19 Best Preamp VST Plugins 2025

Dials by AudioThing

AudioThing’s Dials takes after 1950s electronic music hardware. This Hainbach style channel strip combines an American bandpass filter with a German vacuum tube radio broadcast device. Whether on vocals, drums, or other instruments, its signature tone shines. It’s even great for voiceover work!

It was discovered by analog specialist Wojcek Czern that the unique radio broadcast device mentioned earlier could be used as a mic preamp rivaling the V72 and V76. Composer and YouTuber Hainbach uses this as his preamp for vocals, mono acoustic recordings, as well as synth processing. This unit also adds a pleasant compression, which is now controllable.

The filter is based on Allison Labs filters, found in early electronic music studios as well as science labs. The beauty of the filter is the very fact that it’s very imprecise but offers a wonderful vocal quality.

Further additions were made to Dials, with an 808-style drum machine and two filter banks (A and B).

Overall, you get an analog preamp emulation with analog modelled filters (high pass and low pass), compressor, trip modulation, resizable window, and a preset system featuring a randomizer.

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Redoptor 2 by D16 Group

D16 Group’s Redoptor 2 is a dynamically responsive vintage tube distortion. For this entry, D16 modelled vacuum tubes being pushed to the extreme, along with their behavior.

Redoptor 2 also features an adjustable preamp, four-band parametric EQ, independent stereo channel processing, and a pre-gain compressor with a master output limiter.

Redoptor 2 behaves much like a hot-rodded tube guitar amplifier, which makes it great for guitar. But that’s not all. It’s well worth trying on drum loops, arpeggiated synths, bass lines, and more, depending on what you’d like to accomplish with your tracks.

Altogether, Redoptor 2 comes with filters, output limiter, parametric EQ, tag-based preset browser, two GUI sizes, and MIDI learn functionality.

Whether as a lo-fi effect, saturation, or distortion, Redoptor 2 is a versatile effect for a moderate cost.

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Make Me Scream by W. A. Production

To be exact, W. A. Production’s Make Me Scream is more of a saturation VST than a preamp VST, but they did add an adjustable preamp tube at the start of the signal chain, so I guess you could say it’s a two-in-one.

We love its humorous name. Make Me Scream is a two-stager with four distortion types as well as four timbre modes. The two-stage design allows for far more sizzle than you might get with either a preamp or a saturation plugin alone. You get the best of both worlds.

To top it all off, W. A. Production added plenty of presets for a variety of applications – drums, bass, vocals, full mixes, and even guitar.

The four distortion types are analog tube saturation, soft clipping saturation, regular distortion, and folded sinus distortion, each with a different character and different amounts of drive.

The four timbre modes include Fuzz (balanced), Wall (muted tone with richer bass), Cliff (midrange boost), and Make Me Scream (for bringing out the highs in a track).

The Preamp Tube slider gives you control over analog tube saturation, which you can control using the Boost dial.

If that wasn’t enough, there’s a smart filter control for shaping your distortions, with high, low, and bandpass filter modes. You can further tweak the filter cutoff depending on the effect you want to achieve.

The envelope follower can add some movement and rhythm to your tracks while giving them an auto-wah style feel.

From adding presence to exciting tracks, Make Me Scream is low cost, and it comes in handy in a variety of scenarios.

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Lifeline Console by Excite Audio

Excite Audio’s Lifeline Console is one of our favorite (if not our favorite) low-cost lo-fi channel strips. And yes, it does come with a preamp section that will add a nice saturation to your tracks while warming up and enhancing the signal. You can even customize the frequency response.

Beyond that, you get the EQ section for spectral shaping and analog circuitry options, compressor with auto makeup, modulation with tape speed variations and warped records, as well as wear for noise, artifacts, and the erratic behavior of tape, cassette, and vinyl.

The five modules can be arranged any way you see fit, and there’s also 15 algorithms with 243 combinations, left / right or mid / side processing, and 350 presets.

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S-Quick Strip by Kiive Audio

Kiive Audio’s S-Quick Strip was designed to be simple. It can be used on any track as a convenient channel strip, complete with saturation, EQ, transient manipulation, and compression functionality.

It comes with some handy tools like a polarity flip button, two saturation circuits, two-band EQ and bell options, high pass filter, one-knob compressor with auto makeup gain, saturation with wet / dry controls, transient designer, and compressor sidechain.

You will find multiple presets to choose from, created by the likes of Alberto De Lcaza, Zac Tissen, Sam Guiana, Jesse Ray Ernster, and Sam Sherbin.

As with the Tonelux Tilt seen elsewhere in this guide, S-Quick Strip could prove a valuable tool for getting your tracks to sit in the mix.

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Klirrton Grindstein by Audiority

As you can probably tell from its appearance, Audiority’s Klirrton Grindstein is for guitar. This plugin, specifically, is a death metal preamp featuring a Fleisch equalizer and Schnauze noise gate. Perfect for dialing all kinds of classic and modern death model tones – yes, it’s quite versatile!

Based on the original hardware, in total, Klirrton Grindstein features two mixable channels (Bottomshaker with a two-band EQ and Chainsaw with a three-band EQ), phase switch, Lichtbringer boost, Schnauze noise gate, five-band Fleisch EQ, as well as a cab simulator with seven speaker types.

Popular YouTuber Ola Englund calls Klirrton Grindstein the “instant Pantera” button.

