Overview

SpecOps is dozens of plugins in one. Inside its easy-to-use interface is a jam-packed armory containing 36 diverse and flexible spectral effects, ranging from subtle to extreme. How you use these potent tools is truly limited only by your creative imagination: transform synthesizer presets with new sonic qualities, add throbbing grunge to drum loops, fatten up instrument tracks, delicately clarify full mixes, or decimate organic instruments and vocals beyond recognition to create one-of-a-kind special effects.

The magic all starts with SpecOps’ powerful analysis engine, which instantly splits your audio into thousands of tiny frequency slices, or “bins,” for real-time processing. You can apply pitch and frequency shifting or a Freeze effect to all bins, but that’s just the start. In a snap, you can add up to three unique spectral effects from dropdown menus for simultaneous use - with each processor applied to a different frequency band! Then compress or expand thousands of frequency bins independently and at once using the Spectral Compander’s simple controls, producing wide-ranging effects from subtle dynamics control to outrageous pumping and distortion. SpecOps’ flagship patchable modulation system lets you apply up to six built-in modulators - including a powerful 16-step sequencer, input follower, sample and hold noise, macro control and four different LFOs - simultaneously to any and all control knobs and sliders. It even includes support for the ROLI Lightpad, allowing tactile control over three dimensions of parameter movements for on-the-fly production effects and live performance.

The applications are truly limitless and stretch from moderate processing for music production to severe mangling for sound design. SpecOps is your interstellar transporter to new worlds in electronic and experimental music: Tired, static synth pads come alive when you modulate the levels, filtering, pitch, noise or distortion in different frequency bins, creating ever-shifting timbral patterns your preset libraries could only dream of. Don’t own a synth? Freeze audio on an acoustic instrument track and apply pitch shift to create a spectral synthesizer. Experimental music producers and sound designers can use SpecOps’ train-wrecking effects to brutally transform a hi hat track into bursts of alien static or make pristine vocal tracks sound like R2D2 with a sore throat. SpecOps is also an industrial music producer’s destructive weapon: Modulate a frequency-dependent clipper on an electric bass guitar’s track to add nasty bottom-end distortion that pulsates perfectly in time with your music’s tempo.

But for all its brute strength, SpecOps can also be polite - and a problem solver.
Warm up brittle electric guitar tracks by using the envelope follower to modulate SpecOps’ Reverse algorithm. On a full mix, SpecOps can automatically find and attenuate the weakest bass frequencies, clarifying and bringing focus to the bottom end. You can add more power and punch to your mixes while automatically taming unbalanced frequency peaks by using SpecOp’s Spectral Compander to independently compress thousands of frequency bins at once. Or use the spectral Low Pass and noise filters along with pitch modulation to temporarily create thin, flanged breakdowns on full mixes to startling effect.

Yeah, it does all that. SpecOps is a springboard for your imagination!

Installers for this plugin can only be installed by using the Installation Manager. The Installation Manager is available in the downloads section below.

Features

  • Powerful, multi-faceted processing has wide-ranging uses in music production, sound design and live performance
  • 36 spectral effects can be applied - three at a time - to different frequency ranges with extremely high resolution
  • Spectral effects include filters, amplitude manipulators, pitch and frequency shifters, audio freezers, data compressors, glitchy processors and a clipper - each of which can act on a different, independently adjustable frequency band
  • Additional wideband processors - two pitch shifters, a frequency shifter and Freeze effect - optionally process input signal before spectral effects are applied
  • Spectral Compander can gently or severely compress or expand dynamics for all other effects—both spectral and wideband—independently in thousands of frequency slices at once
  • Analog-style, two-pole Low Pass filter softens high frequencies in plugin’s summed wet output signal
  • Continuously variable Mix control blends wet and dry signals, allowing light application of outrageous effects
  • Unfiltered Audio’s flagship freely assignable modulation system includes seven built-in modulators - a powerful 16-step sequencer, input follower, sample and hold noise, macro control and four different LFOs - all of which can be routed simultaneously to any and all control knobs and sliders
  • Included external patch allows connection to a ROLI BLOCKS Lightpad, which provides tactile control over SpecOps’ control knobs and sliders for studio production and live performance
  • High-resolution Visualizer offers six display modes ranging from a basic waveform display to a technicolor array of spectral bins
  • Full NKS (Native Kontrol Standard) Support

Audio Examples

Industry Reviews

  • Kate Finan

    Kate Finan

    Owner and Supervising Sound Editor at Boom Box Post

    SpecOps by Unfiltered Audio is an incredibly powerful design tool that I'm ecstatic to have in my toolbox. This spectral processor allows the user to apply pre-made effects to specific… Read More

  • Katie Tavini

    Katie Tavini

    Mastering Engineer (Red Bull, Sonic Boom Six, Bonehead)

    SpecOps puts creativity back into audio processing with some super fun and stunning sounding ways of manipulating sound!

