The plugin catalog

Every LV2 plugin the reference install carries, measured rather than described: latency and CPU cost at 44.1, 48, 96 and 192 kHz, an allocation/lock/syscall trace of the audio callback under a parameter sweep, a soak at all four rates and a thousand rack/unrack cycles. The console runs at 96 kHz, so every figure on this page is the 96 kHz figure — a delay in milliseconds is a different number at every rate, and quoting one rate is the only honest way to print it. The pages are written from the measurement data itself, so an edit made here is overwritten the next time the sweep runs.

The columns

• Latency at 96 kHz — the delay the plugin adds to the signal, in milliseconds, measured at 96 kHz.
• Class — zero where the measurement found no delay at all, low where the delay is smaller than one buffer, high where it is one buffer or more, unknown where the measurement did not resolve. One buffer is the console's default 1024 frames at 96 kHz, 10.67 ms: below it a plugin's delay disappears inside the buffering the desk already pays for, at or above it the plugin costs the path a whole extra period. These are the console's own thresholds, the same ones the plugin picker's live-safe filter uses.
• Cost at 96 kHz — one instance's 95th-percentile share of one CPU core at 96 kHz. Multiply by the number of strips you intend to run it on.
• 44.1 / 48 / 96 / 192 — what happened at each sample rate: ok, dies where the plugin went silent or produced non-finite samples at that rate, blast where it opened with a burst of level before settling, — where it would not instantiate.
• In the picker — whether the console offers it in the plugin picker today. The picker serves a curated palette; the rest of this catalog is what the reference install carries.
• Certified (on the per-kind pages) — yes when the soak came back clean at all four rates and the plugin survived a thousand rack/unrack cycles.
• Host (on the per-kind pages) — suitable, conditional, unknown or unsuitable, with the measurement that decided it; what these mean.

See plugins, the rack and skins for how inserts work on a strip, and the recommendations for the short lists.

Runs on the console's own audio thread

These 367 plugins have earned a place inside the mixing engine itself, with no separate host process between them and the mix: no allocation, lock or system call anywhere in the audio callback, a clean soak at every rate, and a thousand rack/unrack cycles without a fault. That saves a buffer in and a buffer out per insert — at 96 kHz, milliseconds an engineer can hear. Every one of them is certified on both counts, which is what earned the place, so the certified column is on the per-kind pages rather than repeated here. Sorted by latency, cheapest first, within each kind.

Equalisers (28)

Filters (27)

Dynamics (56)

Reverb (22)

Delay (29)

Modulation (20)

Saturation and amp simulation (101)

Pitch and spectral (8)

Spatial (5)

Analysis and metering (34)

Utility (24)

Instruments and generators (10)

Uncategorised (3)

Hosted apart, with a caution

These 23 measured well enough to be worth naming, but one dimension came back short, so they run in a host process of their own where a fault costs them and not the show. The caution column names the dimension that decided it.

The full matrix

All 958 plugins, by kind. Each page lists every plugin of that kind whatever its verdict, with the same columns plus the hosting verdict and the curator's note where there is one.

• Equalisers — 70 plugins, 28 on the audio thread.
• Filters — 51 plugins, 27 on the audio thread.
• Dynamics — 193 plugins, 56 on the audio thread.
• Reverb — 58 plugins, 22 on the audio thread.
• Delay — 49 plugins, 29 on the audio thread.
• Modulation — 37 plugins, 20 on the audio thread.
• Saturation and amp simulation — 140 plugins, 101 on the audio thread.
• Pitch and spectral — 31 plugins, 8 on the audio thread.
• Spatial — 14 plugins, 5 on the audio thread.
• Analysis and metering — 59 plugins, 34 on the audio thread.
• Utility — 156 plugins, 24 on the audio thread.
• Instruments and generators — 57 plugins, 10 on the audio thread.
• MIDI — 34 plugins, 0 on the audio thread.
• Uncategorised — 9 plugins, 3 on the audio thread.