Here’s Fuzzboy by Direkt DSP; a VST3/AU distortion plugin promising guitar-pedal inspired distortion aiming at warmth, richness and character through three different distortion modes.

With Fuzzboy, gone are the days of bland, digital distortion. Dive into a realm of unparalleled tonal possibilities with our 3 meticulously crafted distortion modes. Whether you’re producing a hard-hitting EDM track or crafting delicate ambient soundscapes, Fuzzboy has you covered.

Fuzzboy is available as VST3 and AU and for Windows and MacOS.

Read more @ Direktdsp.com: Fuzzboy (€29,99 right now, regular price €45,99)

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:

“Sunbaked Electric Pianos”, that’s how Karanyi Sounds describes Vapor Keys, their new (or re-launched) VST / AU electric piano plugin. Extremely inspired by the 90s, this plugin brings you keys via sampled electric pianos, FM and wavetable synths (29 custom electric piano and wavetable synth patches, including iconic ones like Yamaha DX7 and Arturia MicroFreak) along with an effect rack to help you dial in that sweet sound.

Vapor Keys is the ultimate blend of classic and modern sounds inspired by the 90s. The instrument combines custom electric pianos and a variety of synth sounds to create bold, unique tones with 23 accurately sampled FM and wavetable synth patches. 

Now, Vapor Keys did exist before as a Kontakt instrument, it’s now available as VST3 / AU plugins as well.

Get it at Karanyisounds.com: Vapor Keys ($39 right now, $69 normal price)

GForce Software has released a sequel to their Minimoog Model D emulation VST instrument: The Minimonsta 2.

So what’s new under the hood?

• A new fully resizable UI (with three skins: black, light wood, dark wood)
• An improved audio engine
• A powerful new Preset Browser
• Over 300 new presets
• A new Reverb effect
• A Vintage control for adding subtle analogue imperfections
• Four programmable Macros
• Selectable 4-stage envelopes
• An alternative bass-preserving ladder filter
• PWM for OSC1 and much more

Check out the video below. The Minimonsta 2 is available for an introductory price of £49.99, otherwise priced at £99.99.

Read more at GForceSoftware.com: Minimonsta 2

Cherry Audio has released their new ”visionary flagship” synth plugin GX-80, which combines the emulation of the classic Yamaha GX-1 and Yamaha CS-80. The latter, of course, famous for being used by legends like Vangelis for the Blade Runner soundtrack, for instance.

GX-80 is not just another CS-80 emulation. GX-80 adeptly integrates the GX-1’s distinctive feature set into the CS-80 architecture; most significantly, the massive dual-layer architecture that effectively made the GX-1 the equivalent of two CS-80s and then some. The GX-1’s unique high-passed resonant pulse and bandpassed sawtooth waves, octave-up triangle wave, and filter envelope inversion are incorporated, opening up a new universe of sonic experimentation. Most notably, GX-80 includes an expert reproduction of the legendary GX-1 filter, delivering exquisite timbres that even the mighty CS-80 cannot produce.

Both the GX-1 and CS-80 cost around $50,000 back in the 70’s, this software… replicant, if you will, gonna put you back $59 at this date.

CherryAudio: GX-80 ($59)

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.

Kilohearts.com: Dual Delay ($0)

Deskew Technologies just released Gig Performer 4.0, a CPU-friendly host for VST effects, instruments and plug-ins for live performances and musicians. The new update includes new features including enhanced visuals and MIDI features.

Gig Performer lets you set up a Global Rackspace that keeps the VST plugins loaded and ready to go for all your tracks (say, a virtual amp setup), and then you can set specific rackspaces for specific tracks when needed.

As for MIDI there’s a midi player that can store up to 128 songs, and you can select the tempo to be either globally set or tapped. New in 4.0 is also real-time midi data display, adjustable velocity cuves and an Elektron-style probabilistic sound designer engine that can apply randomization of selected parameters of any plugin.

Gig Performer 4.0 is available for Mac and PC for $199.

Read more @ GigPerformer.com

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