Highlights
- Lower default oscillator and master gain so a freshly inserted Laura sounds clean on every host. Reports across Reason, Ableton, Logic, Cubase, and Fender Studio all traced to the same out of box mix being too hot.
- The Init factory preset now applies on plugin construction, so a fresh insert matches what Init does from the preset menu byte for byte.
- Mono retrigger no longer flushes filter state for SVF based types (LP24, HP24, LP12, HP12, BP, Notch, Peak, MorphSVF, Synapse). Every consecutive note on a mono patch used to reset the filter mid signal, and the filter responded with its impulse response to the new note's full amplitude input. That impulse was the click. Comb and String still flush, because there the filter is a tuned delay line and a stale tail genuinely leaks into the new pitch.
- Output limiter restored to a transparent safety net at 1 dB headroom instead of a constant compressor at 6 dB. Bass patches keep their dynamics; the limiter only intervenes on actual peaks.
Details
v1.0.9 is a focused polish release. No new features. Two specific issues that several of you wrote in about, both fixed at the source.
The first was distortion on the very first preset every time Laura was loaded. The shipped default mix had both oscillators on at 0.7 and 0.5 with master at 0.8, plus 30 percent reverb and chorus wet, and the limiter was masking the resulting clipping with constant 6 dB plus of gain reduction. The default sounded thick and crushed instead of clean. v1.0.9 lowers the default oscillator gains to 0.5 and 0.4, master to 0.5, and zeroes the wet mixes via the Init preset which now also auto applies on plugin construction. A fresh Laura sounds the same as clicking Init from the preset menu, which is the actual baseline.
The second was a click on every consecutive note in mono patches like Sub Anchor. This has been in every shipped version of Laura. The previous limiter at 6 dB threshold was masking it by constantly compressing. With the new transparent limiter the click was suddenly audible. The root cause was in the mono retrigger path: every retrigger reset the filter state to zero in the middle of a continuous signal, and the filter then responded to the new note's full amplitude input as an impulse, producing a damped ring at its resonance for a few ms on every keypress. Worst on the 4 pole LP24 and HP24 cascades. The reset is now scoped to Comb and String filter types only, where it is genuinely needed because those filters are tuned delay lines. SVF based types let the state carry continuously through the retrigger, the way they should.
If you are upgrading and notice your own patches sound a touch quieter on insert than before, that is the new lower default master gain. Your saved patches restore at whatever master gain you saved them with; only fresh inserts see the new default.