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Apple Silicon – Installation/Activation instructions for our legacy VST (.vst) and AU (.component) plugins

To maximize compatibility across the widest range of historical platforms, as well as continue to leverage our 100% bug-free legacy VST/AU platform right up to today’s latest hardware and macOS updates, our current generation of plugins (including Poly-Ana, SCAMP, and Stunning Phaser) are still Intel-based and have not been digitally signed by Apple. As such, modern macOS security will try to block them by default.

Not to worry! To get them running, you just need to perform a one-time “security handshake” with your Mac.

1. Install Your Plugin

Unzip the .component (AU) and/or .vst file that you downloaded from this website and copy it to its usual folder:

  • AU: Macintosh HD / Library / Audio / Plug-Ins / Components
  • VST: Macintosh HD / Library / Audio / Plug-Ins / VST

2. Clear the Security Gatekeeper (The Terminal Step)

Before opening your DAW, you must remove the “quarantine” flag that Apple places on non-notarized files.

  1. Open Terminal (Applications > Utilities > Terminal).
  2. Type the following command (replace StunningPhaser.component with whichever plugin you are installing):
    sudo xattr -cr /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/components/StunningPhaser.component
  3. Press Enter.
  4. Type your Mac Admin Password when prompted. (Note: You won’t see any characters as you type—just hit Enter when finished).

3. Run Your DAW in Rosetta Mode

Because these plugins were built for Intel processors, your Mac needs to use its “Rosetta 2” translator to run them inside your DAW.

  • Find your DAW (Logic Pro, Ableton Live, Cubase, etc.) in your Applications folder.
  • Right-click the app icon and select Get Info.
  • Check the box that says “Open using Rosetta.”
  • Restart your DAW and perform a plugin scan.

A Note on the Future

This marks the “end of the line” for our original platform plugins. We are currently migrating to a new code platform that will support Apple Silicon natively for all future releases. (And because of our Upgrade Protection Policy, version 1.x licensees already have a license for those future 2.x updates! We only want to sell you our products once!) And until then, these steps will keep your favorite Admiral Quality plugins working perfectly in your modern studio.

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Stunning Phaser 1.0.0 Released! 50% Off Sale!

Stunning Phaser 1.0.0
50% Off!
Our products…

Stunning Phaser has been mature, working and tested as 100% bug-free for some time now, but we still owed you some presets and a User Manual, so here they are! This makes it official, Stunning Phaser 1.0 is feature-complete and is now the best new stereo (or mono) phaser plugin you didn’t know you needed! Producers, keyboardists and guitarists alike simply have to plug it in and take it for a test drive to immediately hear why, but a quick glance at its front panel will tell you there’s a lot more going on here than the typical three or four controls we expect on the usual phaser effect. LFO modulation is there, of course, and with twists we’re famous for like our Gliss-quanti feature that chops up LFO waves into musical intervals, and the same kind of envelope follower capability found in our SCAMP filter effect and famous Poly-Ana virtual-analog synthesizer, that adds lively, organic feeling animation to the phaser modulation based on the input audio performance. This one does some things you’ve likely never heard from any phaser before, solid or software!

Stunning Phaser also provides controls to simulate the flaws in analog circuit behavior; non-linearities, clipping, and imprecise frequency tuning between the phaser stages. You can have as much of those as you’d ever want, or dial them right back down to digital perfection – your choice! And what would an Admiral Quality product be without a — you guessed it — Quality control? You can throw CPU power at it for the most accurate phaser model you’ve ever heard, or dial it back down for economical performance (like every other phaser plug-in is stuck at!) Again, your choice! But our C++ code is fast and efficient, so even at the highest Quality setting (16x internal oversampling!), you’ll likely rarely need to turn it down.

Beyond LFO and envelope follower, the third modulation source Stunning Phaser offers is… you! Stunning Phaser takes MIDI CC# input for the two most performable controls, so use your favorite MIDI hardware expression pedals or controller keyboards to play it manually (or in combination with the LFO and envelope followers) — wah-wah/Uni-Vibe style! And of course, every control can be automated by your host software, and nobody implements flexible controls interfaces like we do — letting the user control preference of and switch on-the-fly between Linear, Circular, and Circular-Relative knob modes! Other real-world inspired interface features like knob “detents” that snap to “sweet spots” and draggable sliders (much easier to time musically than clicking – though that works too) demonstrate the same attention to detail and reproducing a natural-feeling physical interface experience that all our products share.

