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Top 5 Friday | Freaky Synths

Top 5 Friday - Freaky Synths (VST / AU) 5. Sinevibes Torsion Once you’ve got your head around the flat, graphical interface, this Mac-only plugin might appear to be more of the same – three oscillators routed into a filter. But Torsion’s oscillators actually work in a different way to many other synths: you start off with some pretty simple waveforms, which are then twisted up to become more complex, meaning that there’s a huge range of tone possible before the signal even hits that fi

Top 5 Friday | Digital EQs

Top 5 Friday - Digital EQ Plugins (VST / AU) 5. Photosounder SplineEQ It’s the EQ that every graphic designer wishes they could use as well. SplineEQ gives you Bezier splines to set the curvature for each band, so you can dial in unusual curves – asymmetrical ones, extra steep ones, and other weird shapes. As well as settings for each curve, SplineEQ lets you affect the entire plot at once, with controls for scaling gain and transposing to move the entire frequency set up and down.

Top 5 Friday | LoFi Plugins

Top Five LoFi Plugins (VST / AU) 5. Beatskillz That Thing This thing is a plugin called That Thing, which is a collaboration between Beatskillz and AudioThing. This lo-fi processor aims to recreate the sounds of classic gear as a multi-effect, with lots of particular and idiosyncratic effects to choose from. In That Thing, you get a choice of analogue-modelled chorus effects, plus vinyl, tape and tube recreation, to phatten up and give some character to individual tracks or buses.

Top 5 Friday | FREE Instrument Plugins

Top 5 Friday -  FREE Instrument Plugins 5. TAL TAL-Noisemaker With its two oscillators, two LFOs, ADSR, envelope editor, filter, frequency modulation, and four effects, Noisemaker is a pretty run-of-the-mill synth, but it’s exactly what makes this one so accessible and probably our favourite synth to whip up sounds with no fussing. One of the best touches in TAL-Noisemaker is how some panels can be folded down when you don’t need them, making it a to-the-point, straightforward synth

Top 5 Best Future Synth VSTi Plugins 2019

Futuristic Synths 5. Sugar Bytes Aparillo This plugin synth brings its digital stylings to more than one platform, being available both as a traditional plugin and on iOS. Aparillo gets its tones from FM synthesis, but you wouldn’t necessarily know it, with abstract symbols used to represent controls. The thing that really blasts Aparillo off into space, though, is the Orbiter panel. This is a visual modulation editor that arranges those symbols around a centre, where they ca

Top 5 Friday | Drum Synths

Your Guide to the Best Drum Synths (VST / AU) 5. iZotope BreakTweaker The second collaboration between iZotope and electronic supremo BT (the first being StutterEdit), BreakTweaker lets you program drum sounds, sequence rhythms with them, and then run wild, rawr!!! The sequencer lets you draw in patterns and run each lane at a different length, and even timing. You can select which MIDI note will play back each sound for one-shot play, or just run everything from the sequencer. B

Top 5 Friday | Creative Samplers To Spark Inspiration (VST / AU)

Your guide to the top 5 samplers to try when you need some creative inspiration (VST / AU) 5. Glitchmachines Palindrome Fade and morph between four samples with this pathfinding instrument. Each sample layer has granular controls over its playback, sure, but it’s what the connections between them that make Palindrome so interesting. You draw 16 points across the grid to animate morphing between each of the four samples – although there are path presets for instant action, too. Each

Top Compressor Plugins | Plugin Boutique

Best compressor plugins to make your tracks sound professional. Compressors are just one of the many tools in a music producers’ arsenal, useful for a range of applications including controlling level, emphasising elements or applying polish and glue to a mix. Here, we’re examining the compressor plugins that are on the market today, identifying their strengths and weaknesses and highlighting eight of the very best for achieving a cohesive and professional sound. How to choose a compre

Top 5 Friday | Delay and Echo Plugins

Top 5 Friday - Delay and Echo Plugins  In this week's Top 5 Friday, producer Tim Cant explores five of the most popular delay plugins available on Plugin Boutique. They are...   5. SphereDelay (WA Production) This one’s a solid, four-mode delay that’s easy to reach for and won’t hurt your budget, coming in at £45 RRP. Those four modes – Mono, Stereo, and two Ping Pong varieties – give you plenty of starting points to build a delay sound quickly and simply. Next, you can cr

Plugin Boutique Staff Picks Archive

Baby Audio Spaced Out - Gareth Cherry Audio DCO-106 - Simon Aberrant DSP SketchCassette II - Freddy Beatskillz SampleX - Simon Reason Studios Reason 11 Intro - Simon Sugar Bytes DrumComputer - Thomas Wavesfactory Cassette - Nicholas AIR Music Technology The Riser - Solo Audiomodern Playbeat - Thomas u-he Hive 2 - Simon Polyverse Comet - Alastair Creative Intent Remnant - Gareth Polyverse Gatekeeper - Simon

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Nine of The Most Unusual Plugins on Plugin Boutique

Find out what strange creations lurk in the depths of the Plugin Boutique archives Plugins come in all shapes and sizes, and all of the main types you can think of are available in the Plugin Boutique library; EQs, Compressors, Reverbs, Delays, Synths, Drum Machines, - you name it, we have it! These categories are the bread and butter, the meat and potatoes of the music software realm, and within them, you’ll find both entry-level and high-end tools for all your mixing and mastering, soun

Best Distortion & Saturation VST Plugins

Use these waveform warpers to gently chisel some life into your sounds, or hit them with a sledgehammer. For many years, distortion was the enemy of mix engineers in search of the cleanest possible mix. Imperfect analogue circuitry and limited hardware often led to a loss of signal fidelity and waveforms being chopped off abruptly, resulting in harsh, warped sounds. With the advent of digital music production tools, a lot of that character and noise was lost, meaning producers these days are

The Plugin Boutique Awards 2024: Winners and Highly Commended

For the third year running, your votes have crowned the champions and runners-up across 14 categories in music software   With 2024 receding into the past, and a fresh calendar year unfurling ahead of us like a new rug, it's time to turn our attention towards a carpet of a different kind; a red one, to be precise. That’s right, it’s awards season, that time where we take a beat and honour the plugins that proved themselves to be a hit with producers and best in class according to your vote

Essential VST Plugins for Guitarists

Axe-wielders and six string-shredders have some unique options in the software realm. Nowadays, the digital world offers a multitude of options for enhancing and supplementing your guitar playing, from authentic amp simulations to deep-sampled virtual instruments. With just a handful of plugins you can transform your DAW into a high-end studio complete with an eye-watering array of guitar tones and effects from legendary hardware units. Whether you’re a rock god or a complete beginner,

8 Kontakt Developers you Need to Check Out Today

These instrument creators represent a world of sample-based sound generation that’s also available on Plugin Boutique On the Plugin Boutique website you’ll find far more than just plugins – alongside synth presets and sample packs, you’ll also find Kontakt instruments. Kontakt gives you the power of any physical instrument right in your DAW. From expertly recorded and curated orchestral libraries to more experimental and unorthodox offerings. In this article, we’ve gathered together eig