Cambridge Channel Strip
Overview
Cambridge Channel Strip is a console-style channel strip in a single plugin: input conditioning and phase, high- and low-pass filters, a four-band EQ, a compressor and a gate/expander sharing one dynamics section, a global sidechain, and output trim. Work in linked Stereo, or split into two independent lanes with full Left/Right and Mid/Side routing. This is the first public release. It runs in demo mode until activated with a licence key: every control is active and there is no time limit, but a 2-second silence interruption occurs every 60 seconds and is printed into renders and exports.
Signal path
Input and phase, then high- and low-pass filters, a four-band EQ, and a dynamics section, into an output trim. The EQ and the dynamics can be swapped with a single EQ -> DYN toggle, so tone shaping can sit before or after dynamics; the on-screen graphs reorder to match.
Four-band EQ
Low and High shelving bands that switch to bells, plus Low-Mid and High-Mid bells with adjustable Q, and TIGHT / BROAD voicing. A live curve with draggable band nodes sits over the input spectrum.
Compressor and gate
One dynamics section holds a compressor (threshold, stepped ratio, stepped release with Auto, makeup, fast attack, peak/RMS detection) and a gate/expander (threshold, range, release, hold, fast attack). Live transfer graphs show both, with a draggable knee.
Sidechain
Internal or external key, with the filters and the EQ routable into the detector, and a Listen monitor. External keying uses the plugin's stereo sidechain input.
Two-lane routing
Stereo, Left/Right, or Mid/Side, with per-lane editing, colour-coded lanes, and stacked charts.
Presets and workflow
61 factory presets plus on-disk user presets, A/B compare, copy/paste, undo/redo, and a one-click Init. Zero added latency; runs at the host sample rate. ## Changes since 1.0.0-beta1
Interface
- The EQ graph now uses a symmetric gain axis: +/-24 dB with 0 dB at the centre, signed labels, and an emphasised unity line. Previously the axis was labelled as gain reduction (0 down to -12), which did not describe the curve being drawn - the centre of the plot was 0 dB but was labelled -6.
- Removed the "LIVE CORRECTION" overlay. That trace plots dynamic gain reduction; this is a static EQ, so it always reported zero and drew a flat line pinned to the top of the graph under a label for a feature the plugin does not have.
- Widened the EQ response curve for legibility.
- Footer now reports a fixed 1x rate rather than implying a selectable oversampling stage. The engine runs at the host sample rate.
Behaviour and correctness
- Lane parameters are stated explicitly in the unlinked-lane tests, and the delegated processor contracts are covered by tests.
- Release builds can no longer report false-green test runs: assertions are kept live under Release (WsscAssertGuard).
- Default input/output gain alignment corrected.
Build and packaging
- Added a glibc 2.35 compatibility build (Ubuntu 22.04 container, statically linked libstdc++). Before this the repository had no way to produce a portable Linux binary: a native build links against the build host's glibc and will not load on other systems. The build carries a hard ABI gate that fails on a too-new GLIBC or a dynamic GLIBCXX.
- Linux builds patch a JUCE issue that leaves the process locale permanently changed after the editor opens.
- Windows builds are produced on demand through GitHub Actions and are now validated with pluginval at strictness level 10.
- Version string, footer and menu are bound to the embedded manifest; documentation URLs repointed to the cambridge-channel-strip slug.
Validation
Windows 10+ 64-bit and Linux 64-bit (glibc 2.35+: Ubuntu 22.04+, Debian 12+, recent Fedora/Arch). macOS is not supported in this version. Formats: VST3 and CLAP. Sample rates: 44.1 / 48 / 88.2 / 96 / 176.4 / 192 kHz. Offline-first licensing. Support: support@mouseplugins.com
- pluginval strictness 10: PASS on Linux (VST3) and PASS on Windows (VST3).
- Linux ABI gate: maximum symbol GLIBC_2.35, no dynamic GLIBCXX, no GTK linkage.
- pluginval cannot load CLAP on any platform, so the CLAP builds are covered by the internal test suite and the stress analyzer rather than by pluginval.