Over 15 Plugins You’ve (Likely) Never Seen Before
I’ve covered many plugins at this point, many popular ones, but also many less known plugins. In this article I want to cover some of the least known plugins and audio tools that I am aware of. You’ll likely have seen some of these if you follow my content, as I have covered them in the past, and there are likely many more I am not aware of that I don’t cover here.
But I wanted to bring a bit of attention to some of the more obscure tools out there. What you wont find on this list is anything available from Plugin Boutique or any of the large distributers, there’s some free stuff, and a couple that are just audio tools not plugins. I tried to gather stuff that had very few youtube videos and online reviews. When available I’ll link my reviews, but there’s some stuff on this list that is actually on my wishlist and I haven’t had time to buy or cover yet.
Many of these tools are made by indie developers, sometimes even by a single person. A well, many of them only offer the single tool, I wish success for all of these creators, because I don’t want to see these tools lose support. It’s hard to maintain support on a project as computer OS updates start to break things. I think there is a concern that any one of these tools could disappear one day, so if you’re reading this well into the future, I hope there aren’t any ghosts on this list. But this is also why I want to create this list, in hopes that the little exposure I can bring might help sustain some of these projects further into the future
My goal with this article is to bring your attention to at least one plugin you’ve never heard of
There’s a few “honorable' mentions” that I debated putting on the list, but I deemed too “well known” already. For example, Fors Tela, GRM Atelier, Rhizomatic Plasmonic, and Madrona Labs Sumu to name a few. While these plugins aren’t on PluginBoutique, I figured you are much more likely to have heard of them already, if not, please check these out as well. This should give you an idea of just how rare I’m going for.
If you’ve discovered anything new from this list please consider sharing it with friends or somewhere like facebook/twitter or any forums/discords. Lets get more eyes and ears on these more obscure plugins.
CARVETOY - FREE
First and foremost, we have Carvetoy, a free modular wavetable editor that runs in your browser. This is by far the most comprehensive and powerful wavetable creation tool out there (though not necessarily the best “editor” for existing tables). Carvetoy offers dozens of modules that can be chained and combined modulated to create all sorts of tables. There’s also the ability to save, share, and load modular setups to edit later. The fact that I was able to do a live stream using JUST a wavetable editor speaks to its power.
I don’t plan on ranking anything else in this article (or really ever), but if anything gets my “#1 freebie of the year” nomination, it’s Carvetoy.
DROPLETS
Droplets is a small creative midi generator that uses faucets that drip bouncing balls onto beams that trigger midi events. It’s a small project by an indie developer available on Gumroad, I’m not sure if this dev plans to release any other projects, but I found this one to be a joy. For those of us who don’t use Live and don’t have access to all the crazy midi sequencing tools, Droplets offers a fun way to generate midi. While some may write this off as simply a “toy”, I find these alternate sequencer tools to be great for coming up with new ideas. Also, toys are fun and making music should be fun.
SCULPTURE
If Discrete Signals had never reached out to me, I’m not sure I’d have ever learned about this cool spectral effect. Sculpture allows you to layer multiple spectral effects and adjust the intensity of different parameters based on an “eq cure”. There’s a variety of window size and resolution settings that allow for a wide range of spectral styles and textures. Sculpture sounds great and I’m really a fan of any spectral plugins, so finding a new one is a blast.
Review: https://www.databroth.com/blog/discrete-signals-sculpture-review
SINE MACHINE
I found out about Sine Machine awhile ago view youtube, I’m always looking for cool additive synths and was instantly impressed by what I was hearing and seeing. I got to be part of the beta testing team and even made some presets for it. It’s not the most advanced additive synth out there, but the simple UI gets you into some unique territories fast without needing to fiddle over individual partials.
Review: https://www.databroth.com/blog/sine-machine-review
Site: https://melatonin.dev/
SOLSTICE
I wasn’t quite sure wether to put this one on the list or not, out of everything here, Solstice is likely the one that most will be familiar with. Solstice is a neat spectral resampling tool, giving you a weird cellular breakdown of your sample into various temporal spectral slices. If that last sentence doesn’t mean anything to you, it breaks your sound into small parts, but in a spectral way instead of granular. While it may be a bit of a one trick pony, it’s a very cool trick.