  • D. Ramirez

    D. Ramirez

    Producer/DJ (Toolroom)

    SpecOps is one hell of a beast -- it can be subtle or downright crazy; you decide. It’s glitchy, gritty, nasty, clean... it’s highly tweakable and the range of sounds and uses you can squeeze… Read More

  • Jody Wisternoff

    Jody Wisternoff

    DJ, Producer (Way Out West)

    An amazing sound mangler from the stunning Sandman Pro creators. Granular pitch shifting craziness is the name of the game here; gonna use this one to death. :)

  • Richard Devine

    Richard Devine

    Sound Designer and Artist (Hollywood Edge, Sound Delux, Sony Creative Software)

    SpecOps is one of the most unique plugins I have come across, the modular automation control over the 36 spectral transformation modes is absolutely insane! The sounds are completely out of this… Read More

Customer Reviews

  • Surprised by how much I love it

    ★★★★★
    by JSPVL
    I got this once with a voucher, not really sure if or how often I would use it. The Unfiltered Audio plugins are great for interesting and atypical sound design and experimentation, but I've been… Read More
  • SpecOps Review

    ★★★★★
    by Jaffasplaffa
    This plugin is awesome.
    My go to plugin when I want to do unique sound design.
    Not much else to say.
  • Amazing for creative FX!

    ★★★★★
    by Xtraktor
    This plugin is a really awesome plugin if you want to make incredibly weird and creative FX, but it can also be an amazingly subtle plugin for enhancing specific parts of your sound! I'd definitely… Read More
  • COMPARED TO SIMILAR - GREAT, ONE OF THE BEST I'VE SEEN SO FAR - RECOMMENDING (this is not a paid review, I REALLY ENJOY THIS ONE AFTER LOTS OF PURCHASES IN LATER TIME, WOOOW I AM SO HAPPY FROM SO COOOOOL RESULTS;)))

    ★★★★★
    by Pete
    I think this is one of the best (and still so small in terms of $) investments to FX I've ever made. Having iZotope Everything Bundle, being former Waves Local Representative, 25 years in pro… Read More
  • Amazing creative possibilities

    ★★★★★
    by Under A Mile
    Can make a stylophone sound like the loudest doom mongering ship foghorn! I used it for just that on a recent track.
    Really useful when an instrument is just not sitting right in the mix - you… Read More

Specifications

Supported Plugin Formats
AAX Native, AU, AAX AudioSuite, VST2, VST3

Supported Operating Systems
macOS 14 down to macOS 11
Windows 11 down to Windows 10

Mac
Intel or Apple Silicon architecture

PC
x64-compatible CPU

System Requirements
Display resolution: 1440 × 900px or 1280 × 960px or higher
Memory: 2 GB RAM

 

 

Downloads

With the Installation Manager you can select, download & install all the Plugin Alliance products. Select any and all formats you need for your system! Mac & PC.

ChangeLog

SpecOps

Unfiltered Audio SpecOps - Changelog

Version 1.4.0 (Nov 17, 2023)
- Update NKS support for VST3 and Apple Silicon.
- Fix effect modes loading incorrectly in Bitwig with VST3.
- If alternating between 0% and 100% frozen, the individual freeze effects would get "stuck" until a value between 0% and 100% was chosen.
- Changing FFT Size now updates latency in a more responsive and predictable manner. Inputs and outputs should sound more aligned when rendered.
- The primary Speed and Freeze controls were not setting an internal frozen state variable. If these controls were used and a large spectral transient was received on the input, the phase of the frozen material would change unintentionally.

Version 1.3.1 (Mar 16, 2023)
- Add AAX ARM support for Apple Silicon.

Version 1.3.0 (Mar 30, 2022)
- added Apple Silicon support

Version 1.2 (02/18/2020)
- Full Catalina support and notarization
- HiDPI support improvement
- OpenGL Removed

Version 1.1 (May 24, 2019)
- General Codebase update
- Fixed a scaling issue in Live on Windows

Version 1.0.1 (May 25, 2018)
- Added NKS support

Version 1.0 (Sep 18, 2017)
- Release version