Issue 03 July 18, 2026 Sydney, AUS v0.4In the build
Studio Restore learns to rebuild a voice
The big one. Cleanup can only remove what's wrong with a take; it can't put back what a phone, a codec, or a cheap mic never captured. So we taught Thunder Clarity to re-synthesise the voice itself.
New
- Studio Restore, in the plugin and standalone: capture a take and a generative model rebuilds it at full studio bandwidth. The top octaves a phone call or a Zoom recording threw away come back. It runs offline, faster than real time.
- Restore a file, not just a live take: open any WAV and it loads as the take; Save writes the result. The same path works at your desk in the standalone or on a track in your DAW.
- A dial between natural and fully restored: generative models can sound… processed. So restoration is a blend, not a switch: 0% is your untouched take, 100% is fully rebuilt, and everything between is yours.
Refined
- It changes tone, not volume: the model used to hand back a voice about four times quieter than it went in. Now the restored take is matched to your original's loudness, so the blend is a clean morph, not a level dip.
- 24-bit masters: restored files export at 24-bit, the depth a studio actually expects.
- Long takes stay whole: a full-song vocal or a podcast segment no longer gets quietly clipped at five minutes; and if a take ever does hit the ceiling, we say so instead of trimming in silence.
Little fixes
- 48 kHz sessions used to restore fine, then come back as gibberish. They don't anymore.
- Hit Restore with nothing captured and it used to think about it. Now it just waits for you.
- If the model file is missing, Restore steps aside instead of taking the audio with it.
Notes from the roadmap
- Making it faster still (quantising the model), and a cleaner resampler for 48 kHz sessions.
- And the part no test can sign off: hours of listening, on real spoken and sung takes.
Issue 02 July 18, 2026 Sydney, AUS v0.3In the build
Meters that don't flatter you
A clarity plugin is only as trustworthy as its numbers. This pass was all about honest measurement, and making the cleaned voice sit at the level it came in at.
New
- Auto-balance, loudness-preserving: de-noising and de-reverb remove energy, which used to leave the output quieter. Now it's ramped back to the input's loudness automatically (cleanup changes tone, never level), and it's peak-safe, so it can't push you into clipping.
- The delivery trio: LUFS, true-peak, integrated: ITU-R BS.1770 short-term loudness, 4×-oversampled true-peak (dBTP), and gated integrated LUFS with a reset: the three numbers streaming and broadcast actually check you against.
- Studio polish, on a dial: a gentle, self-tuning tonal move toward a studio-balanced voice: it brightens a boomy source and warms a thin one, whatever it was recorded on.
- A/B, loudness-matched: compare processed against dry at matched loudness, so you judge the tone and not just 'louder sounds better'.
Refined
- Music is the default: a fresh insert opens ready for a sung or spoken take: gentle room reduction, natural reverb kept.
Little fixes
- The studio polish could place an EQ band above Nyquist at 8 kHz and take the whole channel down. It can't reach that high anymore.
Issue 01 July 17, 2026 Sydney, AUS v0.2In the build
A neural core that tells the truth
Under the three faders is a real neural separator (DeepFilterNet). This week was wiring it in honestly, and refusing to ship anything that only looks like it's working.
New
- The honest SNR readout: the model reports its own estimate of the input's speech-to-noise ratio, and we surface it as-is: no invented 'clarity score'.
- A 48 kHz notice: the neural core is happiest at 48 kHz; if your session isn't, the plugin says so plainly instead of pretending.
- User presets: save, recall and delete your own fader states, across projects.
- Zipper-free faders: per-sample gain smoothing, so moving a fader (or toggling bypass) never clicks.
Little fixes
- Removed a 'Low-latency' switch that did precisely nothing. A control that lies is worse than no control.