FI-11

Brut

Name: Brut
Brand: Felt Instruments
SKU: FI-11
Price: 105 GBP
Availability: InStock

A saturation plugin built from rare studio and test equipment.

VST3, AU, AAX plugin

The Rohde & Schwarz UBM front panel, with a close-up look at the knobs.

An NRU portable tube mixer from the 1940s, with faders exposed.

An RCA OP-6 tube preamp from the 1950s, sampled for the Brut plugin.

The Rohde & Schwarz UBM front panel, with a close-up look at the filter section.

story

Six tube and germanium preamps, captured at the point of breakdown.

It all started with the Rohde & Schwarz UBM, a measurement device used in 1950s electronic music studios. The UBM pairs a high-gain tube amplifier with a filter and a feedback loop. Whatever it was built to measure, it's one of the most brutal sound manglers ever made.

Brut takes the idea further: six units of studio and test equipment from the 1940s to the 60s, each paired with filters and feedback, from a touch of grit to all-out distortion. You can keep it clean. But most likely you won't.

Sampled, not modeled

Six units, each captured at the point it loses control, from test tones run through the hardware itself.

A rack you could not assemble

A 1950s RCA used on Nils Frahm's records, a Rohde & Schwarz measurement amp, a 1940s Dutch mixer. Three of the six.

...And a feedback loop

Send the output back through the whole chain. Push it and it runs from unstable crunch to pure whining chaos.

every update is free

Buy it once, and you get all future versions and improvements.

the gear

An RCA OP-6 tube preamp from the 1950s, once owned by Nils Frahm, sampled for the Brut saturation plugin. — RCA OP-6 - tube preamp
a 1950s tube preamp with a larger-than-life glow. This very unit belonged to Nils Frahm and ran on his records. A go-to when a track needs sparkle.

A Rohde & Schwarz UBM tube test unit from the 1950s, sampled for the Brut saturation plugin. — Rohde & Schwarz UBM - test equipment
an experimental-studio legend, still in the racks of the boldest techno producers. Its tube stage gives the most brutal, compressed, filthy tone you will find. Beautiful.

A 1940s NRU Dutch portable tube mixer, sampled for the Brut saturation plugin. — NRU - Dutch tube mixer
a 1940s Dutch portable mixer, the secret weapon for anything that needs to sound old, dark and hairy. Built for very low-output mics, so the gain on tap is faintly ridiculous. You know what that means.

A 1950s Radiometer Copenhagen BKF6 tube distortion-measurement unit, sampled as a distortion generator for the Brut plugin. — Radiometer Copenhagen BKF6 - test equipment
a 1950s tube distortion-measurement device from a Danish lab. It makes a fine distortion generator if you abuse it. And you would not do that, would you?

A 1960s Girardin French broadcast mixer on germanium transistors, sampled for the Brut saturation plugin. — Girardin - French broadcast mixer
a small 1960s French broadcast mixer on germanium transistors. Do not let the size fool you: it punches hard, and stays sweet on synths, drums and whatever you feed it.

The amplifier stage of a Soviet Polivoks synthesizer, sampled for the Brut saturation plugin. — Polivoks - Soviet synth amp
the amplifier from the legendary Soviet synth, gritty and angry by design. Run a soft synth through it and it stops sounding like one.

The resonant highpass filter section of the Rohde & Schwarz UBM, sampled for the Brut saturation plugin. — UBM - resonant highpass filter
the other half of the Rohde & Schwarz: a resonant highpass with a peak at the cutoff strong enough to become the sound. Bring it down low behind the UBM preamp and the bottom end comes back.

The bandpass filter of a Soviet Polivoks synthesizer, sampled for the Brut saturation plugin. — Polivoks - bandpass filter
the Polivoks bandpass with all its non-linearities left in. Add feedback for bell-like resonances and tones you did not plan on.

The tilt section of a 1950s Klangfilm RZ062a tube mastering equalizer, sampled for the Brut saturation plugin. — Klangfilm RZ062a - tilt
the tilt section of the 1950s Klangfilm tube mastering EQ. The last thing in the chain: one knob to tip the whole result one way or the other after the damage is done.

Vintage hardware patched into a feedback loop for the Brut saturation plugin. — Feedback loop
feed the output back into the input, the trick electronic music has leaned on since the earliest studios. Approach with caution.

session notes

Through it

Same take, dry and then through Brut. Six units that each break up differently, so the right colour is a click away. A touch of grit or whining feedback: as dirty as you dare to take it.

Mix bus

Drum machine

Guitar

Electric piano

Stock synth

Feedback and filter

pricing

Brut
A saturation plugin built from rare studio and test equipment.
Vintage Mix Suite
Brut bundled with Kolor, a modular equalizer sampled from rare post-war European hardware.

There are no sales at Felt. This is the price today and the price in December, for everyone.

try it free

Run your own tracks through Brut and see how hairy things can get. Free, and no time limit.

details

formats: VST3, AU, AAX · macOS 10.13+, Windows 10+ (64-bit)
CPU: Brut is CPU-hungry by design. It oversamples on its own, so don't force it in your DAW.
machine learning: The saturation is recreated with machine learning, trained on custom test tones. Never on anyone's music, and never on your audio.
no fake wood?: Cutting down trees to make a plugin never sat right with me. Sorry.
manual: The Brut manual covers every control.
licence: One licence per user, install on as many machines as you personally use. All future updates are free.

RCA, Rohde & Schwarz, Radiometer Copenhagen, Girardin, Polivoks and Klangfilm are trademarks of their respective owners. Felt Instruments is not affiliated with any of them.

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