Chubby Tube
Tube saturation, air and weight for every track, bus and master — glue on a mix bus, body on vocals, drums, bass and keys, a valve front end on a raw guitar or bass DI. It's source-aware: tell it what it's on — Guitar, Bass, Piano, Vocals, Drums or Mix — and the tube tailors itself. SATURATION, AIR, FATTER, six tube flavours and one TUBE HYPE switch, around a tube that glows in its chamber as you drive it.
One license, up to 5 of your computers. No subscription, no account. Trial is the full plug-in for 14 days; after that it keeps running in demo mode (3 seconds of bypass every 40) until you paste a key.
Download
Trial · 14 days · full plug-inWhich Mac do you have? Apple menu > About This Mac: Chip: Apple M… means Apple silicon, Processor: Intel means Intel. Needs macOS 11 Big Sur or later. Not sure? Get the universal build, it runs on both.
A tube behind glass. It glows as hard as you drive it.
The middle of the faceplate is a recessed steel window with a hex-mesh grille, and behind the glass sits the tube: a glass capsule, three amber filaments, a bakelite base. It is a meter, not a decoration. The glow follows the signal coming out of the tube stage and how much SATURATION you have dialled in — quiet playing barely lights it, a hard-driven bus makes it burn. Flip TUBE HYPE and it runs visibly hotter.
Under the window: the six tube presets and the TUBE HYPE lamp button. Either side: VU meters for input and output, and a HYPE GR meter that shows how much the hype compressor is pulling down.
The controls
SOURCE · SATURATION · AIR · FATTER · TUBE · HYPE · MIXSOURCE
Tell Chubby Tube what it's sitting on — Guitar, Bass, Piano, Vocals, Drums or Mix — and it tailors the tube, the drive taper and the weight to that material, so the same box flatters a vocal, a drum bus and a whole mix without re-learning it each time.
SATURATION
Drive into an asymmetric triode stage, 4× oversampled to keep aliasing down. The output is compensated as you turn it up, so you hear more tube, not more volume.
AIR
A 10 kHz shelf plus a touch of exciter on the band above 7 kHz — the CLEAN Air idea, in one knob. At zero it is out of the circuit.
FATTER
Splits the low band off at 220 Hz and thickens it with its own softer tube stage, a low shelf and slow, gentle compression, then puts the two bands back together in phase. At zero the split is bypassed.
TUBE
12AX7 classic, 12AU7 clean with more headroom, 12AT7 bright, 6SN7 fat and round, EL84 crunch with a harder knee, 6V6 sweet on top. Each one changes the bias, the knee and the tilt of the stage, and switching crossfades — no clicks.
TUBE HYPE
More drive into the tube, a program-dependent compressor that sets its own threshold and release from the material, and a little presence at 3 kHz. Level-matched, so on against off is a fair comparison.
MIX
Blend the tube against the dry signal. The dry path is delayed by exactly the plug-in's own latency, so a parallel blend stays phase-aligned instead of combing.
The signal path, in order: INPUT trim → the tube stage (SOURCE, SATURATION, the tube flavour and TUBE HYPE all act here) → FATTER → AIR → OUTPUT trim → MIX. Everything is stereo-linked, and mono tracks work too.
- Input ±24 dB
- Source: Guitar · Bass · Piano · Vocals · Drums · Mix
- Saturation
- Air
- Fatter
- 6 tube flavours
- Tube Hype
- Mix
- Output ±24 dB
- Twin VU meters
- Hype GR meter
Three jobs, one box
Mix & master glue · tracks · guitar DIGlue for the mix, the master and the drum bus
Set SOURCE to Mix or Drums. Keep SATURATION low, pick a tube that suits the song — 12AU7 to stay clean, 6V6 for a sweeter top — and pull MIX back for parallel. TUBE HYPE with MIX around half is the quick version: the bus gets denser and the level stays where it was.
- Mix Bus › Tube Glue
- Mix Bus › Hype It
- Master › Gentle Glow
- Master › Air and Weight
- Drums › Glue Bus
Vocals, drums, bass, keys
One source at a time. SATURATION and a little AIR bring a vocal forward; FATTER puts weight under a snare, a bass or a thin piano; the 6SN7 preset rounds off a synth pad. A single track takes more SATURATION than a bus does, so turn it up until you hear the tube.
- Vocal › Warm Chain
- Vocal › Air and Body
- Drums › Fat Snare
- Bass › Round and Heavy
- Keys › Tube Piano
- Synth › Thick Pad
Guitar or bass, plugged in direct
Set SOURCE to Guitar or Bass and insert Chubby Tube before your amp sim and your pedal plug-ins. Add a little SATURATION for the weight a valve front end gives, and FATTER when a single-coil or a DI bass needs more body.
- Guitar › Amp-Like Buffer
- Guitar › Fat Lead
Tell it what it's on. It does the rest.
