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!
But I spent a couple of days with Smoke Mono 1, and I have mixed feelings.
The sound itself is pretty epic, and you can get some really cool analog-style tones out of it. The synthesis engine underneath is solid.
My issue is more with the interface design and the responsiveness of the knobs, which gives the whole thing a somewhat unfinished vibe. But there’s a lot of potential here, and I hope they’ll fix it with a few updates.
The synthesis setup is pretty standard. You get two main oscillators with coarse and fine tuning, plus a detune control, a sub oscillator, and a unison mode with two voices.
The noise generator offers white, pink, and brown noise that you can mix in with the oscillators. The signal runs through a Moog-style ladder filter with resonance and a bass-preserving overdrive.
Modulation comes from two envelopes and an LFO with four shapes. The LFO is the most interesting part of the engine for me, since it can target the filter, pitch, amplitude, sub-oscillator boost (something you don’t see often), and sub-oscillator frequency.
There’s also a drift control in the mixer for a touch of analog instability, plus glide, a limiter, stereo width, and a note repeat module that’s handy for leads and simple sequences.
Smoke Mono 1 also includes a small set of factory presets. Some are pretty cool, but the free version still feels a bit thin compared to my go-to mono synths.
Now, all of that said, in the right hands, this instrument can produce some fantastic sounds, case in point being the video below from Anthony Marinelli.
About those interface hiccups: the cutoff knob occasionally stopped responding while I was tweaking, and I noticed similar behavior on other knobs. It could be a quirk with my DAW on macOS, but I’m not sure. You can change the GUI highlight color, which is a nice touch if you want to customize the look.
I’m also noticing that the synth looks different in my DAW compared to Anthony Marinelli’s screenshot above. I hope it’s fixed in an upcoming update, because this synth deserves it.
The plugin has a Pro button that links to a teaser page for the upcoming Smoke Mono Pro. That paid version will add a full arpeggiator and step sequencer, stereo delay, 1024 factory presets, an extended modulation matrix, a multi-mode filter (ladder, SVF, and comb), a built-in effects chain, and a Bass Boost engine.
To download Smoke Mono 1, head to the DLP Audio website. The plugin asks for your email and name the first time you load it in your DAW.
Smoke Mono 1 is available in VST3 and AU plugin formats for macOS only (Intel and Apple Silicon native). There’s no Windows or Linux build yet, and there’s no info on when those might arrive.
Download: Smoke Mono 1 (FREE)
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Last Updated on April 21, 2026 by Tomislav Zlatic.
