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)

The open source and cross platform (Linux / Mac / Windows) DAW Ardour just upgraded to version 7.4, bringing some new features along with bug fixes. Of the few DAWs I’ve tried running under Linux, Ardour sure looks the most polished and I’ve been wanting to give it more of a real go soon.

New features in Ardour 7.4 is:

• Support for MIDI subgroup busses
• Support for the Lua DSP processor (downmix 5.1 audio to stereo)
• Added a volume control to the clip picker
• Added a preference item for the PPQN value in exported MIDI files
• Added an option to use a neutral color for new tracks & busses

Now as for improvements and bug fixes you can see the whole list on their what’s new page, but there’s been improvements in handling Faderport8 and Ableton Push 2 as well as a lot of UI-fixes and VST/VST3 bug fixes.

Ardour is free to download and use if you can compile the source tarball on your own machine, but for those not so tech-savvy there’s binaries for Linux, Windows and Mac available for purchase (either a pay-what-you-want starting at $1/mo or single payment from $45). Demo versions that goes silent after 10 minutes are available for those wanting to give it a go as well.

Download Ardour at Ardour.org

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.

Read more at Valhalladsp.com

Download Supermassive (Valhalladsp.com, free)

The popular tracker Renoise (and the companion sampler sequencer for other DAWs, Redux) now features native support for Apple M1 with the ability to load intel plugins via a plugin bridge and Rosetta as well as Metal based GUI rendering for MacOS. Happy times for tracking on a modern Mac!

Besides M1 Renoise now have 32 and 64 bit ARM Linux builds optimized for Raspberry Pi 3/4, which made my mind start to wander off wondering if it’d be cool to build a little tracker-specific box…

Other features with the 3.4.0 version includes WASAPI audio device support (Windows) and Ableton Link.

The tracker is free to try out (as far as I know it just limits exporting if you don’t buy a license) and I’d highly recommend anyone either having a tracker background to try it out to see where trackers are in 2022 or for the first time to have a go at something more alternative to the classic DAWs.

Read more on Renoise.com

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

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: