mdaDubDelay - Dub madness from the VST Stone Age!

I do not know when this VST effect saw the light of the world. It must have been long before the time when I even thought about to produce music digitally. And it even gathered dust in my collection for quite a long time without ever being used. This was, because there were enough shiny plugins with a well-designed user interface, which had, in my opinion, everything I needed for my Dub adventures. It was just some time ago, when I realized that this plugin has some good, already "well wired" features, is very resource-saving and simply great fun to work with.

mdaDubDelay brings no own GUI, which is why only the look in FL Studio is shown above. This plugin uses the VST GUI representation of the respective host application. As briefly mentioned above, I have neglected this baby because (Image Line and the fans of the FL GUI may forgive me) the representation of native VSTs in FL Studio simply is not appealing. Yes, even I am sometimes guided by the appearance of something ;). The developers at Smartelectronix probably did not want to waste much time on superficialities.

Under the hood, the mdaDubDelay has a lot to offer. As the name suggests, everything is centered around the delay effect. Anyone expecting an all-in-one Dubmachine is wrong here. Allow me to describe the controls one after the other:

• Delay - Sets the time interval between the repetitions. Since the effect is based on old tape-based effects, herewith also the pitch of repetitions is determined.
• Feedback - In the positive range, as for any delay effect, this determines the length of the effect. The negative range allows the so-called Delay Feedback saturation.
• FbTone - Determines using a simple filter, the sound frequency of the repetitions.
• LFODepth - Sets the oscillation amplitude of the modulation.
• LFORate - Sets the oscillation frequency of the modulation.
• Output - Allows a decrease or increase of the signal at the output

Here I would like to say that I, as someone who likes to automate effects, do not use the LFO functionality for modulation. Somehow the mdaDubdelay unfortunately cannot be synchronized to the VST host. When using the LFO functions, this causes the effect to sound different, each time the song is played. What is perhaps even desirable for live dubbers, drives you rather insane when automating. My solution to this is, to automate the "Delay" knob, which actually produces the same effect. If you want get the same effect of the built-in LFOs without synchronization problems, just automate the "Delay" knob using a corresponding sine function.

Another thing to note (at least for less experienced people in using extreme effects ) is as follows: The use of certain, especially extreme settings can very quickly cause very loud or extremely low- or high-frequency sounds. A limiter and the well known equalizer precautions should not be forgotten here. TIP: If certain automation causes very loud signals, this can be easily solved by automating the "Output" knob... and that before the signal crashes rampantly into the limiter ;)

As always, I close this posting with the stability and resource use: For a dinosaur amongst the VSTs such as this, I do not really need to say anything about the use of resources. What ran smoothly on a Pentium of the first generations and with minimal RAM, runs more smoothly on today's equipment. Also crashes or freezes of the DAW never occurred. I can not say anything about the use of multiple instances, because I never had more than one instance per song project in use.

The mda DubDelay comes together with many small useful VSTs in the free Smartelectronix VST Bundle. It can be downloaded (for Windows and MacOS) HERE.

Have fun !

Looking for the absolutely simplest VST synthesizer ? Here is "Charlatan"!

When I tried to explain the basics of sound synthesis recently to a friend, I had a bit of a problem: Most of my beloved sound generators are quite complex. It is absolutely not a good idea to use a monster synth, overloaded with functionality, to explain this to somebody, who just wants to get into the basics. Not only that, in order to begin, one must first reset each parameter to its initial state. Everything is quite quickly becoming confusing.

So I was now looking for a synthesizer which was preferably reduced to the basic functions. Not so easy as one would think. I found some sloppy clicked together VSTs, made with SynthEdit, quite soon. But these had mostly the disadvantage that the sound was accordingly bad, and/or the user interface was a nightmare. Others swallowed, despite their simplicity, an amazing amount of CPU power and were therefore also useless.

