Another sweet freebie from Sample Science: Rusty Piano, a free lo-fi acoustic piano plugin (64-bit VST/AU).

Rusty Piano is a lo-fi acoustic piano with a lot of character and charm. Recorded hot on purpose, Rusty Piano has a very saturated and thick sound. It’s the perfect piano sound for “rougher” music genres like indie rock, lo-fi hip-hop, free jazz, rock’n’roll, etc.

So you get a nice lo-fi, one-sample-per-note, multi-sampled acoustic piano tweakable with multi-LFO, hi/lowpass filters, reverb, amplitude range controls and the ability to switch between polyphonic/monophonic and legato all for the nice price of nothing.

Download Rusty Piano from Sample Science ($0)

Plogue – makers of the incredible Chipsounds plug – announced a new synth plug, the Chipsynth MD. It’s a 16 bit four operator polyphonic FM synth that’ll bring back the sounds of the classic Sega Mega Drive / Genesis as it emulates the classic OPN2 (YM2612) with a SN76489 compatible square wave core.

‘The Mega Drive™ – also known as Genesis™ – is a much beloved console system that brought the bright and sparkly sound of FM to the masses. It resulted in the creation of numerous fast paced and exciting soundtracks, and it still drives the creativity of composers to this day.

Since Plogue promises this thing to be bit accurate it also comes with a complimentary VGM file player so you can load up those classic Sonic tunes and see how exact it is yourself (and maybe rip some classic presets out… who knows).

Read more about the Chipsynth MD on Plogue.com

Now this is interesting! Native Instruments teases us with a new generation of their incredibly popular synth Massive dubbed Massive X. The new version will co-exist with the current Massive plug and will be released in February 2019.

Massive X will sport a new sound engine that takes advantage of modern CPUs, a big modular engine, plenty of effects and new subtractive filters. Judging by the quick view we get of it in the video below it looks like the UI is completely revamped and probably a bit more user friendly.

The current version of Massive will continue to get updates though, so don’t fret if you don’t want to upgrade.

With a next generation sound engine, state of the art components, and new effects, MASSIVE X will ensure your music stays on the cutting edge for the next decade.

Read more at native-instruments.com

Soundtheory just released Gullfoss (named after that huge waterfall in Iceland btw), an intelligent automatic equalizer plugin that uses “unique computational auditory perception technology” to identify and resolve problems in your track or mix.

Read the whole post “Soundtheory Gullfoss: Intelligent Automatic Equalizer Plugin”

Wavefactory’s Spectre is a sound-shaping plugin promising to combine a sound enhancer with a graphical parametric equalizer.

Spectre processes the difference between the input signal and the EQ signal, introducing harmonic content to just the part of the spectrum that you want from a variety of saturation algorithms based on classic recording hardware.

You can choose from eight different saturation algorithms to get the sound you’re after, from warmth to creamy or harsh.

Check it out in action here:

Download it here: Wavesfactory: Spectre Plugin (32/64 bit VST, AU, AAX)

PaulStretch has been around for quite a while to create extremely lush sounds by stretching audio to the extreme, but only for Windows (well, there’s been ways of building it for Macs but with quite the hassle, apparently). Now, this isn’t for nifty timestretching to fit loops, this is stretching done to create pretty awesome soundscapes. Want to turn Darude’s Sandstorm into an ambient soundfest? Here you go.

Enter PaulXStretch, a free VST/AU plugin for Windows, Mac and Linux that solves all that for you.

Get the free PaulXStretch plugin here: xenakios.wordpress.com/paulxstretch-plugin/

Check out this lush version of No Doubt’s “Don’t Speak” slowed down 8 times:

(If you want to find the original PaulStretch you can always find it here)

Eplex7 DSP Quantakor is a new VST / AU plugin aiming at helping you produce futuristic, sci-fi, experimental, atmospheric, FXs, soundscapes and pads suitable for anything from EDM to witch house to film music.

The plugin got multi-octaved and multi-sampled sounds, waveforms and synths and according to the authors a lot of the sounds were made using their own artificial intelligence resampling / morphing and neuronal synthesis.

While being a polyphonic synth you can play in monophonic mode too with legato slides.

eplex7.com: Eplex7  Quantakor VST / AU Plugin

Rob Papen has released the successor of the classic synth Predator used by legends like Armin van Buuren, Noisia and Teddy Riley, so say hi to Predator 2.

Besides the more complex features we’ve already gotten used to in the previous version it now includes an ‘Easy Page’ which hides a lot of the controls and only presents the most important parameters where you can change a sound quickly or want to try the preset variation function which randomizes the parameters intelligently.

Other features include waveform morphing, waveform drawing, waveset playmode, an XY pad for visual manipulation and modulation, a new EQ and voice level distortion, a new preset manager, improved unison mode, more envelopes and lfo’s (4), over 5,000 presets, an enhanced reverb algorithm (taken from RP-Verb) and much more.

Read more @ RobPapen.com ($149/€149)

FabFilter fans, rejoice! The makers of the acclaimed Pro-Q 2  EQ and Pro-C 2 compressor just extended their plug-in line-up with FabFilter Pro-R, a reverb plugin that promises natural reverbs without over-technical controls.

Their take on this is what they call a musical approach, focusing on easy-to-use controls for brightness, character and distance to achieve the sound you’re after. To help you out further there’s a space control setting that automatically adjusts the decay time for specific room models as well as a real-time spectrum analyzer and both a decay rate EQ and a 6-band post-EQ to help you design the reverb.

FabFilter Pro-R is available as digital downloads for both 64- and 32-bit Mac and Windows (VST, AU, AAX, RTA) and will set you back around USD$178 (€169)

Buy @ FabFIlter.com

Watch the demo here: