elysia Phil's Cascade

Remarkable analog saturation and color
The Phil's Cascade plugin recreates a one-of-a-kind hardware unit made from highly esoteric vintage components, combined into some truly unique circuitry. It is anything but your typical audio processor. Think of Phil’s Cascade as a toolbox that will open a whole world of interesting sonic flavors to you.

Modeled after a unique hardware unit that would be impossible to mass produce
Like all of elysia’a plugins, Phil‘s Cascade was modeled on a piece of real analog hardware. But this particular one-off hardware unit was exclusively designed and built to become a plugin! This approach removed all practical limits to designing an ideal analog device for saturation. Bespoke NOS (New Old Stock) components which are anything but standard in audio applications were arranged to make a novel circuit that is a creative celebration of what’s possible in the analog domain.

A wide array of analog colors in a single box
Now you can spice up virtual and natural instruments with ease, transforming standard sounds with all kinds of gritty, organic and aged flavors. There are no right or wrong settings: Saturation, harmonics, distortion, colouration, filtering, interaction—anything goes. This is a plugin designed to encourage experimentation and make it truly rewarding.

Incredibly difficult to make, incredibly easy to use
The central element is located in the middle: the Gain! The left side of the plugin is where all the magic happens, allowing you to shape your sound with the Boost, Bias, Grid, Resonance and Peak controls. The right side controls and tames things if necessary, using knobs for Filtering, Level and parallel Mix.

Nothing like it before or since
Rest assured that the original hardware that this plugin is based on will never go into production. Most of the parts are so rare that they would last for just a handful of units, with environmental restrictions forbidding most of them to be used in new products, and the price point it would have to sell for being prohibitive to say the least.  Thankfully, the painstaking analysis and modeling of the circuit and its components’ behaviors gives you the perfect basis for creating truly wonderful, new and unheard sounds. 

• Unique Sounds From a Rare Device: Experience true vintage goodness from a 21st-century device that relies on boutique components and old-school topologies with some interesting twists.
• Unusual Transformers: Colorful and rare NE and NX series transformers made by Philips in 1975 add the sound of iron to Phil’s Cascade, helping shape the unique sound of Phil’s Cascade.
• Uncommon Tubes: The rare ECC91, EF183 and EF86 tubes are everything but your typical audio tubes, and that’s exactly what makes them so valuable. Their special sound signature is plain and simple, unique. 
• Perfect Power: Hardware rule #1: The heart of any audio device is its power supply! The 12 lb power transformer used for Phil’s Cascade originally came from vintage Tektronix measuring equipment, surviving the times when even this was based on tubes exclusively.
• Easy to Use: Incredibly simple operation focuses around a few key controls: Gain, Boost, Bias, Grid, Resonance, Peak and Filter.

• Phil's Cascade

  ★★★★★

  by rev

  November 8, 2022
  Sounds how it looks. Color to the end of days. Thick fuzzy girthy undertones. This thing has Crispified Ballz. Super interesting. One of favorites.

• The Scrapheap Chalenge

  ★★★★★

  by Alfred

  July 27, 2022
  Huh? What is that for a title? Well, that's what I thought when I saw the parts of the cascade. I recognized most of them from my old school where I studied electronics and at these days this already… Read More

• Phil's Cascade is hot

  ★★★★★

  by Edgar C.

  December 31, 2021
  I've been using this magic plugin for a while and I love it. It's something different to any other saturation plugin. This machine works absolutely perfect on the drum bus for me but you can almost… Read More

• Phils Cascade

  ★★★★★

  by 3gb0ntalented

  December 22, 2021
  So a timeline, Step one, buy plugin, step two use plugin on demo project after breezing over manual, step four wait one year after purchase and time to start a new project. "I think i'm still missing… Read More

• Why eq when you can color?

  ★★★★★

  by Numbfinger

  September 26, 2021
  Just phenomenal. I get my tracks clear and clean as a bell…and my mix feels canned like sardines. I basically found presets that worked for a piano, vibes, bass trio with added percussion and the… Read More

Supported Plugin Formats
AAX Native, AU, AAX AudioSuite, VST2, VST3