The TILT knob controls the spectral shape of the noise injected at the clipping threshold. The Noise Gain slider below controls the signals amplitude. Together with the Buzz Thresholds on the oscilloscope (section 9.3), these controls form the complete erosion engine.

You can set the erosion onset threshold directly by dragging the Buzz: −1.0 dB threshold markers on the oscilloscope.

Upwards vs Downwards Mode

Downwards (default): Noise energy “erodes” flat-topped clipping into a textured edge. The erosion amount is proportional to how close the signal is to the ceiling.

Upwards: Noise is injected below the Buzz: −1.0 dB threshold for a noise flutter effect (good for sub bass).

The Stereo Trick: In stereo mode (default), each channel receives independent noise. Conventional clippers flatten L and R to the same value, collapsing width. BuzzCut’s per-channel noise maintains stereo difference even at maximum clipping.

The draggable Buzz Thresholds on the oscilloscope. These set the amplitude threshold at which erosion noise begins to affect the signal.

In asymmetric mode, top and bottom Buzz markers are independent — the top marker controls positive-polarity erosion (noiseThresh) and the bottom controls negative (noiseThreshNeg). In symmetric mode, both move together.

Relationship to other thresholds: The Buzz threshold is always clamped at or below the Hard Ceiling. Dragging the Hard Ceiling marker on the scope moves the Buzz threshold with it, maintaining their relative distance.

Erosion vs Oversampling: Aliasing Masking

The table below shows how much erosion is needed to fully mask all foldback aliasing (worst case: clipped 10 kHz tone, default tilt and noise amplitude).

Controls the amplitude of injected noise in the erosion engine.

Unlocks independent negative-polarity processing for even-order harmonic warmth (2nd, 4th, 6th — the character of tubes and tape).

You can also toggle asymmetric mode by right-clicking any threshold marker (Soft Buzz Hard) on the oscilloscope. On the scope, top markers control positive polarity and bottom markers control negative polarity.

Two independent high-pass filters at 20 Hz, only active when Asymmetric mode is enabled (symmetric clipping produces no DC offset).

Why two filters? DC1 catches offset from asymmetric soft clipping before it biases the hard stage. DC2 catches residual offset from the full chain before output.

Removes DC offset post Soft Clip stage. DC offset is a constant voltage shift that asymmetric waveshaping introduces when positive and negative polarities are processed differently. Left uncorrected, this offset wastes headroom and biases subsequent processing stages. Activating the DC filter will affect the tonailty of subsequent processing and cause the processed signal to peak back above the thresholds. This is due to the phase shift required for minimum phase filters to work.

Filter: 2nd-order minimum-phase SVF (state variable filter) highpass, 20 Hz, Q = 0.707 (Butterworth), −12 dB/octave. Runs in double precision (64-bit) at the oversampled rate for extra numerical accuracy at low frequencies.

Removes DC offset after the Hard Clip stage. DC offset is a constant voltage shift that asymmetric waveshaping introduces when positive and negative polarities are processed differently. Left uncorrected, this offset wastes headroom and biases subsequent processing stages. Activating the DC filter will affect the tonailty of subsequent processing and cause the processed signal to peak back above the thresholds. This is due to the phase shift required for minimum phase filters to work.

Filter: 2nd-order minimum-phase SVF (state variable filter) highpass, 20 Hz, Q = 0.707 (Butterworth), −12 dB/octave. Runs in double precision (64-bit) at the native (1×) sample rate for extra numerical accuracy at low frequencies.

Anti-aliasing for cleaner clipping at higher CPU cost.

Linear Phase (default): Transparent frequency response, symmetrical ringing, slightly more latency. Minimum Phase: Lower latency, no pre-ringing, slight HF phase shift.

True Ceiling (Settings)

A post-filter peak clamp that catches anti-aliasing overshoot before it reaches your output. Requires 2×+ oversampling. Default: Off. See section 18.10 for full details.

Built-in signal generator for testing and visualisation.

On first enable, the frequency locks to a stable fraction of the scope time window. Dragging the frequency breaks the lock. Mute Tone Output (Settings, default: on) processes the tone visually on the scope without outputting audio.

ITU-R BS.1770 short-term loudness metering (3-second window) with one-click loudness matching. A progress ring fills over 3 seconds as the measurement window accumulates. LUFS meters only calculate when the plugin UI is visible to save CPU.

Short-term input loudness measurement.

The LUFS meters use a three-colour system to show relative loudness at a glance: Yellow marks the louder meter, Blue marks the quieter meter, and White means both meters are matched (within 0.3 dB). This colour coding updates continuously so you can see the loudness relationship between input and output without reading the numbers.

Short-term output loudness measurement with one-click auto-matching.

Requires at least 3 seconds of signal in both meters (wait for progress rings to complete). Both meters briefly display SYNC on success.

The output meter uses the same three-colour system as the input meter: Yellow when this meter is louder, Blue when it is quieter, and White when matched within 0.3 dB. After a successful Auto-Match, both meters turn White — confirming that input and output loudness are aligned for unbiased A/B comparison.

Level-matched A/B: After matching, toggle Power to compare processed vs bypassed at identical perceived loudness — removes loudness bias from your judgment.

Controls dry/wet blend and the final stage of BuzzCut’s three-stage auto-gain system.