Review: https://www.databroth.com/blog/solstice-review
Site: https://minuit.am/
CHAMELEON
Chameleon is a really neat all-pass filter effect, similar to disperser but with incredibly lovely visuals and UI. I really need to review this one still, so look forward to a full review in the near future.
AUTOCHROMA
Sure there’s a ton of granular effects out there now, but Autochroma is one of the prettiest out there, I just love the vibes and colors of this plugin and for a small project it is actually quite deep. You get three granular streams, modulation, and filters. There’s other similar plugins out there, but I think if you need a granular effect, this one is worth considering as an alternative.
MAIM - FREE
Maim is a a free MP3-ify effect, basically, it makes your audio sound like a bad download off of Limewire or Napster. While this is generally an undesirable sound, adding it on purpose can really glitch up your mix. Maim also offers a few other spectral effects to mix things up. I think the retro 90s PC UI is also fun and ugly in just the right way.
TUGSPECT - FREE
Another free spectral tool, this one is a spectral image filter, one axis being frequency and the other being time. You can load any image into TugSpect and use it as a sort of “filter wavetable”. It’s a weird sound, but can really sculpt things in unique ways, or just use it to add secret images into your mix that are only viewable via a spectrogram.
PRISMA - FREE
I apologize for calling Maim ugly, Prisma is a fun multi-band distortion with a boatload of different distortion types. Four frequency bands can load up to four distortions each. Each distortion has a single knob, and every knob has a completely different color scheme and stylization. There’s a lot of different options to chose from and while it may look like unicorn vomit, the sheer insanity of this UI comes together in a fun way that is sure to lead to sonic experimentation.
I’ve yet to review Prisma, but it is a fun free multi-band distortion and if you can look past the UI, it’s quite powerful.
To be perfectly honest, I don’t want to be mean about the UI, I am mostly just joking, I think it is cool and does its style very well for what its style is.
I also think crazier playful UIs can sometimes give you “permission” to make crazier sounds.
CRUNCHRR - FREE
Basically a free “erosion” effect with a beautiful pixel art noise shader UI. It’s a solid effect worth integrating into your production if you don’t have it already.
Another one I haven’t reviewed yet, I’ve got some catching up to do.
…And the stuff I haven’t actually used yet.
I can’t actually speak for the following plugins and tools, but they have been on my radar and I want to try them eventually. They all look lovely or do something in a fun or new way that has piqued my interest. I plan to cover as many of them as I can eventually, but for now I see no reason not to share them. I’d love to test and demo all of these eventually, but for now I won’t have much to say about any of them. This part of the list is just as much for me so I don’t forget these exist.
PEAKS
Rainbow Circuit plugins look lovely, can’t wait to give this one a shot, it looks to be an eight partial modal processor with modulation and control over the modal structure.
ALPHA FOREVER
This one has been on my radar for some time, unfortunately it is not available on mac, but I’ll see if it can work on crossover at some point.
It looks to be a node based modular sound design environment, I’m curious just how low level it can get. The UI looks lovely as well.
JUMBLE
I think this one is a sort of modular delay buffer, such a simple and cute UI that doesn’t look like the type of plugin to feature patch cables at all.
RIPPLE DELAY
Seems to be a multi-tap delay with some neat control over the taps. I downloaded the free demo, so perhaps I’ll review and move this one up above soon.
ENGINE SIMULATOR
Like I said, not all of these are plugins, Engine Simulator is more of a game, but I love the idea of a sound toy that generates a variety of engine tones, would love to see someone use this in a mix somehow.
Site: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2381500/Engine_Simulator/
I still have more I want to add to this list, perhaps I’ll expand on it or do something bigger in the future. Please leave a comment if you feel I’ve left anything special out, I’m always looking for new plugins and I’m sure anyone reading this far would love for even more ideas. I can already think of a couple more off the top of my head.
Thank you again for reading and thank you to all these creative developers for making such beautiful and unique plugins. If you’re one of the creators who’s plugin I haven’t demoed yet, please feel free to reach out to me and I’ll gladly get a review and video out if/when I can.