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Ujam says that its free Drive synth plugin is as easy to use as an Instagram filter and there’s “No hidden cost, no strings attached”

Drive is German-American plugin developer Ujam’s new free synth plugin for deep house and other electronic music production. Designed to “make a complex machine intuitive and welcoming,” this presents you with a simplified interface that enables you to tweak your sounds with just a few simple controls.

Drive comes with 100 global presets, 25 Sequences, 100 Synth Modes and 90 Finisher Modes, plus a ‘Surprise’ feature that will immediately generate randomised patches.

“Usynth doesn’t require you to know how a synthesizer works in order to find and create inspiring new sounds,” says Ujam. “Intuitively tweak to your heart’s content. Think Instagram filters, or steering wheel and two pedals – that’s how you operate Usynth.”

Each voice has two individual layers and is powered by virtual analogue, wavetable and FM synthesis or multisamples. There’s also a multimode filter, 5-stage envelopes, LFOs and a 12-way modulation matrix.

Don’t worry, Drive is a “complete synth” with “no hidden cost, no strings attached”. It runs on PC and Mac in VST/AU/AAX formats and you can download it now from the Ujam website.

Full Bucket Music flexes its PECS, a free plugin version of the Korg PE-2000 Poly-Ensemble string machine. Get this 1976 analogue orchestral instrument for your DAW.

Full Bucket Music has made a habit of releasing free plugin versions of vintage Korg keyboards – the FB-3300, a DAW-friendly version of the PS-3300. And now it is back with an emulation of the PE-2000 Poly-Ensemble S string machine.

PE-2000 released in 1976, this was a 3-oscillator, preset-based orchestral instrument that Full Bucket has recreated in a plugin it’s calling PECS. This recreates the machine’s eight factory presets, offers plenty of tweakable parameters and promises an authentic “vintage vibe”.

This looks like another fabulous free Synthesizer plugin from FBM.

PECS runs on PC and Mac in VST/AU/AAX/CLAP formats and can be downloaded for free from the Full Bucket Music website.

Little Radiator is free music software. Though it’s free plugin but there are many professional producers and musicians using free plugins, as well.

Example, Vincent Fenton – artist also known as FJK (French Kiwi Juice) has just revealed that his favourite digital distortion is none other than SoundToys’ super-simple Little Radiator.

Explaining his love for the effect, he says: “It’s such a simple plugin – there’s literally just two knobs on it. It’s just one called heat and one called mix, and it’s been my favourite digital distortion for probably the last three years.

“I use this every time I need distortion, or even if I don’t need distortion but need something to feel a little bit dirtier,” adds Fenton. “I really love it. It’s one of the most pleasing digital distortions I’ve heard.”

FKJ goes on to say that, while he’ll use outboard analogue distortion gear when he’s at home in his studio – he likes to make his preamps crack up because “it’s fun to do” – he thinks that LIttle Radiator can achieve very similar results.

“This always works,” he enthuses. “You get very close to [the sound] of the analogue console distorting, that special sound that you have with that. You get pretty close to that with this.”

It runs on PC and Mac in VST/AU/AAX formats.

You can currently download Little Radiator for free from the SoundToys website, till January 2 next year (regular $79)