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EFEKTOR BASS DRIVER by Kuassa

You can probably tell from its name that Kuassa’s EFEKTOR BASS DRIVER was designed as a bass guitar preamp. Its appearance shares quite a bit in common with Sansamp gear, and not surprisingly, the plugin was based on that exact thing.

The great thing about the DI was how it was so versatile. From vintage tube tones all the way over to glowing slaps, you could do just about anything with it.

Kuassa, not surprisingly, developed this unit to offer a variety of distorted tones while retaining the original character of your bass signal.

All in all, EFEKTOR BASS DRIVER comes with a resizable window, updated interface, and up to 8x oversampling with dry/wet knob. This entry is quite affordable, and it sounds good too.

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Tonelux Tilt And Tilt Live by Softube

Tonelux Tilt is the perfect EQ for gluing tracks together. And not surprisingly, Tilt Live is perfect for adapting your sound in live situations.

Tonelux Tilt works best as the first effect in your processing chain, and it works on everything. It works for quick and dirty adjustments, and at times, it may be all you need to dial in your tracks.

The controls couldn’t get much simpler, and they do exactly what you’d expect they do. Turn the tilt control to one direction and it will boost highs while cutting lows. Go the other way, and the opposite occurs. The Loud switch takes the effect to new heights.

Then you’ve got the high and low pass filters, as well as a gain knob and polarity reversal switch.

Tonelux Tilt includes a modeling of the Tonelux MP1a mic preamp transformer. Great for a little bit of saturation.

For those looking for a plugin that lets you dial in their sound fast, Tonelux Tilt could be exactly what you need.

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Chorus Ensembler by Audiority

Audiority’s Chorus Ensembler is clearly a chorus effect, but it just so happens to have preamp only / effect operative modes, thus its inclusion here. I understand this is a rather loose connection though.

The chorus itself was based on the infamous 70s BBD chorus and vibrato effect, Boss CE-1.

This analog style chorus gives you control over intensity, vibrato rate, depth, input impedance, classic or full stereo modes, stereo spread, pre and post effect gain, and mix. Chorus Ensembler also comes with tempo sync and a resizable interface.

As the original product Roland remarketed as Boss, the Chorus Ensembler is a natural fit for guitar, but I could see it working very nicely with synthesizers, keyboards and even vocals as well.

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What Should I Look For In A Preamp VST Plugin?

You came here looking for a preamp. Now you’re starting to consider channel strips.

Hey, we know how it is. There are some very versatile, powerful VST plugins out there that not only bestow your tracks with analog warmth, but allow for sound shaping and sculpting in other ways too.

Now, if you came here looking for a preamp, your best option is to leave here with a preamp, because you probably have a good reason for singling out a preamp to begin with.

But if you’re feeling a little lost, have no worries. We’re here to clear things up for you.

When shopping for a preamp VST plugin, there are a few key criteria to consider. They are as follows:

• Sound quality
• Functionality
• Budget

Let’s talk about each.

Sound Quality

One thing you should be very curious of when it comes to preamps is how they enhance your sound. As noted earlier, analog emulations are sometimes little more than snake oil. So we want to make sure that the plugins we’re buying are doing something.

Once we know that the preamp is doing something, we went to ensure that it’s producing a sound we want. Just because it’s supposed to add analog warmth doesn’t necessarily mean it will always make something sound better.

Of course, in most scenarios where your tracks and mixes are sounding a little dull, some processing is par for the course. A preamp, though, is just one of numerous tools that can add cohesion and interest to a mix. Saturation, compression, and EQs can do this too.

We’re getting a little off course, but a boring sounding mix can also be enhanced by synth pads, granular effects or synths, percussion, or even sending all the reverb to the left or right channel.

All that to say, make sure that a preamp is what you’re looking for.

Once that’s been established, go, and listen to everything you can find. Videos. Sound clips. All of it. Compare the products you’re thinking about buying. Notice how they sound different. See if you can tell what it happening to the tracks as the effect is being applied.

You want to choose a plugin that’s going to work for you, so this is a “necessary evil” as it were. You will need to do a bit of homework.

Functionality

Is there a huge difference between a preamp and a channel strip? Well, it depends on the product, but not necessarily.

For instance, Arturia’s Pre 1973 comes with a three-band EQ, input gain, high pass filter, and an output trim. It’s relatively simple, yes, but it comes awfully close to being a channel strip if you ask me.

Look at United Plugins’ UniChannel. It features a preamp, EQ, and compressor.

So, the two are remarkably similar. And if you think the difference is a compressor, look at Audiority’s Pre X7. It comes with a brickwall clipper / limiter, which is effectively a superpowered compressor.

It may not seem like it matters much, but there are two ways in which this tangibly matters.

The first is that you should buy the functionality you need. The second is that the price will vary based on the functionality you need.

Which brings us to…

Budget

Friend, you’re about to spend $20 to $200 on a preamp VST plugin. My advice? Don’t go into debt to do it. Just don’t!

There are always other ways, whether it’s settling for an option you can afford right now, or saving up for later. It’s far preferable to spending money you don’t have.

Top Preamp VST Plugins, Final Thoughts

And now, you’re an expert in preamp VST plugins as well. Did you enjoy the ride?

There are many great products out there, it’s simply a matter of choosing an option that’s right for you.

We wish you all the best on your music production journey. Let us know how it goes!