About

If you're anything like me, you probably own way too many plugins.

Plugins. So many plugins.

My love affair with audio plugins started the way it does for most people: I was a broke student in the late '90s, and a friend handed me a stack of cracked software. ReBirth. Fruity Loops. The Waves bundle. I had no idea what half of it did, but I couldn't stop tweaking.

That was over twenty years ago. These days my plugin collection is legitimate — and enormous. Saturators, synths, effects, utilities — if it shapes sound, I've probably tested it. I know the joy of finding a plugin that just clicks — and the frustration of finding one that sounds incredible but feels like it was designed by someone who's never actually mixed a song.

That frustration is what started everything.

When curiosity turned into a project

I'm a Bitwig Studio user and Certified Trainer, and one of the things I love about Bitwig is how far you can go building your own devices inside the DAW. I spent a lot of time designing instruments and effects in The Grid, pushing modulators into unexpected territory. It's an incredible playground — but at some point, I kept running into ideas that needed more control than any DAW environment could offer.

That's where my other life kicked in. I studied signal processing at a graduate level — the math behind how audio signals are shaped, filtered, and transformed. I'd always had ideas for plugins I wished existed. Now I had a reason to actually build them.

So I stopped waiting and started building. That's how UB DSP was born. Grit Blender came first, in February 2026: a multi-saturation plugin with twelve algorithms and three blend modes.

Vowel Blender followed in May, a formant filter built on one idea: the vowel should be something you play, not something you preset.

Filter Blender came in October: twelve analog-style filter models, three at a time on a triangle, and the move between them under one dot. Three plugins so far. They won't be the last.

What UB DSP is about

Every plugin I make starts the same way: I wanted it to exist as a user, and it didn't. I design for the way I actually work — the most important controls always visible, workflows fast, nothing between me and the music.

That's why the Blenders share the same gesture. One pad, one cursor: move it and the sounds blend in real time, instead of scrolling through two hundred presets. Grit Blender does it with harmonics, Vowel Blender with formants, Filter Blender with filter circuits, and they don't step on each other. Every future Blender will apply that gesture to a different material.

That same thinking shapes everything else:

• Your studio, your rules. Licenses work 100% offline, with no activation server. Anonymous telemetry stays off unless you turn it on, and the update check can be switched off in the About dialog. Your tools should never spy on you.
• Open standards. I believe in them, with no format treated as second-class. Every UB DSP plugin ships in CLAP, VST3, AU, and AAX.
• No subscription traps. One fair price. Free updates. Software you buy should stay yours.

Beyond the code

I live in Bayonne, in the southwest of France, where I split my time between the studio and the ocean — surfing clears the head like nothing else.

At home, music is a family affair. My three kids are at the conservatory studying bassoon, piano, and cello. I'm outnumbered, but I'm pretty sure I can still hold my own on guitar.

If any of this resonates, grab a free trial of any Blender and see how it feels. I'm always happy to talk audio, so reach out any time.

— Ben