Kilohearts just released a brand-new plugin called Kilohearts Clipper, and they’re giving it away for free. If you work with loud, transient-heavy sounds—like drums, bass hits, or just anything that punches—you’re gonna want to try this thing out.

It’s clean when you need it, nasty when you want it, and ridiculously easy to use.

Let’s break it down.

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At a glance:

  • Clipper is free and part of the Kilohearts Essentials collection.
  • It trims peaks cleanly or adds grit with character depending on how hard you push it.
  • It works standalone or as a Snapin inside Phase Plant, Multipass, or Snap Heap.

Why you want Kilohearts Clipper on your master chain

This isn’t your typical soft-knee compressor. Kilohearts Clipper trims peaks at the sample level. That means zero lag, zero fuss—just raw, fast transient control. It’s designed for when you need to shave off spikes without smearing the dynamics or introducing weird artifacts.

There’s no attack or release. No pumping. It just clamps peaks in real time and moves on. That makes it killer for electronic, pop, and hip-hop production where tight transient control is non-negotiable. And if you stack it with other tools in your chain—like EQ, compression, or limiting—you can get super polished results without overprocessing your mix.

Need more loudness without crushing the tone? Clipper gives you that extra headroom.

Want grit? Push it further.

Here’s where it gets interesting: drive Kilohearts Clipper hard and it flips from clinical to creative. You’ll start hearing saturation, distortion, and upper harmonic content that actually adds presence instead of just trashing your tone. That’s where it shines in sound design—especially inside Phase Plant or Multipass where you can target frequencies or modulate the effect.

You can drop Clipper into Snap Heap and run it alongside reverb, delay, or filter chains for more complex routing. Want to automate it across a build-up? Done. Want to push just the mids while leaving highs and lows untouched? Easy in Multipass.

And yes, like every plugin in the Kilohearts Essentials bundle, Clipper runs as a Snapin or a regular VST/AU/AAX. It plays nice with whatever setup you’ve got.

The post Kilohearts Just Dropped a Free Clipper Plugin and It Absolutely Rips appeared first on Magnetic Magazine.