Fuse Audio Labs has released Tube Lab, a vintage channel strip plugin built around a multi-tube preamp, a Baxandall-style EQ, and an optical compressor with flexible module routing.
If you’re familiar with Fuse Audio Labs (we covered the excellent free VPRE-72 Vintage Tube Preamp and VREV-666 Spring Reverb plugins in the past), you know the developer has serious analog modeling credentials.
Reimund Dratwa, the company’s founder, has designed modeling plugins for brands like ACME, Black Rooster, elysia, Millennia, Neold, and Vertigo, among others.
And it makes sense that this experience shows in Tube Lab.
The preamp section offers five classic tube types (12AT7, 12AU7, 12AX7, 6DJ8, and 12DW7), each with its own balance of headroom, density, and grit.
At lower gain settings, you get subtle coloration. But when you push the drive harder, things get fat and aggressive, and it sounds fantastic.
The tube selection makes it pretty versatile, and this thing can add shine and warmth to anything from vocals and bass to drums and full stems.
There’s also the three-band Baxandall EQ, which works in broad strokes rather than surgical precision and sounds very musical. I love using this type of EQ to quickly tilt the tone of a track.
Dynamics are handled by an opto compressor with classic and modern modes. There’s also an optional automatic gain control, so you can focus on the compression character without constantly compensating for level changes.
Another cool feature is the flexible signal flow. The preamp, EQ, and compressor modules can be freely reordered, so you can basically customize the signal path.
Running the compressor before the EQ, or the EQ before the preamp, changes the character of the processing and gives you the flexibility that a fixed-order channel strip can’t offer.
You can watch the demo video embedded above to hear the plugin in action across different instruments and settings, including some nice examples of what it can do on the master bus.
Tube Lab is available in VST2, VST3, AAX, and AU formats for macOS (10.12 or newer, Intel and Apple Silicon) and Windows (7 or newer).
It’s currently on sale for $29 (regular price $69) until May 2nd. A fully functional 14-day trial is available on the Fuse Audio Labs website.
More info: Fuse Audio Labs Tube Lab ($29 intro / $69)
Last Updated on April 3, 2026 by Tomislav Zlatic.
