Essential software and shiny gear for music producers
Nembrini Audio just released their free Big Stuff Harmonic Distortion-Sustain plugin, modeled on the classic Electro Harmonix Big Muff pedal, an incredibly popular fuzz pedal beloved by indie rockers to metalheads. Now, this classic fuzzy tone can just as well be applied to synths and organs as well, of course.
The plugin is available as VST3, VST3, AAX and AU and for Mac, Windows and iOS.
Get it for free over at NembriniAudio.com: Big Stuff ($0)
Ok let’s squeeze in another Friday freebie: Syntronik Instruments now offers their J-60 plugin for free for two weeks (regular value $49). This little beauty gives you the sound of the Roland Juno-60, the classic synth from the mid 80s used by Enya, Billy Idol, The Cure, Eurythmics, Men at Work and maaaaany many more.
The Juno-60 uses the same Roland IR3109 filter chip as the Jupiter-8 with its 4-pole resonating low pass filter and non-sweepable high pass filter. The Juno-60 uses DCOs – digitally controlled oscillators – for better tuning stability than the Jupiter’s VCOs, or voltage controlled oscillators.
The Juno-60 only has one oscillator per voice vs. two on the Roland Jupiter-8. Because of this, oscillator detuning is not possible on the Juno-60, but Roland added a beautiful sounding analog chorus effect to compensate for this. The result is an instrument with its own character and style that is treasured in synthesizer history.
Make sure you snag it while it’s free over at audioplugin.deals ($0 right now)
Free stuff Friday, yay! Here’s Toy Keyboard, a free VST/VST3/AU plugin by Sample Science. Now, this is a pretty simple plugin since there’s only one sample per sound stretched across the keyboard (but hey, it’s a toy keyboard after all) and it mimics the Yamaha PSR-78 home keyboard.
Features:
Get it at SampleScience.com: Toy Keyboard ($0)
Hear it in action here:
Who doesn’t like a free LinnDrum sample pack? The classic pre-midi drum machine was made by Linn Electronics back in the mid 80s and has been used by legends like Georgio Moroder, John Carpenter, Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson and Prince.
Studio Brootle thought just that so they’re offering this free kit of 12 classic LinnDrum samples, although some a little bit processed to update them:
I love the LinnDrum, but find myself beefing up the low end when using it in my own productions. So here I’ve processed the kick drum to have a bit more bottom end, and made separate reverb rumble subs for both the kick and the low tom so you’ve got in-tune sub basses too.
Get the LinnDrum sample pack for free at StudioBrootle.com
To celebrate that Valhalla’s free Supermassive reverb and delay plugin turns 2.5 years old, they’ve released a 2.5.0 update including two new modes: scorpio and libra, making the plugin contain 18 original algorithms ranging from weird/experimental to more practical ones and.. of course, epic lushness.
These are seemingly subtle changes, but they make a HUGE sonic difference. The complex feedback path in Scorpio creates a lot of stereo width, as well as a more “open” frequency response. By incorporating the High EQ filters into the feedback paths, the Scorpio mode can create far more realistic reverb sounds, where the high frequencies decay away over time.
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The Libra mode in ValhallaSupermassive has a somewhat slower attack than Scorpio, and can sound like a delay at 4X the displayed DELAY length when WARP and DENSITY are both at zero. Turn up the WARP control, and Libra quickly transforms into a very lush reverb, with balanced modulation.
And remember, this one is a freebie, so check it out if you’re looking for a plug for massive reverbs, harmonic echoes or space sounds.
Download Supermassive (Valhalladsp.com, free)
Kilohearts has released a new free plugin, Dual Delay. Or as they describe it:
Dual Delay is like a regular delay that wants to be a reverb and ends up being something cool and new instead, with its double delay lines working in tandem to give you rich and complex echoing systems in seconds
As always, their plugin comes as VST/AAX/AU and can be used both stand-alone or within one of their snapin hosts (Phase Plant, Multipass and Snap Heap). Can’t say I’ve ever been disappointed using one of their earlier plugins so this’ll be an immediate download for me.
Here’s a pretty sweet deal if you own a pair of PreSonus studio monitors (or if you’re thinking of buying a pair). No matter if it’s the Eris, R-series or the Sceptre monitors they’re currently giving away their Studio Magic software suite with ’em. That’s over $1,000 worth of music software including Studio One Prime, Ableton Live Lite, plugins (both synths and effects), tutorials as well as loops and samples.
Worth mentioning are Arturia Analog Lab Intro, the Brainworx bx_opto compressor, Cherry Audio Surrealistic MG-1 Plus Synthesizer, Cherry Audio Voltage Nucleus, iZotope Neutron Elements, KV331 Audio Synthmaster Player, Mäag Audio EQ2 and Melodics.
If you bought your monitors after March 1st PreSonus says they’ll backdate the offer so you don’t miss out.
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)
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)