Two distortions in one box — a warm valve-style overdrive and a cold
digital crusher — with a blend control between them. Pick a side, or find
the point where both are true at once.
USER GUIDE
RECLUSE STUDIOS
VERSION 1.0.0 // 19 August 2026
Contents
1.
Introduction
2.
Installing and Loading
3.
Quick Start
4.
The Two Engines
5.
Blend, Mix, and Gain Staging
6.
The Gate
7.
Reading the Scopes
8.
Controls and Parameters Reference
9.
Licensing
10.
Troubleshooting
11.
Specifications
12.
Glossary
1. Introduction
Most distortion plug-ins make you choose. Warm and musical, or harsh and
modern. The Grind runs both at once and puts a knob between them.
The tube engine is the polite one — it rounds peaks off,
adds harmonics, and generally makes things sound bigger without sounding
broken. The digital engine is not polite. It clips hard and
can crush the signal down until it rattles.
BLEND sits between them. All the way left is pure
valve warmth; all the way right is pure destruction; the middle is where most
of the interesting sounds live — a fat, warm body with a nasty edge on top.
What it is for
Guitar and bass, obviously.
Drums — a little tube on a room mic, or heavy crush on a loop for
texture.
Synths that need dirt to sit in a mix.
Vocals, carefully, parallel-blended with MIX.
Anything that sounds too clean and too polite.
2. Installing and Loading
You will need
Windows, 64-bit.
Any VST3-capable host.
Installing
Copy the plug-in into your host's VST3 folder and rescan.
Where it goes in the chain
Early — before compression, before reverb and delay. Distortion changes
the level and the harmonic content of a signal, so anything downstream that
reacts to level should see the distorted version, not the clean one.
Put it after a noise gate if you have one, or use the built-in gate
(section 6).
It is free. There is no trial, no licence and nothing to activate (section 9).
3. Quick Start
Insert The Grind on a guitar, bass or synth track.
Set INPUT so the meter is reading healthily.
Distortion reacts to level, so this knob matters more here than on most
plug-ins.
Pull BLEND fully to the left, to
TUBE. Bring DRIVE up in
the TUBE panel until it sounds good.
Now sweep BLEND to the right and listen to what
the digital side does to it.
Park BLEND where you like it, and use
OUTPUT to match the level back to bypass.
A/B with ACTIVATE.
Figure 3-1. TUBE on the left, DIGITAL on the right, MASTER
between them. Each panel has its own scope so you can see what each stage
is doing to the waveform.
Match your levels before you judge. Distortion makes
things louder, and louder always sounds better for about ten seconds. Use
OUTPUT to bring the processed signal back to the
same loudness as bypass, then decide.
4. The Two Engines
Both engines are always running. BLEND decides how
much of each you hear.
Tube
Valve-style overdrive. It compresses as it distorts, rounds off transients
and adds harmonics that thicken a sound rather than fraying it.
DRIVE — how hard the signal is pushed. Low
settings add warmth and glue; high settings get genuinely dirty but
stay musical.
BODY — the tonal character of the valve stage.
Lower is tighter and more focused, higher is fatter and rounder. This
is the control that decides whether the tube side sounds like a
preamp or an amplifier.
LOW / MID /
HIGH — a three-band tone stack for the tube
path only, ±12 dB each.
Figure 4-1. Blended toward the valve side with drive and body
up. Note the tube scope: peaks rounded rather than sliced.
Digital
The other end of the spectrum. Hard clipping and bit reduction, with none
of the tube stage's forgiveness.
DRIVE — hard clipping. Where the tube engine
rounds a peak, this one cuts the top off it.
CRUSH — bit-crushing and sample-hold artefacts.
At zero it does nothing; brought up it turns a smooth waveform into
visible steps and adds the grit that goes with them. This is the
control people buy the plug-in for.
LOW / MID /
HIGH — an independent tone stack for the
digital path, ±12 dB each.
Figure 4-2. Blended toward digital with crush engaged. The
stair-stepping in the digital scope is the bit reduction — you can see
exactly what you are hearing.
Two tone stacks, not one. Each engine has its own EQ, so
you can roll the top off the digital side while leaving the tube side
bright. That is usually how you keep a crushed sound listenable — let the
valve engine carry the top end and the digital engine supply the grit
underneath it.
5. Blend, Mix, and Gain Staging
Three level controls that do quite different things. Worth being clear
about which one to reach for.
Control
What it balances
Blend
Tube against digital. Both are distorted — this is choosing a flavour.
Mix
Distorted against clean. This is parallel processing — keeping the original intact underneath.
Input / Output
Level into and out of the plug-in. Input changes how hard you hit the engines; Output just sets the final level.
Input is a tone control
On a distortion, input gain is not just level — it decides how hard the
signal hits the clipping stage, and therefore how distorted it gets. Turning
INPUT up and OUTPUT down gives
you more dirt at the same loudness. That pair is the real drive control.
Mix for parallel distortion
Pulling MIX back below 100% blends the clean signal
underneath. On drums and vocals this is often the only way to use heavy
settings — you get the harmonics and the aggression while the original
transients survive intact.
Try it: set something absurd, then pull Mix down to 20-30%. Frequently
better than a moderate setting at 100%.
6. The Gate
Distortion amplifies everything, including the hiss and hum that were
inaudible before you got to them. The louder the drive, the louder the noise
between the notes.