The big SOURCE selector is how one tube box flatters six very different jobs. Pick the material and Chubby Tube sets the tube's starting flavour, the feel of the SATURATION taper and how FATTER weights the low end — so you reach for a knob to taste, not to undo a wrong assumption. It's a starting point, never a lock: every knob still moves freely from there.
Mix
Gentle, level-matched glue that holds a stereo bus or master together. Subtle drive, stays phase-coherent, no pumping with HYPE on programme material.
Vocals / Piano
Body and air that bring a voice or a thin piano forward without harshness — the SATURATION opens up and AIR has room to lift the top.
Drums / Bass
Weight and punch: FATTER leans into the low band for a fat snare or a round, heavy bass, and the tube takes more drive before it lets go.
Guitar
A valve front end for a raw guitar or bass DI — put Chubby Tube before your amp sim for the weight and give a real tube input adds.
However you set SOURCE, the whole plug-in behaves on a real mix: stereo-linked, level-matched, low CPU even with the tube oversampled 4×, and a dry/wet MIX that stays lined up to the exact latency so a parallel blend never combs.
Trial, demo, license
14 days · then $29 onceTRIAL
The full plug-in, nothing held back, for 14 days from the first time you open it. No account and no card.
DEMO
Still fully working, with a 3-second dip to bypass every 40 seconds. Your sessions and settings are untouched — it just won't let you print a clean pass.
PRO
$29 once. The dips stop for good. One key covers up to 5 of your computers, with free updates to Chubby Tube 1.x.
- Ends the trial / demo mode — the full plug-in, forever
- One key, up to 5 of your computers
- Paid once. No subscription, no account, no renewals
- Free updates to Chubby Tube 1.x
- Your key appears right here after PayPal — and we keep a copy under your PayPal email and order id
Connecting checkout…
Payment went through — the key is still on its way.
PayPal order . Retrying re-uses this order — you are never charged twice. Still stuck? chubbytube@deestechholdings.com with that order id. Start a new purchase instead.
Your Chubby Tube key
Issued to your PayPal email — save this somewhere safe.
Open Chubby Tube in your DAW, click the TRIAL / DEMO button top right, paste, ACTIVATE. The plug-in checks in with deestechholdings.com once, then the license lives on that computer. Same key on up to 5 computers.
PayPal order — keep it with the key. Your PayPal email plus this order id (or the Transaction ID on the receipt) brings the full key back in Find my key.
Bought Chubby Tube before? Get your key back.
Enter the email you paid with on PayPal and the order id or Transaction ID from your PayPal receipt, and we'll show the full key for that purchase.
Email only? We'll show which keys are on file (partly hidden) and when they were issued — the full key needs the order id, so nobody who merely knows your email can take your seats.
How activation works
5 computers per keyBuy, get your key
Your
CTPRO-…key shows up on this page the moment PayPal completes. It's also kept under your PayPal email and order id for “Find my key”.Paste it in the plug-in and ACTIVATE
Open Chubby Tube on a track or a bus, click the TRIAL or DEMO button in the top right, paste the whole key, click ACTIVATE. It checks in with deestechholdings.com once and stores an activation for that computer — after that it works offline, in every host, in every session.
Up to 5 computers
Same key on the studio Mac, the laptop, the one at the rehearsal room — up to five at once. A computer you've already activated never uses a second seat.
Moving on? Deactivate to free a seat
In the plug-in, LICENSED → DEACTIVATE THIS COMPUTER. Old computer gone for good? Email chubbytube@deestechholdings.com and we'll free it.
Nothing disappears. Chubby Tube keeps running in demo mode: fully working, with a 3-second dip to bypass every 40 seconds. Paste a key and the dips stop. Your sessions and settings are untouched.
No. It is a tube saturation and glue stage for tracks, buses and the master; on a raw guitar DI it goes before your amp sim.
They are six voicings of one tube stage, each named for the valve it leans toward: how lopsided the curve is, how soft the knee is, where the tilt sits. Pick by ear, not by the part number.
It sets a smart starting point for the material you pick — the tube flavour, the drive taper and how FATTER weights the lows — so Chubby Tube flatters a vocal, a drum bus or a full mix without re-dialling from scratch. Every knob still moves freely from there. More on SOURCE above.
A little — the tube stage is oversampled — and it reports the exact figure to the host, so your DAW compensates. MIX uses the same figure to keep the dry signal lined up.
Only for the moment you activate or deactivate. The plug-in verifies your activation offline every time it loads; audio never touches the network.
The Windows VST3 is next. Drop your email in the box at the top and you'll get one message when it's up — the same key will work there too.
Yes — once installed, DEES TAPE for Mac & PC's VST BOX loads Chubby Tube like any other VST3 or AU after a SCAN. Put it on a bus or the master, or first on a DI guitar track.
Use Find my key with your PayPal email plus the order id or Transaction ID from the receipt. Still stuck? chubbytube@deestechholdings.com — a real person reads every message.
No. $29 once, for life, on up to 5 computers. If the plug-in ever asks you to pay again, it isn't ours.
Fat, warm, glued.
14-day free trial at launch. Buy it once.