Built from the engineer's chair
These are the plugins I have missed in my own work — made by a sound engineer who grew up with analogue gear and still listens before looking.
I learned sound through physical equipment: turning a knob, listening to what changed and making a decision. The best analogue gear did not invite you to stare at it. It helped you move forward.
Working in modern studios, I kept looking for plugins that carried that same sense of purpose. Not another imitation covered in switches, and not a tool designed from a feature list. I wanted instruments that were simple, musical and immediate — with the character I remembered and the control a modern session needs.
Lydtrold began there. Every plugin starts with something I have genuinely wanted to reach for myself: a particular reverb that has disappeared from the workflow, a delay that is fast to set, a compressor that reacts musically, or a utility that can live on every channel without getting in the way.
A life in music
I have been a musician for more than 35 years and have spent over 25 years working with live and studio sound.
My musical home is hand-played music: blues, rock, folk and the many places where those traditions meet. I am drawn to records where you can hear people listening to one another — where feel, dynamics and personality matter more than mechanical perfection.
My favourite way to record is to put the whole band in the room and let them play at the same time. There is a conversation in a real performance: the drummer leans into a chorus, the bass follows, the singer reacts and the song changes in that exact moment. Eye contact, push and pull, small imperfections and shared energy become part of the sound.
You can record every instrument separately and edit it until it is perfect, but you cannot manufacture that collective moment afterwards. The magic happens when the musicians create it together. My job — and the purpose of Lydtrold — is to give that moment the space, character and technical support it deserves without polishing the life out of it.
One idea · two workflows
VST3 and Audio Units bring Lydtrold to the producers, musicians and engineers working natively in Logic, Studio One and other modern DAWs. The goal is simple: open the plugin, find the sound and keep creating.
AAX DSP is about shaping the sound while the band is playing, not waiting until later. I want to track through EQ, compression and effects with the low latency musicians need to perform naturally. When the band comes into the control room, the playback should already feel exciting and musical — much like the days when we made decisions on the console and recorded them to tape.
The screen is never the point. A control earns its place by what it does for the sound.
Fast decisions, useful ranges and character you can hear — without unnecessary complexity.
Resizable interfaces, recall, automation and efficient processing belong in every modern studio tool.
Inspired by a lifetime of listening, but built with original DSP, original design and a Lydtrold personality.
“I am not trying to replace the feeling of working with hardware. I am trying to carry the best part of that feeling into the sessions we work in today.”
— Søren Griepentrog, LydtroldExplore the collection