When we released Grit Blender, the idea was blending saturation types like colors. That part worked. But once people started using it on real sessions, the same request kept coming back: I love the sound, but I want more control over where the saturation hits.
Fair enough. A bass guitar doesn't need the same treatment as a hi-hat. A vocal doesn't saturate the same way at 200 Hz and at 8 kHz. So we built the Advanced Panel — a new overlay behind the ADV button in the bottom bar.
Frequency Crossovers
Two toggle switches — Low and High — define the frequency range where saturation is applied. Everything outside that range passes through clean.
Enable the low crossover, drag it up to 120 Hz, and your bass fundamentals stay intact while everything above gets driven. Enable the high crossover, pull it down to 6 kHz, and you keep the air of your mix untouched. Use both, and you've got a precise saturation band — say 200 Hz to 4 kHz — that adds warmth to the body of a vocal without muddying the lows or making sibilance worse.
Independent Crossovers Per Channel
In stereo mode (M/S or L/R), each channel gets its own pair of crossover handles — four draggable points on the frequency graph. Saturate the mid from 100 Hz to 5 kHz while treating the side from 300 Hz to 8 kHz. In L/R mode, give left and right completely different saturation ranges.
You won't use this on every track. But when you need it — parallel drum processing, wide synth pads, creative stereo effects — it replaces what would otherwise take multiple plugin instances and routing gymnastics.
Effect Intensity Knobs
Three knobs control how much PUNCH, SMOOTH, and ANALOG contribute to the output. Each goes from 0% to 200%, with 100% as the default.
At 0%, the effect is bypassed entirely from the signal chain. At 200%, it's twice the normal intensity. These aren't volume controls — they scale the actual processing.
Say you like what PUNCH does to your drum bus, but it's a bit much. Drop it to 60%. Or you want SMOOTH to really clamp down on a harsh guitar — push it to 180%. Fine-tune each stage without turning it off.
L/R Stereo Mode
Grit Blender has always had M/S processing — separate saturation on mid and side. Version 1.1 adds L/R mode. A toggle in the Advanced Panel switches between the two.
M/S is great for mastering and bus work where you want to treat the center image differently from the width. L/R makes more sense for creative effects: different saturation types on left and right, different drive amounts, a wider and more asymmetric sound.
Oversampling Moved
The oversampling selector (2x, 4x, 8x) moved from the bottom bar into the Advanced Panel. Oversampling is a quality/CPU tradeoff you set once and forget — it doesn't need to take up space in the main interface.
Built-in Help
A ? button in the top-right corner of the panel toggles help mode. Hover over any control and a tooltip tells you what it does and how it affects the sound. Useful the first few times, then you turn it off.
What Didn't Change
Everything else works exactly as before. The blend interface, the 12 saturation types, triangle modes, dual stage, presets, loudness match — all the same. Your existing presets load fine. Default settings produce the exact same sound as 1.0.
The Advanced Panel is purely additive. If you never click ADV, Grit Blender 1.1 sounds identical to 1.0.
Get It
Version 1.1 is a free update for all Grit Blender owners. Download it here and replace your current installation.
New to Grit Blender? The online manual covers every control in detail, including the Advanced Panel.
Joy to use, joy to hear.
— Ben, UB DSP