Mercurial Tones has released Vanguard, a bus compression, saturation, and clipping plugin for macOS and Windows in VST3 and AU formats, at an introductory price of €39 (reg. €49).
At the core of Vanguard is RSX — the Reactive Spectral Saturation Engine — which analyzes the source signal in real time and reshapes the harmonic saturation curve to match it, reducing muddiness on bass-heavy material and softening harshness on bright sources. Three compressor modes cover Vintage, Modern, and Bass characteristics, with auto-release. A tube saturation stage with three voicings (Tight, Hot, and Cal) sits before the compressor, with a SMACK drive that lets transients pass through rather than smearing them. An output stage includes Soft, Hard, and Shaped clipping modes with a delta-listen solo to monitor exactly what is being removed. Sidechain detection features a sweepable high-pass, adjustable lookahead, 0–100% stereo link, and automatic makeup gain.
More details are available at the Mercurial Tones website.
