UnClip, Widelay, and PLUSH: 3 Free Plugins Worth Grabbing This Week
Three plugins, three different jobs
This week's roundup skews toward "fix and finish" rather than "make new sounds" — a clipping-repair tool, a stereo delay, and a mastering-adjacent exciter/limiter. All three are permanently free, all three are current (released between September 19 and September 29, 2026), and none of them are time-limited giveaways that expire next month. Here's what each one actually does and where it earns a spot in a bass-focused Ableton session.
UnClip — repair clipped bass takes without re-recording
Leit Audio's UnClip is a restoration plugin built for one specific problem: short, hard digital clipping. If you've ever driven a bass DI or a synth bass patch a little too hot into your interface and ended up with flat-topped, buzzy peaks, UnClip is built to find those flattened samples and rebuild a plausible curve through the missing section using the clean waveform on either side of the damage.
A few things worth knowing before you reach for it:
- It's not a saturation or "make it sound fatter" tool. It targets actual digital overs — the flat-topped waveform clipping you get from pushing a fader or an input gain past 0 dBFS. It won't undo analog saturation, codec artifacts, or general distortion, and Leit Audio is upfront about that limitation.
- It runs in mono and stereo and analyzes both channels independently, which matters for a bass bus where the two sides of a stereo file can clip at slightly different points.
- There's real latency — around 99.5 ms at 44.1/48 kHz — so this is a print-and-render tool, not something you leave on a live input while tracking. Bounce the clipped take, run UnClip on the bounce, and move on.
- Formats: VST3 (Windows, macOS, Linux) and AU (macOS).
Practically, this is a "save the take" plugin. If you recorded a bass line that's 90% great and 10% ruined by a hot input, UnClip is worth trying before you write off the take and re-record from scratch.
Widelay — a stereo delay that widens as it repeats (use it carefully on bass)
Widelay is the second Leit Audio release in this batch, and it's a genuinely different idea from a standard ping-pong delay. Instead of just alternating left and right, Widelay builds width progressively along the echo trail — each repeat gets a slightly time-offset left/right copy, and the offset alternates from repeat to repeat so the effect doesn't just collapse into one hard-panned side. The result is a delay that starts narrow and spreads outward the longer it rings out, with a bit of chorus-like pitch movement along the way.
The interface is intentionally simple — three main controls (DELAY for echo count and decay, TIME for 1–1000 ms or tempo sync, and MIX) — which makes it easy to get a usable result fast.
Here's the bass-specific caution, and it's the same one we keep coming back to with any stereo-widening effect: don't put Widelay directly on a bass or sub channel. A delay that's actively building stereo width will smear your low-end fundamental across the stereo field, and anything below roughly 100–150 Hz needs to stay centered or you'll lose punch in mono playback (phones, laptop speakers, club systems that sum to mono at the sub). If you want Widelay's movement on a bass part, the safer move is:
- Send the bass to a return track with Widelay on it.
- Put a high-pass filter (Ableton's EQ Eight or Auto Filter) before Widelay on that return, cut everything below ~150–200 Hz.
- Keep the return's fader modest — this is meant to add air and movement to the upper harmonics of the bass, not replace the direct signal.
Used this way, Widelay is a nice way to add subtle stereo interest to a bassline's upper harmonics — the pick noise, the distortion grit, the character — while keeping the fundamental locked in mono where it belongs. Used carelessly on a full-range bass channel, it'll make your low end fall apart the moment someone checks the mix on a single speaker.
Formats: VST3 (Windows, macOS, Linux) and AU (macOS).
PLUSH — a finishing exciter and limiter for adding top-end without EQ
PLUSH, from developer orph, is built as a last-stage "finishing" processor rather than a creative effect. It combines two sections — Brilliance, which adds high-frequency air, and Inflate, which adds harmonic weight — and routes the output through a true-peak limiter set to hold peaks at -1 dBTP.
For bass specifically, the useful case isn't "make the bass louder," it's using Brilliance to generate a little bit of harmonic content in the upper register of a bass sound that's otherwise all fundamental and low-mid. A sub-heavy bass patch can disappear on small speakers because there's nothing above a few hundred Hz for the ear to track — a touch of harmonic excitement can help it read as present on a laptop speaker or earbuds without you having to boost 2–4 kHz on an EQ and risk making it harsh. The Inflate section adds a different kind of weight — more saturation-like density than top-end sparkle — so the two controls are worth automating or blending rather than just cranking both.
The built-in true-peak limiter is a nice safety net on a bass bus specifically because bass transients and clipping (see UnClip above) tend to sneak past a standard peak meter and show up as inter-sample overs after conversion — holding output at -1 dBTP is a sane default for anything headed toward streaming platforms.
Technical notes: PLUSH processes at 8x oversampling with a 32-bit float internal path, supports 44.1–192 kHz, and every parameter is automatable. It's a Universal Binary on macOS (AU, VST3, standalone) and available as VST3/standalone on Windows.
One thing worth calling out honestly: of the three plugins here, PLUSH is the only one that requires zero account creation or email signup — it's a direct download. UnClip and Widelay both require a free Leit Audio account with email confirmation to download (no subscription, no in-plugin activation, no trial period — just an account gate). Not a dealbreaker, but worth knowing before you click through expecting an instant download.
Suggested order if you're trying all three
If you want to test these on an actual bass session rather than in isolation, a reasonable signal path looks like this: fix problems first, add movement second, finish last.
- UnClip on any bounced take that clipped during recording or resampling — fix the damage before you do anything else to the sound.
- Widelay on a high-passed return, sending only the upper harmonics of the bass (or a pad/lead layered with it) for stereo movement.
- PLUSH at the very end of the bass bus or the master chain, for a touch of top-end presence and a safe true-peak ceiling.
None of these are must-haves — plenty of sessions won't need a clipping-repair tool or a finishing exciter at all — but they're free, they're current, and they each solve a specific, real problem rather than trying to be a do-everything effect.
Worth grabbing from LEC too
If you're restocking your free-plugin folder this week, it's worth remembering LEC has two free ones of its own: Ratchet, a stutter/repeat effect, and The Clap, a clap/percussion generator. Neither needs an account or email signup — just a download.