To celebrate, we’re offering Stunning Phaser and all our other products at 50% Off for a limited time (now HELD OVER for a few more days!) And if you’re a new customer and would like even more savings, this is a great time to jump on our Make Me One With Everything bundle deal that will save you a further $20 when you buy all our products together at once!

All our products are free to try, no time limits, you can even save and recall your work. So download them all right now and throw them into your latest project and get straight to real work with them — always the best way to evaluate software!

New: Installation on Apple Silicon.

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Poly-Ana 1.4.0 VST/AU Released

Poly-Ana 1.3.4


Yes, it’s been a while! For the longest time now we’ve had no bugs to fix (how many software developers can say that?), but we’ve recently received a couple of reports and have taken care of them in the 1.4.0 Update.

Poly-Ana‘s more affordable but just as sound-capable little sister, L’il Poly-Ana, has also received the same fixes. If you haven’t taken Poly-Ana for a spin yet you owe it to yourself to try the most convincing analog synthesizer emulation going! She sports a huge, super-capable voice architecture in an intuitive, all-in-one-panel interface. You will immediately be reminded of the best features from the most famous synths of the classic analog era, plus a few you’ve likely never seen or heard before! And like all our products, Poly-Ana is free to try, no demo time limits, you can even save and recall your work – so download her and get going right now!

Expect this to be the first of several coming updates, the next will likely add a few new convenience features as well. And remember, our Upgrade Protection Policy means that your license will not only work with Poly-Ana 1.x, but with the entire 2.x series as well! View the Changelog history and you’ll see that we are serious about supporting our products and our customers in the long term.

Emanuele Ballasina, One Synth Challenge entry, 100% Poly-Ana – even the drums!

More Poly-Ana/L’il Poly-Ana demos…

Next up from the Admiralty, The Stunning Phaser 1.0 release is finished and ready for packaging! Grab it fast to catch the final days of the 60% OFF deal while still in Beta. (Note that the current 0.5.2 Beta version is version 1.0 and is fully functional and sounds AMAZING, it’s just lacking the presets that will be included in the upcoming 1.0 release.) Or check out our Make Me One With Everything bundle offer and save $20 while having it all!

Poly-Ana Custom Skins
Poly-Ana Custom Skins – choose your favorite or even make your own!
Maestro Mistheria demos the Poly-Ana virtual-analog VST/AU plugin softsynth. She’s even more capable now than she was back then!

As always, we welcome inquiries by email, so let us know if you have any questions or requests, and the Admiral himself will get right back to you!


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Admiral Quality Ends Long Term Support for Apple Platforms

Please note: All of our products are still available in VST and AU formats for OSX and are verified working on all versions. They should continue to work until Apple makes a change that breaks them. (If you’re using a recent OSX version you will likely need to use this method to enable them: https://www.osirisguitar.com/how-to-make-unsigned-vsts-work-in-macos-catalina/ As always, we recommend you download, install and thoroughly test our products before purchasing them. All of our products run in a free demo mode with no time limits, you can even save and recall your work!)

We regret to have to announce that Admiral Quality will no longer be producing OSX versions of our #VST/AU #plugin products in the long-term, folks. Sorry, but we can no longer afford to do business with Apple, neither financially nor morally. This has been a long time coming and GOOD RIDDANCE!

We will continue to make the existing downloads available for our customers as long as they continue to work on all Apple platforms, but once they abandon the current format we can no longer afford to keep up. Sorry, we’re a small company and Apple’s constant intentional and needless changes create far too much unnecessary work and cost for us. They did this to you, not us. We were wrong to support their platform in the first place and we apologize. (Your existing license key-files will work on Windows too. Contact us if you need them sent to you again.)

Update: If you’d like to know more about what we’re so unhappy about, please review this article. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/06/house-antitrust-subcommittee-apple-has-monopoly-power.html This is only half of it though, the other part is the constant breaking of applications with unnecessary operating system updates designed to force users to pay again for products they already bought. A game we refuse to play along with. (We’ve been doing this since 2007 and have yet to ask our customers to buy the same products again. And we have an Update Protection Policy that means it will be a long time before we ever do!)

