Modulation effect for Mac

Lustra

The shimmer you've been chasing.

Turn Time and Lustra moves from phaser to flanger to chorus to a double, Mix at full turns it into vibrato, and the shell on the screen takes its color from the comb filter you're hearing.

$15 until December 31, then $29

Download free 25 MB

Try out the plugin for free, purchase a license to own it.

Lustra on its Pearl preset with a band playing through it. Above, the preset bar with BROWSE. In the middle, a ridged landscape of sound recedes into the dark, its low end at the left in bands of orange, violet and green, its high end at the right washed to pearl white. Below, the Time, Motion, Feedback and Mix knobs read CHORUS 9.0 ms, 0.50 Hz, 0 and 40%, and the footer shows MATCH lit with a trim of +3.5 dB.
Pearl · CHORUS 9.0 ms · 0.50 Hz · Mix 40% · MATCH +3.5 dB · a band at 112 BPM
Platform
macOS 11 or later · Apple silicon and Intel
Formats
VST3 · AU · Standalone
Tested on
Ableton Live 12 (VST3) and Logic Pro (AU), on macOS 26.5 on Apple silicon (M5)
Version
1.0.0

In your browser

Press Start, then turn Time slowly

Lustra's own sound code, running in this page. The band plays through Pearl. Sweep Time from left to right, flick it and let it spring back, then open BROWSE and try Jet, Hollow and Seasick.

Open it full window

Watch

6 short films, a minute or less each

Transcript

This is Lustra. One knob, four effects.

Turn Time. At the bottom, it's a phaser.

Further up, a flanger.

Then a chorus.

And at the top, a double: a second player, right behind the first.

They're one circuit at four delay lengths, so Time glides from one to the next.

Four effects, one knob. Get Lustra for Mac at smileyface.studio.

The four knobs

Time, Motion, Feedback, Mix

  • The Time knob at FLANGE 1.2 ms: a dark glass lens holding concentric colored rings, with PHASE, FLANGE, CHORUS and DOUBLE around its arc.

    Time

    Where you are on the path: PHASE sweeps an allpass chain from 4 kHz down to 300 Hz, FLANGE is 0.1 to 3 ms, CHORUS 3 to 25 ms and DOUBLE 25 to 60 ms. Flick it and let go, and it sweeps through the zones and springs back to where it was.

  • The Motion knob at 0.50 Hz: a dark lens with a ring of colored light traced around its center, where it reads its depth.

    Motion

    How fast the delay moves, from 0.03 to 12 Hz. It catches on tempo divisions from 4 bars to 1/16, and caught on one, the sweep locks to your DAW's playhead.

  • The Feedback knob at +70%: a six-petaled star of colored light inside a dark lens, its value arc lit on the right.

    Feedback

    Feeds the delay back into itself, from −95% to +95%. Below zero it goes hollow and thin in the bass; above, it rings like a jet.

  • The Mix knob at 50%: two bright points inside a dark lens, with curved colored fringes running between them.

    Mix

    Dry against the moving copy. It catches at 50%, where the comb cuts deepest, and at 100%, where just the moving copy is left: vibrato.

  • Lustra's footer: MATCH lit, with its trim reading +3.5 dB, beside DEPTH set to CLASSIC and CLEAN lit next to ANALOG.

    MATCH

    A moving copy mixed with your sound changes how loud it is, and the louder side wins any A/B. MATCH works that change out from the settings and trims the output by it, so Lustra comes in about as loud as your dry track. It never listens to your signal, so it can't pump. The footer shows the trim; switch MATCH off to hear the raw level.

  • Lustra's preset browser, open on Pearl: genres from Pop to Experimental and instruments from Guitar to Full Mix down the left, a search field, and the presets in genre folders, each with its zone, its setting and the instruments it suits.

    30 presets, by genre

    '82 I and '82 II, a jet flange locked to your tempo, a funk phaser, a vocal double, tape wow and flutter, and a few that ring. BROWSE opens them in genre folders, searches by name, effect, genre or instrument, and keeps your favorites starred.

Made at Smiley Face Studio · San Diego

Why pick one?

Lustra

$15 until December 31, then $29.

How it arrives
Pay with PayPal or a card. Your license and the download are on the next page, and in your inbox.
The license
One license covers every format, on the Macs you make music on. It works offline, with no account and no iLok. Updates are free.
Your Mac
macOS 11 or later, Apple silicon or Intel. There’s no Windows version, and no AAX for Pro Tools, yet.
Questions?
Write to david@smileyface.studio.

All sales are final (refund policy).

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