Purrenator
Make your guitar notes purr.
Purrenator gives your guitar notes a warm, growling voice of their own. Let a note ring, and the purr gradually swells in beneath your guitar. Play a fast run, pick a new note, or hit a chord, and it gets out of the way. Hold a note again, and the cat wakes up.
The purr comes from your actual guitar signal, not a synthesized tone. It follows your pitch, bends, slides, and vibrato naturally, and lasts only as long as the note itself. No artificial sustain, no extra notes — just your guitar, with a little more attitude.
Quick Start
- Insert Purrenator on your guitar track, after your amp or amp simulator.
- Start with the default settings and play a single note. Let it ring.
- Adjust Swell to control how long a note needs to ring before the full purr kicks in.
- Use Purr to adjust the effect level, and Output to set the overall volume.
That's it. No complicated routing, no presets to dig through. Just play.
Controls
- SWELL
Sets how long it takes for the purr to reach full strength after a note is picked. Shorter settings bring the effect in sooner, while longer settings leave more of your playing untouched. Turn Swell all the way down to 0 ms for an immediate purr on every note. Range: 0–2000 ms. Default: 500 ms.
- PURR
Adjusts the level of the purr without changing your original guitar signal. Turn it down for a subtler effect or leave it at 0 dB for the full experience. Range: −24 to 0 dB. Default: 0 dB.
- OUTPUT
Adjusts the overall output level of your guitar and the purr combined. Range: −10 to +10 dB. Default: 0 dB.
- Amber lamp
Click the amber lamp to switch Purrenator on or off. The lamp and your DAW's bypass control share the same parameter, with smooth crossfading for click-free switching.
And yes, the cat's eyes actually do something. They light up as the purr comes in.
Tip: Click a value beneath a knob to enter it directly, or double-click a knob to restore its default setting.
Good to Know
Purrenator is designed to process an already amplified guitar sound, whether you’re using a real miked amp or an amp simulator. Place it after the amp, but before effects such as chorus and delay.
Modulation or delay effects placed before Purrenator can interfere with note detection and make the purr behave unpredictably.
Use Purrenator on an individual guitar track, not on a full mix or a bus containing multiple guitar performances. Multiple microphones on the same amp are fine.
Mono, stereo, and mono-to-stereo configurations are supported. If the left and right channels have opposite polarity, Purrenator uses the louder channel to keep the purr from canceling out.
Purrenator responds to single notes held long enough to reach the Swell setting. Every new picked note restarts the swell, helping fast passages stay clean. Smooth slides between notes can keep the purr going.
Held chords are left untouched once detected. At very short Swell settings, particularly 0 ms, you may hear a brief touch of purr on a chord's attack.
The dry guitar signal is never filtered, faded, or delayed. Purrenator simply adds the purr on top.
The effect works on notes from approximately 73 Hz to 1500 Hz, covering standard guitar tuning, drop D, and the upper fretboard. Notes outside this range remain dry.
Purrenator doesn't extend your guitar's natural sustain. When the note stops ringing, the purr stops too.
Purrenator was built with distorted guitar in mind, but don't let that stop you. Try it on clean guitar, an E-bow, a lead synth, a vocal line, or anything else that holds single notes. It listens for one pitched note at a time between roughly 73 Hz and 1500 Hz, so sources that stay in that range tend to work best. Experiment and let your ears decide.
Features & Compatibility
- Warm, growling character that swells into held guitar notes
- Follows your playing, including bends, slides, and vibrato
- Adjustable Swell time and independent Purr level
- Original signal stays untouched
- Click-free bypass
- Mono, stereo, and mono-to-stereo support
- Zero-sample latency
- VST3 for Windows, macOS, and Linux
- Audio Unit (AU) for macOS
- Native Apple Silicon and Intel support on macOS
Installing
- VST3
(Windows) Copy Purrenator.vst3 to:
C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3\
- VST3
(Linux) Copy Purrenator.vst3 to:
~/.vst3/
- macOS
Run:
Purrenator-<version>.pkg
The installer includes both VST3 and Audio Unit formats. Choose Customize during installation if you only need one of them.
You may need to restart your DAW or rescan your plugins after installation. Purrenator is listed in the Guitar effect category. In Cubase, you'll find it under Guitar.
By installing or using Purrenator you agree to the License terms.
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