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Smasher Black Friday pricing from Pulsar Audio puts this compressor plugin at $19, which is 61% off, with the deal ending Dec 7, 2026.
Smasher is a compressor plugin built around one extreme setting: the "all buttons in" or "British" mode of the Urei 1176.
On the original 1176 hardware you pick one of four ratios. Studio engineers found that pressing all four at once gave a distorted, explosive, heavily compressed sound.
Pulsar says Smasher is a custom modification of the 1176 circuit that its team stumbled on while fine-tuning other algorithms. It stays close to the original circuitry and adds definition to transients and a more aggressive tone.
The maker says it works best on raw, gritty material and won't suit every track. Where it fits, it's meant to be dramatic.
Pulsar's own suggestions cover a few common spots:
The maker also likes it for bringing out the ambience on drum busses.
Pulsar's Topology Preservation Technology is the modelling approach behind the plugin. The maker says it reproduces details like inductor flux saturation, transistor response and the changes to bias voltages that happen in all-buttons-in mode.
The Mix knob blends the unprocessed signal back in. That makes parallel compression simple: crush the transients hard, then bring back a little of the processed sound for sustain while the dynamics stay intact.
Stereo material runs through a single detector, so a linked sidechain keeps the image stable when you compress hard on a bus.
Pulsar says it optimised Smasher for low CPU use. Oversampling goes up to 384kHz.
Smasher comes as AAX Native, VST 2.4 and VST 3 on Windows and Mac. The Mac version adds Audio Unit.
Activation needs an account at ilok.com.
Yes. The Smasher Black Friday deal takes 61% off Pulsar Audio's compressor plugin, so it costs $19 until Dec 7, 2026.
Smasher recreates the all-buttons-in mode of the Urei 1176, a distorted, explosive, heavily compressed sound. Pulsar's modifications add transient definition and a more aggressive tone, and its Mix knob lets you blend in the dry signal.
Smasher is available as AAX Native, VST 2.4 and VST 3 on Windows and Mac. The Mac version also includes Audio Unit. Apple Silicon M1 is supported, and the Mac version is 64-bit only.
You need an account at ilok.com to use Pulsar software, Smasher included. On Windows, the plugin runs on 64-bit Windows 7 SP1, 8.1 or 10, and on Mac it needs macOS 10.9 or higher.
Prices and end dates are checked at publishing time and can change, so confirm them at the store before you buy.