Solid State Logic SSL Sourcerer

What SSL Sourcerer Is For

SSL Sourcerer is a gate and dynamic control plugin designed to clean up an audio signal without altering its character. It is aimed at both studio mixing engineers and live sound technicians who need to manage background noise, microphone bleed, breaths, stage rumble, or unwanted ambience.

Its approach favors a natural result: instead of abruptly "cutting," it helps you adapt the gate's behavior to the actual release of the source (voice, snare, toms, guitars, ambient mics, lavaliers, etc.). The result is a cleaner, more intelligible sound while preserving the movement and intent of the performance.

Main Features

Simple, effective, and musical release times

SSL Sourcerer includes three easy-to-use release time settings: Slow, Medium, and Fast. The idea is to save you time during setup while reducing the risk of too-short decay that chops off phrase endings, reverb tails, or an instrument's sustain. By choosing the appropriate release, you maintain the fluidity of the signal and a credible sound, especially appreciated on stage.

Dual display for precise adjustment

The plugin provides two visual feedback graphs that make adjustment intuitive, even in busy contexts. The upper graph displays the sidechain and filtered signals, useful for understanding what actually triggers the processing. The lower graph shows threshold levels and gain reduction, allowing you to instantly visualize the impact of your tweaks. This real-time visual feedback speeds up workflow and helps achieve consistent results from session to session.

Advanced ducking for challenging environments

Beyond gating, SSL Sourcerer offers a ducker function designed for cases where the useful signal must remain prioritized despite constant noise or irregular silences. This is particularly relevant for group discussions, panels, lavaliers, or stage performances where the ambience never stops. The adjustable ducking delay allows you to align triggering with program timing to avoid a "pumping" effect and preserve natural dynamics.

Internal/external sidechain and detection tools

To adapt to all mixing setups, SSL Sourcerer offers flexible sidechain options. With internal sidechain, you control processing directly from the input, precisely adjusting detection and dynamic control behavior on the source itself. With external sidechain, you can trigger the gate/ducking action from another track (for example, a main mic controlling attenuation of an ambient mic), enabling very clean automation in both live and post-production mixing.

Detection offers RMS and Peak modes: RMS for a more "average" and stable behavior, Peak to react to transients and attacks. The high-pass and low-pass filters help focus detection on the useful frequency range (for example, limiting the influence of stage lows or high hiss), while the sidechain monitor lets you listen to what actually triggers the processing, essential for quick and reliable adjustments.

Technical specifications