Jun 13, 2020
Add some 80's saturation and warmth to your projects with the Super VHS plugin!
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Add some 80's saturation and warmth to your projects with the Super VHS plugin!
Free Plugin Friday 10
DiscoDSP - Nightshine (VST)
Nightshine is an emulation of the marmite-response-inducing Alesis 3630 peak compressor. The 3630 is reportedly THE best selling hardware compressor of all time, and came into being just over two decades ago. (For more info on the original check out the Alesis website here).
The 3630 has a slightly AM radio vibe, is loud (read noisy) and absolutely pumping, for better or worse! DiscoDSP do a great job of emulating it here, for free (well, in exchange for a facebook like). Worth checking out if you're a fan of the original, which by the way usually goes for a steal on eBay! Daft Punk are long term fans and have apparently used it as a mixbus compressor in the past, if you need some celebrity producer credentials to sway you!
Voxengo - Span (VST + AU, 32 + 64 bit)
Whilst you can rely on your ears and monitors for many mixing tasks, to some extent there will always be certain sonic elements that remain hidden and masked, either by your room or playback system. Voxengo's super great freeware Span enables you to see if there's any hidden bass on your high hats, or excessive high mids in your bassline.
Spectral analysers are very useful tools, and whilst they're no substitute for training your ears (and ultimately rolling with what sounds right to you), they're an invaluable visual training aid (so you can see and hear what a boost or cut sounds like at a specific frequency). It's also handy to examine the spectrograph of your reference material. If you don't have one already bundled with your DAW, then I wholeheartedly recommend Span!
Free Plugin Friday 6 - 1980s FX Special
Here's a roundup for synthwave/retro electronic producer pals!
Sonic State Logic - LMC1 (VST + AU)
In '79 SSL brought out the SSL SL4000E, which would change the face of production for the next decade. The SSL Listen Mic Compressor was a part of this console, with a fixed attack and release, and designed to prevent overloading the return feed from a studio communication mic.
Hugh Padgham however would misappropriate it's use by happy accident, resulting in a sound that would blueprint 1980s drums. (Here's the epic story on Mixonline.)
SSL have reproduced the LMC1 as a freeware plugin here, as most of us will never be able to touch a hardware counterpart. Perfect for those In The Air Tonight moments, or using some NY style compression on your drum bus! For an audio example you can scope out the drum fills from my track 'Always Outnumbered, Never Outrun' over here.
Voxengo - OldSkoolVerb (VST + AU)
Old school style algorithmic reverb plugin. Only one algorithm, but a hefty set of parameters for spatial reverb design.
Plate, hall and rooms.
Supports all sample rates
Zero processing latency
32 + 64 bit support
ALSO RTAS support.
Pretty good plugin that's light on the CPU, and kind of does what it says on the tin! Well worth a looksy!
Whilst you're over there, I'd cop a few of the other stella Voxengo freebies, especially the Mid Side decoder, if you're interested in Mid/Side processing, and Span, if you don't have a frequency analyser!
Vacuum Sound - ADT (VST + AU)
ADT stands for Artificial Double Tracking, a technique developed in Abbey Road studio when the Beatles were recording in the 60s. It works by sending the original mono signal to another tape machine, where it is re-recorded. The new signal is delayed due to the physical distance between the recording and playback heads, with the length of the delay being dependent on the tape's speed. In essence ADT:
Turns a mono signal into a stereo signal.
Allows you to mix between the dry and affected signals.
has both Wow and flutter with user definable frequencies (mmm tape-tastic)
Essentially you get something similar to Izotope Ozone's stereo enhancement tool in the mastering suite, but for free. No more doubletracking for you, no sir! And it's available in 64bit. BOOM!
Also worth a looksy is Vacuum Sound's Poor Plate plugin, which is an old school reverb!
Next week, 80's synth emulations!
Free Plugin Friday 5 - Autotunes and Guitar Pedal Emulation
Autotune's got a really bad rep in recent years (thanks T-Pain). Actually, it's probably a lot less to do with rappers wanting to be robots and a lot more to do with the perception of manufactured music (whatever that means). Pitch-correction is a very useful tool - when used subtly - especially for fooling vocalists into believing they're pitch perfect. What I'm trying to say is pitch correction's just an aid, and not to be blamed for the evils of the music industry, and you should probably have a plugin in your plugin arsenal to cover pitch correction duties. You wouldn't criticise a guitarist because he has frets on his guitar, or something...
ANYWAY:
GVST - GSnap (VST)
GSnap, produced by Graham Yeadon, is very similar to Anatares Autotune, sans ludicrous price-tag. Whilst it doesn't quite have the functionality that the Anatares' offers, it's still damned good.
Frequency dependent detection, and a hang gate feature.
Very handy midi mode, with pitch bend and vibrato. You can do some really cool stuff with this if you push it to autotune extremes.
Kerovee (VST)
Kerovee's a bit of a freeware classic by now. As above with GSnap really, Kerovee's worth a look. Essentially does the same thing, BUT it does allow midi to be used polyphonically, via the cool chord mode. Also some handy tutorial videos provided on the website if this is new territory to you!
