Autor: Producer Gang

The comments under our recent Amorph piece have been bouncing around in my head for the past few weeks. Some BPB readers are excited about being able to type “give me an overdrive that sounds like a Tube Screamer” and get a working plugin out the other end. Others are pretty concerned that we’re about to drown in a sea of half-functional, untested code. I’m somewhere in between. Both reactions make perfect sense to me. And it’s not happening just here on BPB. Over on KVR Audio, there’s a thread titled “Vibe coded plugins” that’s pretty direct. The poster says…

Bloomer Free, from the developer Freequency, is a MIDI chord progression generator driven by emotion. When I say driven by emotion, I mean you don’t need to know lots of music theory to generate a beautiful progression; you just need to know which emotion you want to evoke. Right now, Bloomer Free is available in VST3 and AU(beta) formats for macOS and Windows (early beta). Before you generate a chord progression, you have to set four parameters: Key, Scale, Vibe, and Bars. Once you choose a key, you can select from seven scales: Major (Ionian) Minor (Aeolian) Dorian Phrygian Harmonic…

Slate Digital is running a Spring Sale with the coupon code SPRING26, which knocks $25 off your order in the shop. A handful of paid plugins are currently priced at $24.50 each during the sale, so the discount covers the full price and brings them down to zero. The crazy part is that the code can be used multiple times, at least for the moment. I tested it and can confirm that you can reuse the code. With five separate checkouts, you can grab five paid Slate Digital plugins (totaling $250) for free. Add the two existing Slate freebies (Heat…

DLP Audio (Dean’s List Plugins) has released Smoke Mono 1, a free monophonic analog modeling synthesizer developed by Grammy-winning producer Mike Dean. Please note that it’s currently only available on macOS. Mike Dean has shaped the sound of modern hip-hop for over four decades, with credits including Kanye West, Travis Scott, and The Weeknd. I’ve been listening to his synth jams a lot recently, so I was excited to try the first plugin under his Dean’s List Plugins brand. Check out the Mike Dean jam below if you haven’t already. It’s awesome. A free synth from this guy? Hell yeah!…

Plugin Boutique has Soundtoys FilterFreak on sale for $39, which is 73% off the regular price of $149. The deal runs until April 28th. FilterFreak is still one of my favorite filter plugins for sound design. There are plenty of newer filter modulation plugins around, but I keep coming back to this one. I love the sound, and although the modulation is fairly limited, it feels good, and the plugin is simple to use overall. It’s perfect for quickly getting some nice-sounding filter modulation. I lean on FilterFreak a lot on synths to add movement to pads, and on textured…

More Processing, Less Voice? “If you have to fix it with ten plugins… the problem may be earlier in the chain.” You add EQ. Then compression. Then reverb. Then more EQ. And somehow… The vocal gets smaller. Thinner. Farther away. What happened? Thin vocals often come from over-processing, not under-processing.   Quick Summary 👉 Vocals sound thin when too much EQ, over-compression, or excessive effects remove body and push the vocal back in the mix. The solution is better source tone, gentler compression, subtractive EQ, and more restraint with effects. Magic EQ Guide   Before plugins… Start here. A…

Developer Tuğrul Akyüz has released TugPhonon, a free vintage rotating tape-delay plugin. We’ve covered a few very interesting delay plugins recently, including Timerift Audio’s Oh My Grain and TiagoLr’s Sirial. When plugins like those two come up, I often refer to them as something a little bit different, and that’s true. This time, we might have something very different: a delay plugin based on a weird and wonderful tape device from 1951. TugPhonon is a free rotating tape delay plugin based on the Phonogène by Jacques Poullin and Pierre Schaeffer. Jacques Poullin and Pierre Schaeffer developed the Phonogène for the…

Arponaut is a free pattern-based arpeggiator for macOS and Windows from Groove Music Industries. The plugin is available in VST3 format for macOS and Windows. Arponaut takes the typical piano-roll workflow found in a common DAW and provides a quick, easy way to generate simple or complex arpeggiated patterns. The thing that makes Arponaut more interesting is that you can also create and edit chord sequences directly inside the plugin. The interface offers three views: Pattern, Chord, and Pattern+Chord. In the Pattern view, you can draw and edit your arpeggio. The typical piano-roll workflow I mentioned lets you quickly edit…

DAWJunkie, the developer behind Padness 2 Jr, LeadOff Jr, and various other quirky but awesome freebies, is back with another freebie – the DT-600 Mini. DT-600 Mini is based on the 1980s Casio MT-600 keyboard. The Casiotone MT-600 is one of those keyboards many musicians had as a kid, without realizing the sounds are actually pretty cool. Well, pretty cool in a so-bad-it ’s-good way if you’re a fan of retro lo-fi sounds. As a result, Casio’s MT-600 is a must-have flea market or car boot sale purchase because it’s a cheap way to bring authentic 1980s pop music and…

Start Small or Go All-In? “The beginner collects tools. The professional chooses them.” If you’re getting into music production, you’ll quickly run into this question: Which version of Ableton Live should I get? Ableton Live Intro Ableton Live Standard Ableton Live Suite They all run the same DAW. But they don’t give you the same tools.   Quick Summary 👉 Ableton Live Intro is great for beginners, Standard expands your production capabilities, and Suite includes the full set of instruments, effects, and sounds. If Ableton fits your workflow, Suite is usually worth it long-term. Pro Tools Intro vs Artist…