Radiator

The deal

$39 at Loot Audio (down from $99). Deal expires April 29, 2026.

What it is

Radiator is a tube saturation and EQ plugin modeled after the Altec 1567A, a rack-mounted five-input tube mixer from the 1960s used on early Motown recordings. It captures the colored, gritty character of that hardware - with independent input and output drive stages, a simple two-band EQ, transformer loading options, and optional hardware noise emulation. Soundtoys includes Little Radiator as well, a stripped-down single-stage version that works well when you want just a hint of tube color without committing to the full effect.

Who it's for

Engineers and producers who want to add tube warmth and analog character to their digital recordings. Radiator is particularly effective on vocals, bass, and drums, where the drive stages can dial in anything from subtle warmth to full-on vintage grit.

Key features

• Dual input and output gain stages let you drive the tubes independently for different saturation flavors
• Bass and treble tone controls are modeled directly from the original Altec 1567A hardware
• The Mix knob enables parallel processing so you can blend in exactly as much grit as you need
• A Mic/Line transformer switch and optional noise emulation add further control over the analog texture