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One last new feature! Stunning Phaser Beta version, 0.5.2, released!

Stunning Phaser 0.5.2
Stunning Phaser 0.5.2

 

Stunning Phaser Beta 0.5.2 is released, adding one final new feature — an adjustable soft-clipper for the Resonance signal. Many users were finding settings with Resonance set near maximum to be producing excessive and hard to manage peak levels. The new Resonance Clip control defaults to applying a non-linear distortion that clips at +24 dB to the Resonance signal, keeping its level in the range of sanity. This is done at the expense of some distortion applied to the resonance, but that’s perfectly typical of the behavior of analog phasers that allow Resonance to be set to full oscillation levels as well. Clip point can be adjusted anywhere between 0 dB and +24 dB (the lower you set it the more distortion will necessarily be applied to the Resonance). If you want the unclipped Resonance behavior of previous versions, just turn that knob fully counterclockwise to disable the new feature.

Stunning Phaser is now feature-complete. All controls, behaviors, and sound are now locked-down, allowing us to re-visit the graphics for a ground-up complete re-do (very clearly needed at this point, we had no idea just how big this product would grow when we started!) in preparation for the release of version 1.0. We’ll also be adding some preset patches and a user manual, but as far as sound and behavior goes, this is the final product. (Just like our other products, we do expect to continue to grow it and add more features, but we never break existing behaviors or sound once version 1.0 has been released so you never need to fear a future update changing the sound of one of your music projects.) Those tasks are already mostly complete and we don’t expect it will be much longer before 1.0 is released, so try it now while the big 60% Off Buy-it-in-Beta deal’s still on!

Thanks to everyone who provided feedback and suggestions during the Beta period, you’ve helped make this a very stand-out and unique product! Now back to work on the new graphics…

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Final Stunning Phaser Beta version, 0.5.0, released!

Stunning Phaser 0.5.0
Stunning Phaser 0.5.0

Stunning Phaser Beta 0.5.0 is released, thus ending the Beta series. With it will also go the big 60% Off Buy-it-in-Beta offer, so now’s the time to try it. We don’t expect it to be available for a better price than this for quite some time.

Beta 0.5.0 adds MIDI Control Change support for the Center Frequency and LFO Rate controls. MIDI CC numbers are set globally in the Options Dialog (click the product name at the bottom) and depth of MIDI control is set on the front panel, per-patch/project. You can now use an expression pedal or any other MIDI controller to modulate the phaser like a wah-wah, and/or control the LFO Rate like the classic Univibe phaser’s pedal.

Stunning Phaser is now feature-complete. All controls, behaviors, and sound are now locked-down, allowing us to re-visit the graphics for a ground-up complete re-do (very clearly needed at this point, we had no idea just how big this product would grow when we started!) in preparation for the release of version 1.0. We’ll also be adding some preset patches and a user manual, but as far as sound and behavior goes, this is the final product. (Just like our other products, we do expect to continue to grow it and add more features, but we never break existing behaviors or sound once version 1.0 has been released so you never need to fear a future update changing the sound of one of your music projects.) Those tasks are already mostly complete and we don’t expect it will be much longer before 1.0 is released, so try it now while the big deal’s still on!

Thanks to everyone who provided feedback and suggestions during the Beta period, you’ve helped make this a very stand-out and unique product!

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SCAMP 1.3.2 Released!

Time for a minor maintenance update for SCAMP. We finally found some bugs to fix and, now that they are, our bug tracking list is back to zero items. That’s how we roll!

SCAMP 1.3.2
SCAMP 1.3.2

New in SCAMP 1.3.2:

  • Fixed: Small shift in knob position when first clicking on a knob with detent(s) while in Linear Knob Mode corrected.
  • Tweaked: Knob center location calculations now ignore shadows.
  • Fixed: Rare issue with failure to auto-detect Windows’ Program Files folder, now defaults to C:\Program Files in that case.
  • Fixed: Bypass buttons no longer trigger unnecessary updates on unmoved controls.

Enjoy!