"Its flexible user interface and a variety of included emulation algorithms make Lifeline Console a great option if you're in the market for a versatile channel strip plugin."

Bedroom Producers Blog. A daily updated blog for music producers, featuring news about free music making software.

"This plugin goes above and beyond the call. It is just wonderful and an absolute pleasure to use."

Freemasons. Freemasons are an English DJ duo from Brighton, East Sussex, England.

"Excite Audio have done it again! Whenever we need some extra mojo, whatever the source material, we reach for Lifeline Console."

Klax. DnB production trio: Warner Bros, Critical, Shogun Audio and many more.

Instant Analogue Character

Lifeline Console brings recordings to life with the warmth and charm of analogue audio processing.

While Lifeline Expanse simulates the space and characteristics of real recording environments and re-amping methods, Lifeline Console focuses on mixing in a control room, offering you the sound of sought-after hardware and analogue formats all within your DAW. Lifeline Console and Lifeline Expanse are also available together within the Lifeline Bundle.

Each of the plugin’s five modules brings a particular vintage flavour to your signal chain:

Pre-amp warms and enhances the signal with colourful saturation via a customisable frequency response.
EQ offers characterful spectral shaping with a choice of analogue circuitry.
Compressor makes quick work of dynamics duties and contains an innovative Auto Makeup control.
Modulation imparts the movement and life of warped records and tape speed variations.
Wear adds the charm and imperfections of old-school playback, introducing the noise, artefacts and unpredictable nature of tape, vinyl and cassette.

Whether you’re adding gentle sheen and signal enhancement, degrading a sound into a nostalgic, lo-fi production, or anything in between, there’s a module combination for whatever you need.

Overview

Five rearrangeable effects modules
An interactive display for each module
15 unique algorithms
Left/Right or Mid/Side processing for stereo control
Blend between Vintage and Modern mixing desk styles
350 presets for starting your mix
Zero Latency

Enhance Warmth

The crucial first stage in a recorded signal’s journey, a preamp adds gain but can also impart warmth, drive and excitation.

Console’s pre-amp combines this classic preamp workflow with the customisability of the digital realm, letting you shape the frequency response curve of your circuit’s character to perfectly suit the instrument you’re working with.

Three modes help you further refine the type of drive and enhancement needed. Bright offers a high-end presence and sheen that can bring an airy, sparkling quality. Warm adds body, smoothness and presence, particularly useful for midrange frequencies. Dark brings weight and punch to low frequencies.

Push-Pull saturation warms the signal with a weighted frequency response and then brings the overall gain back down – leaving only the spectral character of the preamp. Dial-in the exact character of the response using Bias, Q and Shape controls.

Shape Tonal Balance

Sculpting the frequency range of your audio is essential both for shaping the tonal balance of each channel and for allowing each element its own place in a mix.

Lifeline Console’s EQ offers a classic parametric four-band approach with a choice of three modes. Gain mode offers a clean circuit for simple and precise EQ jobs. Vintage Circuit mode introduces additional harmonics to drive a signal when boosting. Dirty Circuit mode brings all-out saturation and distortion into the EQing process.

With a low cut or shelf filter, low-mid and high-mid bands, plus a high cut or shelf filter, and the ability to work in 3dB or 30dB modes, Lifeline Console’s EQ offers everything from subtle tone shaping to powerful harmonic enhancement.

Colourful Dynamic Control

Right from the early days of the studio, compressors and been essential to the sound of music. Today, compression is used more than ever before, and in many more applications.

Lifeline Console’s compressor module puts characterful dynamics control at the forefront and lets you choose between three compression types to suit a variety of sources and uses.

The Comp module provides three compression styles to deal with different production tasks. Analogue smooths out signals and imparts the character of revered compressor hardware. Transparent gives a clean, modern response that’s great for catching peaks while retaining a sound’s body. Variable provides an input-dependent response that’s great for smoothing vocals, glueing busses, and for mastering applications.

Controls on the Comp module include Threshold, Ratio, Attack and Release. Lifeline Console’s unique Auto-Makeup control simplifies the make-up gain process, by listening to your audio, taking an average of your audio signal and applying the exact amount of gain required.

Further features include a Dry/Wet mix for parallel processing, a bandpass filter for frequency-specific compression and a gain reduction meter. As with all Lifeline Console modules, the compressor offers Mid/Side and Left/Right functionality for full control over the stereo field

Nostalgic Pitch Warping

In analogue audio formats, playback speed isn’t always perfectly consistent, and replicating this effect can lend a warm, nostalgic feel to lifeless digital audio.

