nClear Audio Standards
Plugins live inside projects that may need to open tomorrow, on stage, on another computer, or ten years from now.
So nClear Audio is built around a simple idea: the software should remain useful even when the website, internet connection, installer, or latest version is not part of the equation.
These are the standards I intend to keep across nClear Audio products.
nClear Audio plugins can be downloaded and installed individually.
A helper application may exist in the future to make installation, updates, backups, and computer migration easier — but it will remain optional.
Deleting that helper must never stop an installed plugin from working.
The manager is optional. The plugin is the product.
nClear Audio does not require always-online DRM, hardware dongles, or a permanently running licensing service.
Commercial plugins may require activation, but offline activation is a first-class supported workflow.
After activation, an internet connection should not be a condition for making music.
I'd rather make piracy slightly easier than have a plugin stop working five minutes before a show.
A project that sounded right yesterday should not sound different merely because a plugin was updated.
Bug fixes, improvements, and new features should preserve existing project behavior whenever technically possible.
If a change fundamentally alters DSP behavior, parameter mapping, or project recall, it should ship as a separate major version with its own plugin identity rather than silently replacing the old one.
Old versions should remain available when they are needed for project recall.
No forced updates.
There should always be a recall path, not only an upgrade path.
Every nClear Audio plugin should make its state portable outside the DAW.
The common product shell should support, where applicable:
"State" means the complete meaningful plugin state, not only the controls currently visible on screen.
Preset imports should avoid creating unnecessary duplicates.
The underlying preset/state format should be versioned so that future plugins can migrate old data safely.
nClear Audio should make it possible to back up its plugins, settings, presets, and relevant installation information and restore them on another machine.
This may eventually be handled by the optional nClear Audio Helper.
The important part is the principle: migration tooling is an additional convenience, never a dependency.
Audio processing can easily fool us.
A signal that is slightly louder often feels clearer, wider, punchier, or simply "better" even when the processing itself did not improve it.
That is why nClear Audio treats comparison as part of the processor rather than an afterthought.
Effects should provide A/B state comparison or a proper bypass workflow, and gain matching / Auto Gain wherever it is meaningful.
If a processor sounds better only because it got louder, it doesn't sound better.
Where oversampling materially improves the processing, nClear Audio plugins should expose internal oversampling rather than forcing the user to run an entire DAW project at an unnecessarily high sample rate.
Some processors gain nothing from it.
Every processor that benefits meaningfully from oversampling should provide it internally.
nClear Audio plugins should support interface scaling and remain usable across different display sizes and pixel densities.
Scaling is not a bonus feature. It is basic usability.
Where possible, common preferences such as UI scale should behave consistently across the nClear Audio product line.
The nClear Audio Standard
Good DSP matters. Good workflow matters. But software that preserves your projects, respects your time, and stays out of the way matters too.
That is the nClear Audio Standard.
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