Plugin comparison
Specs, price and the Dubspot Score, side by side — with our verdict on which effect to buy.
Independent score / workflow fit / buying signal
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Contenders
FOAM by Carbonated Audio is a $49 ducking reverb that lowers its own tail by up to 36 dB while the dry signal plays, then blooms in the gaps, on macOS and Windows.
Effect / Baby Audio
Crystalline is an algorithmic studio reverb plugin by Baby Audio with modern controls for shaping reverb character and sound design.
Technical matrix
| Signal | Carbonated Audio FOAM | Baby Audio Crystalline |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $49 | — |
| Dubspot Score | — | 8.6 |
| Formats | VST3, AU, AAX, macOS, Windows | VST, VST3, AU, AAX |
| Type | Ducking reverb | — |
| Ducking | Make Room, up to 36 dB, recovery in note values or milliseconds | — |
| Detector | Internal by default, switchable to an external source | — |
| Room | Size and Bloom XY field, ten factory spaces | — |
| Tail Shaper | Four points (Onset, Build, Body, Decay) on a tempo grid | — |
| Tempo sync | Decay, Pre-Delay, and Recovery, with manual BPM fallback | — |
| Routing | Send (reverb only) or Insert (equal-power dry/wet) | — |
| Latency | Zero samples, no lookahead | — |
| Formats | VST3, AU, AAX on macOS, VST3 on Windows | VST, VST3, AU, AAX (64-bit) |
| System | macOS 11+ universal, Windows 10 and 11 (64-bit) | — |
| Plugin type | — | Algorithmic reverb (allpass loop algorithm) |
| Presets | — | 300+ curated presets |
| Mac compatibility | — | macOS 10.11 and up, including native Apple Silicon M-chip support |
| Windows compatibility | — | Windows 10 and newer |
| Key functions | — | BPM-synced pre-delay/decay, ducker, freeze, reverse, shimmer, gated reverb, Eco Mode for low CPU |
See the full plugin database for more comparisons.