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Cerise Is A FREE Vintage Channel Strip Plugin By Acustica

By 26 Comments3 Mins Read
Cerise Is A FREE British Channel Strip Plugin By Acustica

Acustica released Cerise, a three-band equalizer, preamp, and compressor effect in VST, VST3, AU, and AAX plugin formats. The product is free to download until February 14th, 2021.

Cerise is based on Acustica’s innovative Acqua technology. The company creates high-quality dynamic impulse responses of real hardware and uses them to create software emulations.

See also: Top 100 Christmas 2020 Plugin Deals & Freebies!

The developer describes Cerise as “a ‘British style’ channel-strip that combines a mic preamp, a three-band EQ, and a compressor.” Apparently, the plugin simulates a vintage transformer-based channel strip.

The controls are organized into four main sections. The “stereo” section is where you’ll adjust the stereo spread and the stereo pan. The “equalizer” section hosts a three-band parametric equalizer. The “dynamics” panel is where you’ll find the compressor module with threshold, timing, ratio, and filter controls. It also features a dry/wet knob for easy parallel processing.

Last but not least, the “preamp” section features a high-pass filter and a texture parameter. This is where the signal gets its final bit of polish with analog-style saturation.

Cerise features a pair of level monitors on the input and the output, with gain controls. Each section can be bypassed to reduce the CPU hit.

Here's a closer look at the Cerise vintage preamp by Acustica.
Here’s a closer look at the Cerise vintage preamp by Acustica.

Like the majority of Acustica plugins, Cerise requires a powerful computer to run properly. It sounds very good, but the performance can be rather lackluster if you’re using a slower processor.

To download your free copy of Cerise, you will first need to sign up for a free Acustica user account and download the Aquarius manager application (linked below). Once installed, run Aquarius, log in to your Acustica user account, and install Cerise from the start page.

Run the Aquarius app to download and install the free Cerise plugin.
Run the Aquarius app to download and install the free Cerise plugin.

Cerise is available in VST, VST3, AU, and AAX plugin formats for compatible digital audio workstations on PC and Mac. Both 32-bit and 64-bit plugin hosts are supported. The 32-bit installers must be enabled manually in the Aquarius app.

Be sure to download and install Cerise before February 14th, 2020. On a related note, you can get up to 45% OFF Acustica’s best-selling software during the holiday sale.

More info: Cerise (requires Aquarius download manager, FREE until February 14th, 2021)

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Tomislav is a music producer and sound designer from Belgrade, Serbia. He is also the founder and editor-in-chief at Bedroom Producers Blog.

26 Comments

  3. ege

     on

    Is it just me, or this plugin has a lot of latency?
    People were talking like “it’s my go-to plugin company” about acustica audio on gearslutz. Good, that cerise is free but I don’t know if it’s superb or not.

    Reply

    • Richhunta

       on

      yeah the latency is horrendous. Because of it, I only use this plugin on the master since it will delay the whole track as opposed to delaying one of mg sounds. When I export my song, I cut away the excess silence that is generated at the start of my song. Disappointing, but I still like it since it compresses my masters pretty well

      Reply

  7. Samxday

     on

    “Cerise requires a powerful computer to run properly. It sounds very good, but the performance can be rather lackluster if you’re using a slower processor.” :-( I’m out. Up until then I was ALL IN

    Reply

  8. darko poprijan

     on

    You can still freeze or render your tracks, using AA plugins. For the quality of the sound it is well worth that little extra work.

    Reply

    • Michal Ochedowski

       on

      Totally right. With Acustica Audio it’s like you have great hardware at your disposal and sooner or later have to commit to save CPU. The difference is, if need be it’s not impossible to go back and alter your settings. Also, you can have more than one unit in the project unlike some expensive hard to find equipment.

      Reply

  9. Michal Ochedowski

     on

    Since this is Acustica Audio product info, has anyone successfully installed VST3 version of any of their plugins on external drive? I know that in Aquarius there is option to choose directory for VST2, but haven’t seen anything regarding VST3.

    Reply

      • Michal Ochedowski

         on

        I’m looking for a way to free some space on my system drive, so copying isn’t exactly the solution for me. If you meant moving plugins to external hard drive, I’m surprised that this way works for you. Especially regarding licenses and plugin location.

        Reply

        • Cináed

           on

          You can use (hard) symbolic links, a kind of shortcut from one file/folder to another that for most intents and purposes is treated like the real file / folder. It’s completely fine for the real file to be located on another partition than the shortcut.
          The quickest way to make one would be to use mklink in Window’s console (CMD.exe). If you want to move the entire VST3 folder to “Z:\VST3” for example, you first move the folder to its new location and then create a shortcut from the old location to the new one:
          mklink /J “Z:\VST3” “C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3”
          Use /H instead of /J if you want to create a shortcut for a single file instead of a folder. For example:
          mklink /H “Z:\VST3\plugin.vst3” “C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3\plugin.vst3”

          Extensive documentation here:
          https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/administration/windows-commands/mklink

          Reply

    • Caleb

       on

      “To download your free copy of Cerise, you will first need to sign up for a free Acustica user account and download the Aquarius manager application (linked below). Once installed, run Aquarius, log in to your Acustica user account, and install Cerise from the start page.”

      Here’s the exact link to install Aquarius after creating your user account: https://www.acustica-audio.com/pages/aquarius

      Reply

  13. Bunter

     on

    Is it possible to create a new folder and then just copy/paste the vst3 plugin components in a single folder, without messing its functionality? The installer just threw a bunch of files and folders in the vst3 folder making it untidy.

    Reply
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