Why three stages? Every stage of clipping removes energy and makes your signal quieter. That volume drop biases your judgment — you end up chasing loudness instead of evaluating tone. BuzzCut’s auto-gain measures the loss at each stage and boosts to compensate, so what you hear before and after is the character of the processing, not just a level change. Each stage builds on the last: Soft compensates the knee, Hard compensates soft + hard together, and Final compensates the entire chain including the dry/wet blend.

Drive (default): Compensates vs post-input-gain level. Source: Compensates back to the original pre-gain level — useful for hearing exactly what clipping does to your untouched signal.

Real-time dual-channel waveform display with BPM-synced time divisions, draggable threshold markers, and clipping indicators.

LusiD Logo & Social Links

BuzzCut ships with 12 factory presets plus full user preset management. Presets are stored as .buzzcut XML files. Visual settings (scope time, FPS, delay, link to DAW, power state) are never changed when loading a preset — your workspace stays exactly how you left it.

The preset name in the header bar shows the currently loaded preset. Click it to open the two-column Preset Browser panel (User Presets on the left, Factory Presets on the right). Click any preset name to load it instantly.

A floating two-column panel with USER PRESETS (left) and FACTORY PRESETS (right). The footer contains Save and Delete buttons. Only one panel (Settings or Presets) can be open at a time.

Sharing presets: Copy .buzzcut files between users via the presets folder. Saving with a factory preset name creates a “shadow” file that overrides the factory version — use Reset to restore the original.

Factory presets are baked into the plugin and cannot be permanently deleted. However, saving a user preset with the same name as a factory preset creates a shadow file that takes loading priority over the built-in version — effectively overwriting the factory preset. To restore the original factory default, simply delete the shadow file.

Essentials

Creative Destruction

Noise & Texture

User presets appear in the left column, sorted alphabetically. Saved as .buzzcut XML files on disk.

Saves all audio parameters as a .buzzcut file. The dialog pre-fills with the current preset name. Saving with an existing name overwrites silently. Overwriting a factory preset creates a shadow save file that takes loading priority and can be deleted to restore the original factory preset. Visual settings (scope, FPS, transport) are excluded.

Context-aware: shows Delete for user presets, Reset for modified factory presets (removes shadow file, restoring the original), and appears disabled for pure factory presets. A confirmation dialog always appears first.

Click the gear icon to open Settings. Dismisses on click outside of panel. Divided into Global Settings (visual/scope) and Audio Settings (processing).

Persistence: Visual settings saved via “Make Global” persist across all DAW sessions. Audio settings are stored per-instance in the DAW project.

Click any colour swatch to open a picker. Defaults: L = Cyan, Mid = White, R = Magenta. Changes apply live. Saved via “Make Global.”

Oscilloscope refresh rate: 30 (low CPU), 60 (default), or 120 FPS (high-refresh displays). Does not affect audio processing.

Overlays exact duration (ms) and frequency (Hz) of the current scope window. Default: Off. A useful function to quickly present BPM timing divisions you may want to inform your delay and reverb times.

Horizontal time window: 8 Bars, 4 Bars, 2 Bars, 1 Bar, 1/2, 1/4, 1/8 (default), 1/16, 1/32. Shorter = individual cycles; longer = musical phrases. Synced to host BPM when Link to DAW is on.

Locks the scope's playhead to the DAW's playhead cursor, keeping plotted audio waveforms visually aligned on the oscilloscope and preventing drift. Default: On.

Adds artificial visual latency (0–500 ms, 1 ms steps) to re-align the scope's display to your preference. For example, cumulative latency may cause a kick transient to appear slightly before or after the left-hand side of the scope. This setting lets you correct that offset. Default: 0 ms. Does not affect audio.

Toggle hover tooltips on all controls. Default: On. Disable and make global once you've learned the interface.

Make Global: Saves all visual settings to a shared file used by every new BuzzCut instance. Reset Global: Restores factory visual defaults.

Hides all controls so the oscilliscope can be used exclusively for monitoring purposes. Click the “X” button (top-right) to return. Audio processing continues normally.

A secondary clipper applied after the anti-aliasing filter. Requires 2×+ oversampling. Default: Off.

The problem: When you oversample, an anti-aliasing filter cleans up the signal on the way back down to your session rate. The anti aliasing filter ringing (Linear Phase - Default) or phase shift (Minimum Phase) will slightly push peaks above the hard clip thresholds. Your DAW’s 32-bit engine handles these overs internally, but the moment you bounce to a 24-bit file, those peaks clip and cause aliasing (again!).

The fix: True Ceiling adds a secondary clipper after the anti-aliasing filter, catching any overshoot before it reaches your output. This is so that what you hear in your session is what you'll get in your bounce.

The Safety Margin slider (0.0–1.1 dB, default 0.3 dB) controls how much headroom the filter has to work. 0.3 dB is the sweet spot. You keep most of the benefit of oversampling without losing much loudness. 1.1 dB guarantees zero overs, but you’re giving up more level for diminishing returns.

Default: On. The test tone is processed and visible on the scope, but final output is silenced. Lets you visually observe how BuzzCut shapes a known signal without hearing it. Disable to hear the tone.

Default: On. When enabled, erosion is purely subtractive and can only pull sample values down, never push them louder. When disabled, samples within the erosion clipping boundary have a random chance of being pushed slightly past their original level, creating an alternative erosion character.

Default: Off. Shows the scope signal before Output Gain instead of after. Useful for seeing the true clipping effect without output gain changing the result.

The diagonal grip icon at the bottom-right corner of the plugin lets you scale the entire interface up or down.