Purpl, Plenitude, Sublime: Free Plugins of the Week
Purpl, Plenitude, Sublime: Free Plugins of the Week · Source: Void Enemy, tinyant, Meat Beats
This week’s roundup of the best free plugins brings you not one, but two free software synths and a strong contender for best free reverb of the year: Purpl, Plenitude, Sublime.
Free Plugins of the Week
tinyant purpl: Chorus Meets Shimmer Reverb
purpl by tinyant combines a chorus effect (Haze) and a shimmer reverb (Bloom) into a fun and highly unique plugin that can work wonders on anything you throw at it: use it to thicken vocals, add crunch and texture to guitars and keys, or send your tracks to outer space with a healthy dose of modulated shimmer reverb. purpl may just become your secret weapon for making anything sound more interesting.
You can use the chorus or reverb independently, or blend them together. purpl also lets you feed the reverb back into the chorus for some pretty wacky results. I also really like the option to dial in specific frequency ranges for both the chorus and the reverb, which opens up some interesting sound design possibilities. Another unique feature is the option to switch between day, dusk and night, which affects the behavior of the shimmer effect and reverb tail.
purpl is loads of fun, and it oozes personality. tinyant says that no AI was involved in its creation, and I’m inclined to believe it. Something with this much character has ‘human-made’ written all over it.
purpl is available for macOS, Windows, and Linux in VST3, CLAP, and AU formats.
Void Enemy Plenitude: 3-Oscillator Polyphonic Synth
As a 3-oscillator subtractive virtual analog synth, Plenitude by Void Enemy certainly doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but it does offer plenty of versatility and a bunch of useful sound-shaping options. Each of the three oscillators offers a choice of six waveforms. The oscillators can also be individually panned, and there’s pulse width and distortion per oscillator. In addition, Plenitude features a sub-oscillator with three waveforms for extra oomph in the lower register. Hard sync and an 8-voice unison mode with spread and detune are also available.
The filter offers low-pass and high-pass options and a dedicated ADSR envelope. A second ADSR envelope controls the volume. For modulation, Plenitude has dual LFOs with delay and fade-in. A six-slot modulation matrix allows you to easily connect modulation sources and targets. Built-in reverb and delay effects and analog drift are the icing on the cake.
I’m not sure I’m a big fan of the GUI, which seems unnecessarily cluttered and inconsistent. For example, one envelope has faders while the other has rotary knobs. Some of the labels are also so tiny it’ll make you squint. Still, Plenitude looks like a versatile synth that has the ingredients for some really fat sounds.
Plenitude is available for macOS and Windows in VST3, AU and standalone formats.
Meat Beats Sublime: No-Frills Bass Monosynth
Sublime by Meat Beats is a bass synth aimed at producers of UK/US house, garage, 2-step, and similar styles. If you’re into ‘deep dubby subs, chunky house thumps, wonky garage bumps, distorted vinyl donks and dirty digital sweeps’, as the developer puts it, Sublime should be right up your alley.
The plugin ships with 125 presets, which you can tweak using a simple set of controls. You can adjust the oscillator and wavefolder, tweak the filter and envelope, apply LFO modulation, and add dirt and chorus effects for extra grit and width. Easy to use and quite rewarding!
Sublime is available for macOS and Windows in VST3 and AU formats.
Check out our archive for many more free plugins like Plenitude, purpl, and Sublime!
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