Tonebytes - Pedals (VST)
Pedals is a guitar/bass pedal board, essentially, though it does offer some speaker/cab emulation too, and obviously it's not limited to just processing guitars!
20 different pedals (as you'd expect).
2 amps and 7 speakers.
3 rack units.
Perhaps the most interesting feature is the ability to select what type of floor your virtual pedal board is resting on, with a choice of house, treadplate and studio. Probably for the Eric Johnsons of the world!
Fully midi assignable.
ToneBytes actually produce a lot of freebie VSTs, though I haven't tried all of them, but they're probably worth a looksy!
Free Plugin Friday 4: Slightly esoteric VST FX & an awesome compressor
So I missed Tutorial Tuesday this week due to some last minute expediate jobs (trailer scoring anyone?) - but I'll make up for it next week with a double bill!
Here are some cool, and a bit more avant-garde, free FX plugins. I've started to say what platform they're available on, as there's nothing more irritating than finding out that a plugin won't work on your OS!
Inear Display - SicknDstroy (VST / AU + Linux support)
SickNDstroy is a multi-mode Lo-fi plugin from Inear Display, in both 32 and 64 bit. It sounds superb, as far as bitcrushers go, and features lots of tweakable parameters on a sleek GUI, which most bitcrushers simply don't offer. Amongst which are:
A pre-filter, with lo, hi and band modes.
4 different algorithms for mixing both bit and sample rate reduction.
A handy dry/wet control.
A very cool assignable LFO to modulate pretty much every parameter.
A nice randomizer feature.
Furthermore, it comes bundled with 20 presets from acclaimed sound designer Ivo Ivanov! And finally, all patches are sharable across every platform. Wowza. Get some in!
Tiny God - Throbber (VST, 32bit only I'm afaid)
If you're a fan of Throbbing Gristle (what self respecting 80's industrial synth nut isn't?) then this is a pretty damn good attempt at emulating the Gristleizer. To the uninitiated, Chris Carter, of TG, built his own effect units from the 70's onwards, which undoubtedly shaped the band's experimental industrial sound. Whilst there have been some commercial versions produced in recent years (and you can even grab your own PCB's and DIY), this freebie plugin from Tiny God does a pretty damned good impression. What it offers:
1 x VCA, with some cheeky and user controllable overdrive through to distortion.
1 x VCF, 12/24db lo/hi/band passes, and controllable resonance.
Flanger/echo mode.
11 LFO waveforms for the VCA/VCF.
Definitely one for the more experimental producer/musician band, but well worth a look!
TDR - Feeback Compressor II (VST & AU)
TDR (or Tokyo Dawn Records) is a critically acclaimed 2-bus compressor with a 64bit float. As the blurb states:
The TDR Feedback Compressor II takes this traditional compression topology to new heights as a state of the art dynamics processor combining an unusual and highly flexible, yet intuitive control scheme. The compressor has been carefully tuned for intuitive and musical operation for almost every situation. No compromises have been made in order to achieve the highest possible quality of dynamic control.
It's a proud pristine digital compressor, and doesn't pertain to emulate anything analogue. Notably it features:
A feedback compressor (derp!) - but with independent release control for peak and RMS compression
Multi-rate processing, and a delta oversampling signal path.
Three side-chain filter slopes (3db per octave through to 12db)
Some nice stereo linking features.
Latency compensated bypass.
And a cool GUI
If you're serious about compression, and can't afford extortionate payware, you could do a lot worse than this! Definitely one to pick up!
Free Plugin Friday 2 - Various VST FX
Okay, so I've done one freeware roundup so far...and it was before I discovered the powerful alliterative gravity of 'free Friday'. So hopefully I can make this a weekly thing, or 3 or so killer free plugins per week. So here are some awesome freeware vst effects. Mmm hmmmm.
Izotope - Vinyl
Izotope's Vinyl simulates, unsurprisingly, a vinyl record's behaviour over a choice of decades (with the further you go back in time rolling off treble and bass, and exaggerating the effects of the noise/wear/dust etc sliders). That's about it. But it's damned good at it.
Kuassa - Amplifikation Lite
So recently I've got into running my synths through a guitar amp, or if I'm feeling lazy into my desktop modelling POD XT (mmm gritty amp warmth). But if you'd like to simulate an amp's tone/distortion, and don't have an amp, you should check out this 3 channel amp modeller. Built in interal/external cab emulation, and everything you'd expect to find on a guitar amp. This is a stripped down version of Kuassa's Amplifikation One...and by stripped down I mean one of the many amp models included in the payware version.
If you buy Computer Music magazine, Kuassa also developed a magware plugin amp, which is a 2 speaker cab model. Might be worth a shout!
ValhallaDSP - ValhallaFreqEcho
The FreqEcho is a Bode-style frequency shifter and analogue echo emulation. Crazy flanging, psychedelic pitch insanity and near infinite delays. Nice clear Valhalla interface, with handy mouseover production tips. Go go go!
(I will say, be very careful with that feedback rotary as it can cause - wait for it - really nasty ear splitting feedback. Save your ears and speakers and only edge it up gradually. Be gentle.)
