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:
Strezov Sampling announced the latest addition to their Creative ToolboX – a free Steinway Grand Piano library for Native Instruments’ free Kontakt Player (full version works too). The Grand Piano features layered samples, tree different mic positions (close, decca, and hall), reverb and the option to mix in pedal sounds.
For something with that price tag I gotta say the video examples sound pretty amazing – check it out below and if you want to pick up a copy you can get it either via Strezov’s site or through NI’s Native Access.
Read more @ Strezov-sampling.com: Steinway Grand Piano Freebie
Watch/hear it in action here:
Here’s SuperCrunch – a free guitar amp VST plugin by Linda Audio. It doesn’t aim at replicating any specific real hardware but instead just goes for the natural sound of a classic tube amplifier, ranging from sparkling clean to gentle crunch and wild rock/metal distortion.
There’s control for input/output gain, drive and brightness and two channels (crunch and lead), cabinet simulation, gate as well as the possibility to blend in your guitar’s clean signal and a 8 band equalizer to help dial in your wanted tone.
SuperCrunch is only available as VST/VST3 for Windows, no Mac or Linux versions and is completely free, unless you decide to donate a few bucks to help support the development of plugins like these.
Read more at LindaAudio.com: SuperCrunch ($0)
Listen to SuperCrunch in action here:
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.
[…]
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.