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Lossy

The Lossy editor: encoder, spectrum and image, and transport panels above a band-allocation strip showing which frequencies are kept in stereo, flattened to mono, or discarded.
Encoderthe bit budget, the window it works in, and what it does when they run outGenerationsone pass is a bad upload, six is a repost of a repostSpectrum & imagethe top end and the stereo width, both decided by what the budget affordsTransportthe journey rather than the file: blocks lost in bursts, then healedConcealwhat you hear in place of a block that never arrivedBand allocationwhich bands stay stereo, which fold to mono, which are thrown away

Get Lossy — €29

8 to 320 kbps

The whole range on one knob, clean at the top and unlistenable at the bottom, run one to six times over - once for a bad upload, six for a repost of a repost. 14 presets for the beloved 'used' and vintage sound: 128k rip, voice note, bad connection, deep fried and 10 more.

Texture you cannot fake

A bitcrusher and a filter are the usual stand-in, and everyone hears they are not it. Lossy makes the same call a real encoder makes - and then starves it, which gives it its familiar sound: the warble, the smeared hits, the top end closing to 3.8 kHz.

Without leaving the session

Hearing what an upload does to your track normally means exporting, encoding and dragging it back in to listen, then doing the whole round trip again for the next setting. Lossy sits on the channel and does it as you play, at any setting, automatically.

How Lossy works

01

Bit allocation

Loud sounds mask quiet ones near them in pitch and time. Lossy raises that whole map until the block fits the budget.

02

Multiple passes

Up to six encode/decode passes, each on a different block phase, behaving like a real chain of reposts.

03

Packet loss and dropouts

Packet loss in bursts, stuttering, and healing applied after compression. When bits run short the top of the spectrum goes mono first.

Listen

Starving the encoder

Less bits = more Lossy.

0:00 / 0:00

Loudness matched. Source: The Beat (Remastered 2026), gabriel_shelligton (CC BY 3.0)

Pre-echo, which a bitcrusher cannot do

Noise arriving before the hit that caused it. No bitcrusher has blocks.

0:00 / 0:00

Loudness matched. Source: The Stubble Field Break (Mana Mixed), mana_junkie (CC BY 3.0)

Numbers

An encoder, not an impression of one

Specification

Bitrate
8 to 320 kbps
Generations
1 to 6
Latency
43 ms at default
CPU
0.6% of one core, 3.3% at six passes
Presets
14
Formats
VST3, CLAP, AU
Systems
macOS (Apple Silicon and Intel), Windows x64, Linux x86_64

Measured

Damage at 320 kbps
−20.1 dB
Damage at 16 kbps
−5.6 dB
Top end, 320 → 16 kbps
20.5 kHz → 3.8 kHz
Stereo width, 320 → 64 kbps
wide → almost mono
Latency, reported against measured
exact, every setting

Presets

128k Rip · 64k Stream · Voice Note · Reposted Eight Times · Deep Fried · Crunchy Drums · Pre-Echo · Bad Connection · Frozen Call · Dropouts · Glitch Bus · Under The Mix · Mono From The Top · Transparent

Get it

Lossy — €29

All prices are final prices. Any applicable taxes and charges are included, and there are no delivery costs. We accept: Card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal, iDEAL, Bancontact, EPS, Revolut Pay. No delivery restrictions.

By ordering you agree to the terms and the privacy notice.

try it first

Try Lossy

The full plugin, no time limit. Until a licence is on the machine, settings are not saved with a project.

No account, no email, no licence key.

More plugins

They are built the same way

The Excursion editor: ten emitters on the left, a cone-pressure diagram and playback level in the centre, the signal path on the right, and a telemetry row reading low corner, gain reduction and level match.

Excursion

Plays your track through a speaker too small for it.

€39/VST3 · CLAP · AU

The Inkey editor: a root keybed, scale and Scala import on the left with Auto Fit reporting D# Minor at minus three semitones, a pitch map of cents off key against frequency on the right, and correction, detection and output controls below.

Inkey

Retunes a sample into your key while it plays, chords intact.

€39/VST3 · CLAP · AU

The Negative editor: the Inside Out preset at Amount 100, a sixteen-band mirror with input level above the centre line and the reflected output below it, and Speed, Depth, Floor, Mix and Output along the bottom.

Negative

Inverts a mix's dynamics band by band, so what sat between the hits becomes the loudest thing in it.

Free/VST3 · CLAP · AU · LV2

The Downstream editor: a decibel axis with the master at −9.2 LUFS, the −14 target below it, a −4.8 dB arrow between the two and 16.1 dB of peak left marked above; the Delivered knob at 100, and the measured integrated loudness, true peak, range and peak headroom listed beside it.

Downstream

Applies the loudness a delivery target implies, so you hear what the listener gets instead of a number.

Free/VST3 · CLAP · AU · LV2

The Lozenge editor, a tall narrow panel in dusty rose, sage and cream: large Protect and Size dials stacked down the centre line reading 0 and 15.0 ms, a smaller Sens dial and a Listen button below them, and a Removed strip counting repairs along the foot, over a flat cartoon drawing of a mint lozenge spinning inside two big whoosh ribbons that run off the top and bottom of the panel.

Lozenge

Takes mouth clicks out of your recording, and leaves the consonants in.

Free/VST3 · CLAP · AU · LV2

Lossy implements no published bitstream format, contains no format's tables, and cannot read or write any format's files. It is not an MP3 encoder and it is not an AAC encoder. It reproduces the artifacts by doing the same kind of work, not by reimplementing anyone's codec.