#au effect

(Orphan Effect.

Imagine a world where Shepard and her crew are kids who grew up in the same orphanage. How Garrus, Tali and Wrex were Shepard's co-conspirators in getting into trouble. How Liara knew everything that was going on, and used that information to keep her brothers and sisters safe. How Joker was the kid with the bad body but sharp mind. How Grunt was the kid who treated Shepard like the mother he never had, or how Legion was the kid who heard voices. How Jacob and Miranda came from a bad group home and found a welcoming atmosphere.

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!  

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