ZTEKNO Console

Free analog console, bus and outboard colour

Mix like it is on a real desk.

ZTEKNO Console puts real analog hardware on every track of your mix: large-format consoles, console preamps, channel strips, summing mixers, bus compressors, mastering processors, tape machines and valve gear. Every colour is a neural capture of a real unit, not an algorithm that imitates one. ZTEKNO Console is completely free.

It works the way a console works. Put Console Channel first on every track and Console Bus on your groups and the stereo master. Choose one desk for the whole mix, set the drive, and the tracks begin to sit together: more weight, softer transients, harmonics that glue the parts into one record.

The 3D channel spread

No two channels of a real console sound exactly alike, and that is a large part of why a console mix sounds wide and deep. Many devices in ZTEKNO Console were captured on several channels - up to eight on one summing mixer. With AUTO selected, each new instance takes the next channel of the model, even a copy on the same track. Track 1 plays channel 1, track 2 plays channel 2, and the mix opens up the way it does on hardware.

Hear the colour, not the volume

Louder almost always sounds better, which makes most A/B comparisons misleading. Switch on AUTO and Console keeps the processed signal at the loudness of the bypassed one, so when you toggle BYPASS you judge only the tone.

A MIX control that adds up cleanly

Analog circuits shift phase, so a simple dry/wet blend often sounds hollow or thin. In Console, the dry signal follows the delay, polarity and phase of each model, so the blend stays full and solid instead of thinning out. Try an Overdrive model at 20-40% on drums for parallel grit.

Seven colour groups

• Console & Channel - desks, channel strips and console preamps: the glue for every track.
• Bus & Master - summing mixers, bus compressors, master-bus processors and mastering converters.
• Saturation - valve, transformer and transistor colour.
• Tape - reel-to-reel and cassette machines, tape circuits and tape emulators.
• EQ & Tone - program equalizers, enhancers and tone-shaping chains.
• Overdrive - units driven hard, for crunch, dirt and parallel distortion.
• Special FX - broken, bridged, phono and other characterful devices.

Simple by design

Model, Drive, Mix, Output, AUTO, Bypass and Tape Noise. Nothing else to learn: you choose the hardware and how hard you hit it. Every model is calibrated so that -18 dBFS meets the hardware at its nominal level, so you can switch between models without chasing levels.

Features

• Two plug-ins: Console Channel (181 models) and Console Bus (173 models, true-stereo left/right captures).
• Neural captures of real analog hardware.
• Multi-channel captures for a natural 3D channel spread; AUTO gives each instance its own channel.
• Drive from 0 to +12 dB into the hardware.
• Phase-matched Mix from 0 to 100%.
• Output from -18 to +12 dB, or AUTO loudness matching for honest A/B comparisons.
• Real tape hiss from reel-to-reel and studio machines, different in every instance. Console Bus can switch the noise of every Channel at once.
• Calibrated gain staging: -18 dBFS is the nominal level of every model.
• 4x oversampling during playback and 8x for offline export, with the same constant latency reported to the host.
• Playback and export sound identical at every buffer size and sample rate.
• Bypass with latency compensation: the track never moves in time.
• Console Light and Console Dark themes: one click switches every open Channel and Bus window.
• Resizable window from 100% to 200%.
• One installer for the plug-ins, the capture bank and the user manuals in English and Russian.
• Completely free.