ANNULUS Review

I just reviewed Jonas Eriksson’s Tape Fiasco 2 and it appears they have released a free instrument as well. Annulus is a free physical modeling synthesizer with minimalistic controls and a lovely animated UI. According to their website this is a recreation of the Mutable Instruments’ Rings module so if you are familiar with that module you will know what to expect here.

Annulus offers six different engines with unique flavors. Each engine has four controls to shape the sound of the physical modeling resonator. I enjoy the sound of each engine and there is enough variation when between the simple controls and engines to keep things interesting. You will basically only get plucks here, and a little bass, there’s no control for the attack or sustain stages of the envelopes, well I don’t think there’s really envelopes at all, just control over the resonator’s decay.

There are three built in effects, a delay, reverb, and distortion. Each have quite a unique control layout with a simple list of each parameter who’s names act as invisible sliders to adjust their values. The box above these controls changes to reflect some of the parameters, but I do feel like two controls for each effect could be placed here as an XY controller for an even more integrated UI.

This plugin is quite lovely, it makes me want to feed it into Beam. Each mode has a distinct color scheme and graphical design with a very ancient/sci-fi mixed with art deco stylization. The four controls affect the central design in various ways. It’s not the most important aspect of a plugin, but it is a nice touch for a free instrument like this, it makes it feel like one of those fancy Kontakt instruments. While not the deepest synthesis out there, I had some fun playing with Annulus.

You can pick up Annulus for free from Jonas Eriksson’s website here: https://www.erikssonjonas.com/annulus