Solid State Logic SSL SubGen

What SSL Sub Gen Is For

SSL Sub Gen is a plug-in designed to enhance and reconstruct low frequencies musically, especially when the source lacks energy, depth, or consistency. It is aimed at productions where the low end must be audible, solid, and controlled: rap, hip-hop, trap, electro, modern pop, but also rock and film music when the kick drum and bass need to maintain a steady foundation.

Thanks to its subharmonic generation, it can add weight to a kick, tom, electric bass, 808, or even provide a coherent low end to poorly recorded takes. And with its saturation options, you add definition in the upper low and lower midrange so the bass "speaks" even on smaller systems.

Main Features

Intelligent Subharmonic Generation on 4 Bands

The core of Sub Gen is based on a harmonic approach: each band defines the frequency range in which to generate subharmonics, as well as their level. The plug-in analyzes the signal content one octave above, isolates the fundamental, then generates a sine wave that follows the source's movement. The result: a low end that naturally blends with the original, instead of a simple EQ "boost" that can quickly become muddy.

Each band has dedicated controls (bypass, solo, frequency, and bandwidth), making fine adjustment easy: you can target a specific area (for example, the foundation of a kick) while avoiding overloading other registers.

Analyzer and Global Filters to Clean the Source

Working on subsonics requires a clean starting point. Sub Gen includes a pre-processing frequency analyzer to quickly identify problem areas and features musical high-pass and low-pass filters with 12 dB per octave slopes. This helps remove unnecessary extremes before sub generation, improving stability and clarity in the mix.

Built-in Distortion: Grit Without Adding More Plug-ins

To keep your bass audible on compact speakers and in dense contexts, SSL Sub Gen offers three types of analog-character distortion, easily accessible, plus a gain-compensated global Drive to enhance presence without unbalancing perceived level.

Bass provides a '70s transistor-style drive, with stronger and more aggressive harmonics to add bite to basses. Kick is inspired by '60s/'70s transistor amps for subtler harmonics, specially suited to kick drums. Pre is a '50s-style tube overdrive, softer and ideal for broadening the use to many sources.

SSL Bus Compressor: The "Glue" to Hold the Low End Together

Adding ultra-low frequencies can quickly create excessive movement, mask the rest of the mix, and overload the master bus. To stabilize the sub generation and integrate it cleanly, Sub Gen includes a simple-to-use SSL bus compressor: a compression amount control paired with a make-up gain, with fixed times for a consistent and fast result.

The amount control acts as a compound control: the threshold drops from 0 to -40 dBFS and the ratio rises from 1 to 8 as you increase the setting. Attack is fixed at 5 ms and release at 20 ms, with a 6 dB knee, for a smooth transition between uncompressed and compressed signals while preserving impact.

Technical specifications