In my distress another friend helped, who told me about a plugin with the unusual name "Charlatan". And here everything was just right: "Charlatan" has a clear and logical user interface, structured in the way of vintage synthesizers. It has everything that is necessary to enter the realms of sound synthesis:

• 2 oscillators
• a simple structured modulation section
• a Noise Generator
• a filter section with the common functions and filter types
• LFO section
• Settings for polyphony/monophony, legato, Retriggering etc.
• typical ADSR section for the sound and modulation envelope

The only missing feature was an oscillator setting for pure sine sounds but that was to get over the end. The "Charlatan" provides an excellent sound and performance characteristics through the efficient use of resources. It also has native 64-bit support what avoids the dreaded "bridgeing" in FL Studio, which pretty much got each and every  FL user at least once into a bit of trouble.

I use the "Charlatan" since then quite often, when it comes to just quickly do a sound experiment. This VST is certainly not for the musicians, who prefer complex monster sounds "out of the box" or are really happy only with extensive preset banks. But hey: That thing is free, high-performant, resource saving and extremely stable and in addition, it also delivers a great sound.

CLICK HERE TO GET TO THE CHARLATAN WEBSITE WITH THE DOWNLOAD LINK ->

Tone2 Firebird - The only VST synthesizer you really need!

The Firebird with my favorite skin

After a long time I 'm writing in this blog again. Yeah, my other projects keep me quite busy ;). And this time I present a real pearl amongst the free synthesizer VSTs. And as already announced in the title of this post, this should not be missing in any VST collection. I personally use this synthesizer recently very often, especially for my project "Willma Poppen" . If you want to hear an example, in which I make excessive use of the Firebird and its many possibilities, please listen, for example, to my latest production "Blauer Montag". But also in my other projects there is for quite some time hardly a piece for which the Firebird was not used. The possibilities of this synth allow to use it for virtually all styles of music.

My absolute favorite features of the Firebird include the huge amount of filters (altogether 38 types), and in particular the "M-Shape Filter". Especially to those of you, who always wanted to create those nice rough and screaming filter experiments, I strongly recommend this filter. But beware: A limiter is recommended for virtually all sound experiments of this kind, but especially here. And the usual basic EQ settings which avoid extremely low and high frequencies should also not be forgotten. But to which serious sound fiddlers do I really have tell this? ;) .

The user interface can be described justifiably as innovative. At the first glance the interface looks pretty simple, but hidden under the hood there are truly inexhaustible possibilities for any form of sound design. Many effects which require quite complex settings in other synthesizers can be very easily and intuitively be achieved with the Firebird, such as a vast variety of modulation effects. The Firebird offers a perfect starting point for every level of skills and you can then, just as you like, dive deeper into the sound fiddeling. For the pure preset user, the 437 factory presets already offer a nice sound arsenal. But I tell you: You will definitely start to experiment, because, as I said, the innovative user interface will seduce you to do so. Since I usually love to put every single note carefully by hand, arpeggiators are usually now something that I look back at with a nostalgic smile ;). But the arpeggiator of the Firebird drives me recently, at least at the beginning of a production, to use it. Together with the already mentioned various modulation options, your absolutely unique groove is just a few clicks away.

One of the absolutely baffling key features of the Firebird is, in my opinion, its absolute resource friendliness. Particularly with several automated parameters, most powerful synthesizer VSTs force even the strongest studio computer mercilessly to its knees. Not so the Firebird. I've actually, even with many automated parameters, never managed to get my studio computer to a huge CPU usage. This also applies to multiple instances of Firebird in a song project. Yes, and the Firebird is also 100% multi instance capable. Whereas other synthesizers often reveal funky side effects when using multiple instances, I never had any with this VST. Also the stability is top notch. I have not experienced a crash of the plugin, a freezing DAW or other well known and feared effects.

If you want a complete overview of the features of this masterpiece, you find a detailed list on the Firebird website, linked below. I have used the Firebird in FL Studio 10 and 11. I can not say anything about the usability in other DAWs .

Click here for the website of the Firebird with a detailed description and the download link.