freeware

The 500 synthesizer, by Peter Smith, features an LFO, filter, plus pseudo granular synthesis and a special ‘destroy’ mode which chews up the signal.

According to Smith, the free Windows soft synth is intended for experimentation and is great for generating new rhythms.

Download it for free from Smith’s site. Read more…

There’s a lot of discussion on a recent post about Prosoniq discontinuing Windows development because of piracy. Some people think there are just more Mac pro musicians, while others think that Prosoniq’s pricing is just too high for the PC platform.

Here’s another reason that companies like Prosoniq may be abandoning Windows, though: there’s a lot of competition from great free music apps for PCs.

For example, check out NekroBat LaborOsc – a freeware VST synthesizer for Windows.

LaborOsc Features:

• 3 Oscillators with 5 waveforms (Sine, Triangle, Sawtooth, Square, Ramp), individual detuners with octave, semitone, fine-tuning, phaze, pwm, AHDSR envelope, FM controls, ring mod and more.
• 1 State-variable filter with 4 filter-types (LP/HP/BP/BR).
• 1 AHDSR-filter envelope.
• 2 LFO’s with a multitude of modulation-sources.
• 2 Effects: Multi-Delay and Stereo-Chorus.
• 1 Main-out section with preset-manager, portamento-, main-vol and pan-knobs.
• 20 presets of a total of 200 preset slots.
• Up to 8 voices of polyphony.

Download it from box.net.

If you’ve used LaborOSC, leave a comment with your thoughts!

via rekkerd

Bitter Sweet II is a freeware dynamic processor for managing audio transients, available in RTAS VST & AU formats for Windows & Mac.

Description:

Bitter Sweet II is especially active on loud percussive tracks.

Turning the central button on the sweet side, decreases the transients amplitude. On the bitter side, the transients amplitude is magnified.

Bitter-Sweet also features a control for the signal to be processed. When the main position is engaged, the process affects the stereo signal. If Center is engaged, only the M signal of the internal MS matrix is processed. If stereo is selected, only the S signal from the MS matrix is processed.

As all Flux:: plug-ins it features 64 bit floating point processing, up to 8 channels and up to 8 FS (384 KHz). Center and Stereo Mode are only available in stereo (2 channels) processing.

Audjoo has released a public beta of Helix, a freeware synth plug-in designed for huge and wide unison pads and leads.

Changes in this beta

• The smallest sliders are scaled up slightly.
• Filter Resonance is a modulation source.
• Different filter types are grouped in tabs and colour coded.
• EQ has properly labeled parameters.
• Improved: Limiter filter type (attack depends on the “speed” parameter).
• Virtual Analog PWM oscillator (perfect to use as a sub-oscillator).
• Improved: Noise Generator (proper modulation, stereo-noise).
• Improved: Phase Mod, Ring Mod and Amplitude Mod filter modes (use a pure sine wave).
• Improved: Phase Modulation filter, is now low pass filtering its input.

Helix is available for both Windows PC and Mac OSX (VST).

Tagu Audio Line (TAL) have released Vintager, a free analog-style monophonic VST synthesizer. According to TAL, Vintager features “a good sounding non linear modelled 24dB lowpass filter, three bandlimited oscillators and accurate envelopes are the heart of this synth.”

Description:

This synth is suitable for all kind of typical analog sounds even percussion sounds. Also sounds that are based on the self oscillation of the filter are possible and opens a wide range of sound effects.

Read more…