I'm not a DSP engineer.
I have no training in signal processing, and I'm still an amateur when it comes to code. That's the first thing to say, because everything else here follows from it.
For years I wanted to build audio plugins. I had ideas: specific ones, accumulated over a long time spent working with sound. What I did not have was any way to realise them. It stayed something I thought about rather than something I did.
Then AI tools got good enough that I was using them daily. I started at the end of 2022, as soon as there was one the public could get, and I have kept at them since. That is close to four years now. There was no project. I used them because they were the only route I had to anything on that list.
One day the question stopped being hypothetical: could I describe a plugin in plain language and actually get one? Answering it meant an AI assistant, a keyboard, and a DAW, and the same loop every time. Describe, build, listen, find it wrong, go back. V-Drive came out of that. So did everything else here.
What I do have is my ears, years of working with audio, and two rules I don't break. I don't ship a claim I can't check. And I don't build anything I don't want to listen to.
So Spectra's loudness engine isn't "trust me, it's accurate." It is verified against the official EBU Tech 3341/3342 conformance test vectors and cross-checked sample-for-sample against libebur128 (155 comparisons, zero failures), with a ±0.1 LU accuracy bar enforced by the test suite on every build.
Not being an expert is exactly why I measure. An expert can trust their instincts. I can't, so I check.
V-Drive is where checking ran into its limit. I like what analog gear does to sound, and I wanted to know why, so I built my own measurement rig and spent months capturing hardware with it. A lot of that time went on getting it wrong and starting again.
What kept showing up was everything a digital design would normally clean up. Crosstalk between the channels, a high-pass at the input, hum from the mains. Measurement found them, but it could not tell me they were the reason I liked the sound. That part was my ears, and V-Drive keeps all of it.
There is a great deal of very good software in this field, made by people who know far more than I do. Having now tried to make some myself, I have more respect for them than I did before, not less.
Every plugin here has a 14-day trial, no card required. I'd rather you find out for yourself than take my word for it. And if something breaks, or behaves in a way that doesn't make sense, please tell me.
— T.T, GBCAudio