TriTone Digital’s PhaseTone and ColorTone are some of the useful (and free) RTAS plugins I’ve ever come across.
A few years ago when I was looking for a plug-in that would allow me to adjust the phase relationship of my Direct and Amp’d bass tracks. I was looking to solve the problem of unintentional tonal changes (hollowness, lack of punch and solid low end) that were occurring when mixing the two signals together. I found the TriTone Digital Phasetone plug-in and it helped me solve the problem. And as a bonus, it was free!
Download PhaseTone and ColorTone-Free.
It seems that the existence of TriTone Digital as a company was also the result of trying to meet a music need. Quoting one of the founders, Salvator (from the Tritone Website)…
For the longest time I’ve been on a quest for an EQ plugin that could compete with my favorite outboard analog gear. But all the ones I tried simply failed to meet my needs, and so I decided to build my own….Soon, we realized we simply shouldn’t keep those excellent processors to ourselves, and TriTone Digital was born!
TriTone Digital – For the love of tone
One look through their product line and it’s pretty obvious that the guys at TriTone Digital are creating plug-ins that emphasize tone and character.
- Classic Tone: a true-to-the-original recreation of one of the best sounding graphic EQs ever made.
- PulTone FL: a recreation of a super-sweet passive program filter set.
- Angel Tone: a digital mastering EQ that utilizes state-of-the-art modeling to combine analog mastering EQ sweetness with digital precision and recall.
- HydraTone: a mix-oriented parametric EQ that utilizes state-of-the-art modeling to provide analog EQ flavor with digital precision
- ValveTone ‘62: a unique, vibe-laden plugin that pays tribute to the EQs of yesterday; it’s all about incredibly thick tone.
- ColorTone-Pro: a tone box which simulates the signal path of analog devices through the use of convolution and various proprietary non-linear processes.
While they’re not as inexpensive as the Massey plug-ins (discussed in Part 1 of this series), they’re still what I think many Pro Tools users might consider affordable. The products range in price from $85.00 US for the ValveTone ‘62 to $159.00 for the Angel & Hydra Tone plug-ins. But what about their free plug-ins?
TriTone’s Free Plug-Ins
PhaseTone
PhaseTone is a FREE frequency-dependent phase rotation and correction plugin.
PhaseTone allows you to manipulate the phase of your signal across a user-definable frequency range, with options for creating different phase and time-based offsets (if desired) for the left and right channels of a stereo signal.
Similar to hardware boxes popular for correcting phase relationships between signal-pairs such as bass DI and bass mics and top/bottom snare mics, PhaseTone goes a little further.
By allowing the user to select the center frequency and Q of the phase process, PhaseTone allows for more creative manipulation of phase when mixing, producing more EQ like results, increasing clarity and removing mud.
The PhaseTone is a truly complete, free product. There’s no PhaseTone Pro to buy and there are no features disabled on this plug-in. You can download it here.
ColorTone plug-ins
ColorTone-free is the free version of it’s big brother, ColorTone-Pro.
ColorTone-Free is a Tone Box which simulates the signal path of analog devices through the use of convolution and various proprietary non-linear processes. ColorTone-Free is designed to provide analog-like character and flavor to the modern digital audio workstation.
The free version of ColorTone comes with a collection of classic studio models, though not as many as its big brother ColorTone-Pro. But the free version does allow you to multiply the color of the selected circuit, increasing the color from the standard character to several times the original color.
Also, ColorTone-Free does not have a number of features found in ColorTone-Pro, including a larger selection of models, TriTone’s custom-coded Warmth algorithm for adding extra harmonic content, the ability to reverse the color of a model, the super-cool Blend mode and the ability to make and load external models of your own gear. But hey – it’s free! You can download your ColorTone-Free here.
