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Blue Cat's Re-Head
Blue Cat's Re-Head
"Mixing room experience with headphone convenience"
Price: (-10%) 49€ 44€ or (-10%) $49 $44 (tax incl.)
Blue Cat's Re-Head - Head Response Simulator for Headphones (VST, VST3, AAX and Audio Unit Plug-in)

Enjoy studio monitor sound in your headphones with Re-Head, a unique head-response plugin.

Re-Head uses a head response model to recreate the effect of your head and skull on the audio coming in from your speakers. Together with stereo processing, impulse response treatment, EQ and more, Re-Head takes care of the most common problems associated with headphone use in professional work: unnatural sound and ear fatigue.

MacOSUniversal BinaryWindows Vista or newerWindows x64 (64-bit)VSTVST3AAX64-bit AAXAudio Unit
Also in Bundles: All Plugins Pack / Axe Pack

For many audio professionals, listening on headphones is a necessary evil. Perhaps you need headphones when tracking? Perhaps you need to work away from your studio? Or perhaps your studio has that one neighbor that simply can't enjoy your creative output at 3 AM in the morning? Listening through headphones creates an unnatural sound that's quite different from how we hear music from speakers.

Re-Head will create a mixing room experience when using headphones, even when recording distorted guitars and other instruments that tend to sound unnaturally in-your-face in a headphone mix.

At the center is a head response model that mimics the effect of your own skull on your hearing when listening through loudspeakers. Add to that stereo processing to avoid the hard-panned sound so common in headphones, a spectrum analyzer and EQ. There is even an impulse response representation of your favored mixing room to let you feel right at home, even when you're not.

Re-Head won't replace your favorite studio monitors, for sure. But it will make the transition from speakers to headphones less dramatic.

Main Features

  • "Head response" model: get a more natural tone when working with headphones.
  • Adjust the position and the angle between the virtual speakers.
  • Adjust the brightness.
  • Built-in EQ and spectrum analyzer.
  • Impulse response (IR) loader to mimic your listening room, and compensate actual headphones.
  • Flip left and right channels.
  • No latency.

Blue Cat Audio Standards:

  • Available in most plug-in formats for Mac and Windows.
  • Full MIDI control and automation support, MIDI Learn.
  • No CPU load on idle: processing shuts down when fed with silence (optimal CPU usage).
  • Customizable user interface with transparency & zoom.
  • Smooth Bypass: noiseless plug-in activation / deactivation.
  • Undo/Redo.
  • Full featured integrated presets manager.
  • Copy/paste the state of the plug-in between instances.
  • Any sample rate supported.

Blue Cat's Re-Head - Head Response Simulator for Headphones (VST, VST3, AAX and Audio Unit Plug-in) Blue Cat's Re-Head - Head Response Simulator for Headphones (VST, VST3, AAX and Audio Unit Plug-in)

User Comments & Reviews

"There's a whole lot of knowledge in Blue Cat Audio Re-Head, boiled down to a few simple parameters. [...] The binaural crossfeed circuit is very good and even offers some headphone profiles." - amazona.de - [full review].

"Anyone who makes mobile production and who takes into account the frequency-related influence of loudspeakers on headphones [...] will certainly find a helpful tool in Re-Head." - proaudio.de - [full review].

"If you do a lot of recording while wearing headphones, you might want to check it out. If you are a guitarist, in particular, you might especially be receptive to this software, plus the several other first-rate guitar-oriented plug-ins in the Blue Cat Audio catalog." - SoundBytes - [full review].

To add your own comment about this product, please contact us.

Demo Limitations:

  • 5 instances of the plug-in allowed per session.
  • The effect is bypassed for half a second every minute.

System Requirements

MacOS

  • An Intel or Apple Silicon processor.
  • Mac OS 10.9 or newer.
  • Any VST / Audio Unit / AAX compatible application (64-bit) .

Windows

  • An SSE2-enabled processor (Pentium 4 or newer).
  • Microsoft Windows Vista, Windows 7, 8 or 10.
  • Any VST / AAX compatible host software (32 or 64 bit).

For more information about supported platforms, see our Knowledge Base.

Versions History

V1.21 (2022/12/12)

  • Added Apple Silicon support for AAX Plug-in Format.
  • Fixed VST3 version not always loading properly in Ableton Live 11.
  • Improved VST parameter value display in some host applications.
  • Added an option in global & preset input settings to send MIDI events when MIDI-enabled parameters are modified in the plug-in (to update control surfaces accordingly).
  • Improved undo management and automation when using the mouse wheel to move knobs.
  • AAX: Fixed erratic mouse behavior in Pro Tools on Mac.
  • Mac: installers and plug-ins have been notarized to avoid security warnings on Mac OS Catalina and newer.

V1.2 (2021/11/18)

  • Apple Silicon (M1 processor) support.
  • Dropped 32-bit support on Mac.
  • Now requires MacOS 10.9 and newer.
  • Arrow keys can now be used to navigate presets.
  • Added MIDI control support (MIDI CC messages) for Next and Previous Preset commands, with MIDI learn.
  • Improved MIDI & automation control settings with lock, reset and "save as global setting" capabilities.
  • Improved smooth plug-in bypass (faster and smoother transition).
  • Unicode support.
  • Windows: improved GUI loading performance.
  • Improved DSP performance.
  • VST3: fixed random crash in Ableton Live 11 upon load.
  • VST3: fixed parameters update issues in Studio One when bouncing tracks.
  • Mac Audio Unit: fixed plug-in listing in some host applications (Plogue Bidule).
  • Mac: fixed GUI performance issues on native P3 displays and improved performance on other displays.
  • Mac: fixed mouse wheel that required large movements to change parameter values.
  • Mac: fixed mouse cursor flickering issues.
  • Mac: fixed Esc key not closing fine edit parameter dialog.

V1.1 (2020/09/07)

  • Added new headphone compensation profiles.
  • Arrow keys can now be used to navigate presets.
  • Improved smooth plug-in bypass.
  • Mac: fixed GUI performance issues on native P3 displays and improved performance on other displays.
  • Mac: fixed mouse wheel that required large movements to change parameter values.
  • Mac: fixed mouse cursor flickering issues.
  • Mac: fixed Esc key not closing fine edit parameter dialog.

V1.0 (2020/05/12)

First release.