GATE sets a threshold below which the signal is
silenced. At its lowest setting it is effectively off, which is the default —
nothing is gated until you ask for it.
Setting it
Set your drive first. The gate has to be set against the noise floor
you actually end up with, not the one you started with.
Stop playing and listen to the noise.
Bring GATE up until it goes quiet.
Play again. If the tails of your notes are being cut off, back it down
— the threshold is above your quietest wanted signal.
If you cannot find a setting that kills the noise without eating the notes,
the noise is too close to the signal. Fix it upstream — a better DI, a
different cable, or a dedicated noise reduction plug-in before The Grind.
7. Reading the Scopes
Each panel has a live scope, and between them they show the signal at
three points in the chain.
Scope
Trace
Shows
SIGNAL // TUBE STAGE
Grey
The valve engine's output. Look for rounded, softened peaks.
SIGNAL // DIGITAL STAGE
Red
The digital engine's output. Flat tops mean hard clipping; visible steps mean crush.
SIGNAL // OUTPUT BUS
Ink
What actually leaves the plug-in, after blend, mix and output.
They are genuinely useful rather than decorative. If you cannot tell by ear
whether Crush is doing anything, the digital scope will show you immediately.
If the output trace is slammed flat against the top and bottom, you are
clipping the output and should pull OUTPUT down.
Meters
IN and OUT bars flank the
master panel for gain staging.
Resizing and themes
Drag the corner to resize. The DK/LT
button switches theme and the choice is saved with your session.
Figure 7-1. Light theme.Figure 7-2. The ? button opens a help
panel describing every control.
8. Controls and Parameters Reference
Tube (SEC.01)
Control
Range
Default
What it does
Drive
0 – 100
30.0
How hard the valve stage is pushed.
Body
0 – 100
50.0
Tonal character of the valve stage. Higher is fatter.
Low / Mid / High
−12 … +12 dB
0.0
Tone stack for the tube path only.
Digital (SEC.03)
Control
Range
Default
What it does
Drive
0 – 100
30.0
Hard clipping amount.
Crush
0 – 100
0.0
Bit reduction and sample-hold artefacts. Off at zero.
Low / Mid / High
−12 … +12 dB
0.0
Tone stack for the digital path only.
Master (SEC.02)
Control
Range
Default
What it does
Input
−24 … +12 dB
0.0
Level into the engines. Effectively a drive control.
Blend
0 – 100
50.0
Tube against digital. 0 is all tube, 100 is all digital.
Mix
0 – 100%
100%
Processed against clean, for parallel distortion.
Gate
−80 … 0 dB
−80.0
Noise gate threshold. Effectively off at the bottom.
Output
−24 … +6 dB
0.0
Final level trim.
Activate
on / off
on
Run the processor. Off bypasses entirely.
All of these can be automated by your host.
9. Licensing
There isn’t any. The Grind is free, in full: every control, no
watermark, no export limit, nothing to expire. No licence key, no
activation, no clock counting down, and nothing that phones home.
The footer says FREE. That is the whole story.
Privacy
The plug-in makes no network connections. No audio, no session data and
nothing about your projects ever leaves your machine.
10. Troubleshooting
Symptom
What to do
No sound at all
Check ACTIVATE is on, MIX is up, and INPUT is not turned all the way down.
Barely any distortion
Raise INPUT. Drive responds to how hard it is hit, so a quiet source will barely break up however high you set it.
Horrible fizzy top end
Pull the HIGH control down on whichever engine BLEND is favouring — usually the digital one. Or blend back toward tube.
Hiss and hum between notes
Set your drive first, then bring GATE up until the gaps go quiet. See section 6.
Note tails get chopped off
The gate threshold is above your quietest wanted signal. Lower GATE.
It sounds better but I am not sure why
It is probably just louder. Match OUTPUT to bypass level and compare again.
Crush does nothing
Check BLEND is not all the way toward the tube side — Crush only affects the digital engine. Watch the digital scope: you should see the waveform go stepped.
Too aggressive on drums or vocals
Keep the settings and pull MIX down to 20-30%. Parallel distortion keeps the transients intact.
Output trace is flat-topped
You are clipping the output stage. Pull OUTPUT down.
11. Specifications
Product
The Grind
Version
1.0.0
Formats
VST3
System
Windows 64-bit
Channels
Mono or stereo
Latency
None
Engines
Two, always running, balanced by Blend
Tone controls
±12 dB, three bands per engine
Input range
−24 to +12 dB
Output range
−24 to +6 dB
Gate range
−80 to 0 dB
Price
Free. No licence, no trial, no activation
12. Glossary
Bit crushing
Reducing the resolution of a signal so it takes visible steps, adding grit and a lo-fi character.
Blend
Here, the balance between the two distortion engines — not between wet and dry.
Clipping
What happens when a signal is pushed past what a stage can pass. Hard clipping slices peaks flat; soft clipping rounds them.
Drive
How hard a signal is pushed into a distortion stage.
Gain staging
Setting levels sensibly at each point in a chain so nothing is starved or overloaded.
Gate
A processor that silences signal below a threshold, used to remove noise between notes.
Harmonics
Extra frequencies added by distortion, which is what makes a distorted sound feel bigger.
Mix
Here, the balance between the processed signal and the untouched original.
Parallel distortion
Blending a heavily distorted signal under the clean one, keeping transients while adding weight.
Tone stack
A set of tone controls. The Grind has one per engine.