The Modulation section brings back the magic of pitch variations as experienced with Tape, Vinyl and Cassette, reintroducing the sound-warping character of these media, but with precise control over their properties.

Tape mode introduces subtle pitch modulation where the speed and depth are compensated – an increase in speed is countered by a corresponding decrease in depth. Vinyl simulates the warping of a record, lending a moderate pitch modulation with some speed and depth compensation. Cassette achieves a more extreme pitch modulation effect as heard on compact-style tapes, an effect which is left untamed by keeping speed and depth independent.

The Modulation section’s dual X/Y pads give you graphical control over two parameter combinations: Wow Speed and Depth, plus Flutter Speed and Depth.

Wow and Flutter is found in all three modulation modes, and can even be synced to your DAW’s tempo. Their Waveform Shape can be set to Sine, Linear or Random, and a Dry/Wet control lets you blend pitch modulation into an analogue flanging or chorus-style effect.

Creative Textural Layers

The signal degradation and pitch variation caused by vintage equipment are usually connected and dictated by the physical format. Lifeline Console instead allows you to mix the Wow and Flutter from one format with physical wear from another.

Use noise, hum, artefacts and dropouts to shape a sound’s tone and feel. Add life, realism or even a lo-fi texture to a mix, and use these factors creatively as part of your sound design and production workflow.

Three Wear modes – Tape, Vinyl and Cassette bring three types of recogniseable degradation to your audio, and the Age control introduces the saturation and deterioration that occurs over time in these formats.

Noise properties in the Wear module include Amp (hiss), Hum (electrical noise), Mechanical (physical movement and whir), and Dust (light artefacts). These signals can be ducked or triggered by input audio, letting you harness noise as a creative effect. The interactive display also reacts to your audio, noise, age, artefacts and dropouts.

Create musical elements out of your Artefacts and Dropouts such as light rhythms and subtle gating by syncing them to your project tempo.

Blend Vintage Circuitry

Lifeline Console offers three controls to give a final polish to your sound, rounding out the effects you’ve dialled in with one more layer of analogue goodness.

The Warm knob enhances the low frequencies of an entire mix, helping to glue the bottom end together. The Shine knob achieves a high-end sparkle that’s perfect as a final stage of sheen to give your track an extra edge.

Find your ideal console to work on for each session with the Triangle Pad, which houses both Clean and Vintage emulations of mixing desk circuitry, allowing you to find the perfect blend between the two and your dry signal.

Features

5 Effects Modules (Pre-amp, EQ, Compressor, Modulation & Wear)
15 Unique Algorithms (243 different combinations)
Interactive Display for Each Module
Left/Right and Mid/Side functionality per Module
Drag & Drop Modular workflow
Scrollable & Resizeable UI
350 Presets
Zero Latency

Global

Linkable Input/Output Gain Controls
A triangle pad for different blends of mixing desk circuitry
Warm & Shine finishing controls
Global Bypass

Pre-Amp

3 'Push-Pull' Saturation Curves
Tone Bias, Q & Shape controls
Lo-cut and Drive controls
L/R VU Metre

EQ

3 Unique EQ Circuits
4-band parametric EQ (2 bells, 2 shelves/cuts)
Scalable Display from 3db-30db

Compression

3 Compressor Algorithms
Threshold, Ratio, Attack & Release controls
Intelligent Make-up Gain
Stereo-Link and Dry/Wet controls

Modulation

3 Pitch-Modulating Algorithms
Realistic Speed-Depth compensation
Wow and Flutter control
Dual X/Y pad control
Tempo Sync functionality
Dry/Wet Mix

Wear

3 Wear Modes
4 Noise layers per mode (Amp/Hum/Mechanical/Dust)
Internal Sidechain for Input reactive Noise
Free & Tempo synced Artefacts/Dropouts
Mode-specific Age control

Version Comparison

System Requirements

macOS

macOS 10.15 or higher (Intel / M1 Apple Silicon supported) (64-bit only)
Plugin Formats: VST, VST3, AU, AAX, Standalone
DAW's Supported: Ableton Live, Pro Tools, Logic Pro, FL Studio, Cubase, Nuendo, Reaper, Reason + more.
Compatibility: 64-bit compatible only.

Windows

Windows 7 or higher (32 / 64-bit)
Plugin formats: VST, VST3, AAX, Standalone
DAWs supported: Ableton Live, Pro Tools, Logic Pro, FL Studio, Cubase, Nuendo, Reaper, Reason + more.
Compatibility: 64-bit compatible only.

Note: When accessing this software via a Rent to Own plan or the Beatport Studio membership, it's installed and run through the Beatport Access portal. An internet connection is required every 3 days to validate your license.