Free Music Software: Valhalla DSP has released ValhallaSupermassive 3.0.0, a major update to the free audio effect that adds two new reverb/delay modes, Leo and Virgo.
Leo is the biggest, lushest, densest mode in Supermassive, while Virgo is the smallest, grainiest, most spare reverb mode in the plugin.
“I’ve loved working on Supermassive over the past few years,” says developer Sean Costello. “Since Supermassive is a free plugin, I don’t feel the pressure to make things perfect that I do with the paid plugins. With less pressure, I’m able to experiment with new things, and try out ideas that might be too weird otherwise. All that being said, the last few rounds of Supermassive research have resulted in algorithms that refine some of the original concepts, and just make them better.”
What they say about the new modes:
The new Leo mode is the most super massive-est of all the Supermassive modes. It has a very slow attack, a long to VERY long decay that is controlled by both Density and Feedback, and a high echo density, with balanced modulation. Leo interleaves the high and low EQ filters throughout the reverb network, which means that the reverb decay can be dark, shrill, bass heavy, whisper light, or just perfectly balanced. I find Leo is ideal for big synthesizer sounds, as well as realistic cathedral sounds and other long reverbs.
Virgo is the smallest and sparsest mode in Supermassive. It has a fast attack, and basically sounds and behaves like a stereo delay until the Density control is turned up. With higher Density settings, it still sounds like a grainy delay, that kinda sorta turns into a reverb. Virgo is great for pointillistic echoes, spring-ish reverb sounds, and other sparse effects that create more space around your sounds..
Valhalla Supermassive 3.0.0 is available now as a free download for macOS + Windows.
Dirty VHS is a free plugin that brings back the dodgy sound of old VCRs and video tapes.
Bedroom Producers Blog has released BPB Dirty VHS, a free plugin concerned with audio only.
Specifically, the kind of imperfect sound you used to get from old video cassette recorders and the VHS tapes that you put into them (unless you were a Betamax user – in which case, you’re probably sitting there now saying that it was actually the better format and that this plugin should really be called Dirty Betamax).
BPB says that the new plugin was “born out of our love for resampling audio for VHS and the need to streamline the process and make it more instantaneous.” It’s based on analysis of multiple VCRs and tapes in varying states of repair, with the pitch variation, circuit and transport noise, dynamics, and frequency response information being extracted from each unit.
Accordingly, the eight processing modes emulate various machine/tape combinations in different conditions. You also get the sound of a VCR accidentally being switched into long play mode, a circuit-bent model and a vintage games console being recorded to VHS.
There are also three processing modes: Grainy is the most accurate but the hardest on the CPU; Smooth is less precise and less demanding on your CPU but preserves transients better; and Whammy turns Dirty VHS into a pitch shifter.
Other features include a tape chorus with stereo spread – designed to emulate the sound of a signal being recorded to multiple VHS tapes – and the distortion algorithm from Dirt, another of BPB’s free plugins.
Dirty VHS comes with 20 presets and offers a freely resizable GUI, a randomise button and undo/redo functionality. You can download it for PC and Mac in VST/AU formats from the Bedroom Producers Blog website.
Full Bucket Music has introduced Oxid, a free software synthesizer for Mac + Windows, based on the sound of the classic ’70s ARP Omni-2 polyphonic synthesizer.
Features:
Close simulation of the original hardware
64 voices polyphony
String and Synthesizer sections
Paraphonic madness
Additional Phaser and Delay effects
Resizable user interface (not “N” version!)
MIDI Learn – all parameters can be controlled by MIDI CC
Plug-in supports Windows and macOS (32 bit and 64 bit)
Audio Demo:
Oxid is available now, for Microsoft Windows (VST2/VST3/CLAP) and Apple macOS (VST2/VST3/CLAP/AU), as a free download. If you like it, you can donate at the developers website to help support future development.
