is actually removing.

Level Match

Better A/B decisions

Use Match to measure input and processed output loudness, then compensate the output gain so brighter or louder settings do not win by default.

Bypass

Fast dry checks

Switch back to the dry signal quickly while keeping the comparison workflow inside the plugin window.

Freeze

Static spectral EQ

Capture the current gain-reduction curve and keep applying it, turning the moving compressor shape into a static spectral EQ curve.

IR Export

Save the curve

Export the frozen curve as an impulse response WAV and reuse that spectral EQ shape in other convolution tools or workflows.

Live Analyzer

Spectrum, curve, and gain reduction

The analyzer shows the signal, editable threshold curve, frequency guides, and upward/downward gain reduction overlays so you can see where the processor is acting.

Window Control

Grouped FFT controls

Choose FFT window size and overlap from one grouped control area, with hover help for balancing time response, frequency precision, smoothness, and CPU use.

Dry / Wet Mix

Blend the result

Mix the latency-compensated dry signal back in when full spectral processing is too much but the tone is right.

Free Alternative

No license manager

For resonance-taming and spectral smoothing workflows that often require expensive commercial tools, this gives you a free option without login, email capture, telemetry, or iLok.

Main Input

The dry signal is captured for latency-compensated mix, bypass, match, and delta monitoring before the spectral processor runs.

FFT Compressor

The signal is windowed, transformed into FFT bins, shaped by the upward/downward compressor bank, then rebuilt with overlap-add processing.

Sidechain + Output

Optional sidechain analysis can drive matching or compression. Freeze can lock the current curve, IR export can save it, and output gain/match finish the comparison.