Head over to HERE and grab the POD Farm 2.5 trial. The trial version gives you a taste of what POD Farm can do with a great assortment of amps and effects. When you install you get POD Farm you get the standalone version, plugin with everything and POD Farm Elements which is an individual plugin for distortions, amps, reverbs etc. Great for mixing.
Included with Line 6 POD Farm Free
Guitar Amps
1964 Blackface ‘Lux
Brit J 800
Power Amp
Bass Amps
1989 Eighties
1968 Flip Top
Cabinets
1×12 Blackface ‘Lux
4×12 Brit Celest T-75s
1×15 Flip Top
4×10 Silvercone
Preamps
American Classic
Console
Distortions
Facial Fuzz
Screamer
Dynamics
Compressor
Noise Gate
Vetta Comp
Volume Pedal
Filters
Sub Octaves
Modulations
Opto Tremolo
Phaser
Delays
Analog Delay w/Modulation
Digital Delay
Reverbs
Cavernous
Standard Spring
Wahs
Vetta Wah
Weeper
As you can see, you get a lot to play with. Additionally, you can insert these effects in any order in the chain as well as multiples of most up to 20 fx. When you buy POD Farm or POD Farm Platinum you get a ton more toys to play with.
SoundToys is giving out a very cool audio destroying plugin called Devil-Loc. It’s based on the classic Shure M62 Level Loc processor, but more extreme, much more extreme. This thing is nasty and awesome.
This plugin is free for a limited time, this is the last week, so get it right now. A Deluxe version with more features is coming.
Formats: PC VST, RTAS. Mac VST, RTAS, AU
Examples
Drum beats processed only with Devil Loc presets. Source is Addictive Drums.
Essentially a distorting compressor but so much more, it’s really quite simple but also a bit supernatural. Because the release time of the compression is effected by the input level (like the Level-Loc) it’s a bit hard to predict exactly what will happen the first time you work with it. Luckily with just two knobs, you can find the magic spot for your track fairly quickly and you’ll be going for that sound more and more. Don’t be fooled by it’s simple front panel, this plug-in has a lot more cool sounds than you’d expect out of two knobs. Get crushing kick drums, to almost rhythmic level sweeps with the crazing sucking compression, to blitzed out blasting beat loops. Drive it hard and you get straight hardware sounding break-up and drive. It’s a devil in disguise, and the devil’s in the details, and the devil made us do it and all those other devil references.
Devil-Loc Deluxe. Coming April 2011
To take things beyond the hardware that inspired it and give you even more creative flexibility, Devil-Loc Deluxe adds a “Darkness” control for tone, switchable slow or fast release times and the ability to mix the original back in right on the front panel. The addition of these controls opens up the sonic palette immensely. Dark thundering drums, to driven lo-fi loops, and more, and the mix control saves all that tedious routing and lets you automate mix to keep the Devil from taking over the soul of your tracks. This time, evil is good.
A Bit of History
The Shure M62 Level-Loc was designed by Shure to be a leveling amplifier mostly for mics. The concept was it would keep an even level (locked level) once it hit a certain input so you wouldn’t get “fade outs or blasting”. It was super simple with only a switch for three “distance” settings based on how far from the mic you were. The M62V upped the control a bit by adding an input level knob. However, the reason it became famous was not because it did a good job of leveling, it may have, but largely thanks to SoundToys user Tchad Blake and his desire to push, abuse, and do deliciously evil things to his tracks. He discovered that pushing the Level-Loc gave you gritty, dirty, unusual compression that made drums gigantic and nasty. Both of which are good things. So we’ve taken that concept and dropped it in the simple two control Devil-Loc. Then we’ve taken it further than the original hardware with the Devil-Loc Deluxe.
Brand new tube amp simulation from Ignite Amps. It is Free. You can see the announcement in this thread on the Guitar Amp Modeling Forum. There are so many amazing free amps these days, the hard part is choosing one!
Main features
− Dynamic 12AX7 / ECC83 coupled triode stages analog modeling
− Three channels: clean, rhythm and lead, each with fully separated controls
− Selectable Mono / Stereo processing support
− Selectable oversampling rate (up to 8x)
− Global input / output level controls
− Double precision floating point operations support
− Fully automatable controls
Fully coded in C++ using the Steinberg VST SDK 2.4
Compatibility: Windows 32bit, VST
NOTE: remember that this plugin is a preamp simulator, so you’ll need to use a cabinet simulation after it. Best to use an Impulse Response based plugin, like LeCab from LePou.
Example of the amp in the mix (chain is Noise Gate > Screamer > NRR1 > KeFIR: s-preshigh)
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Seems like it was just last week I listed my top 5 delay plugins, well now I’ve got a new favorite. Nasty DLA is the new chorus delay device from the ever awesome developer Bootsy.
Nasty DLA
This plug sounds as good as it looks. I’ve already used it with success for vocals in a mix. It sounds fantastic on my favorite synths like V-Station. This can be as clean or as dirty as you want it, it’s pretty flexible. Looks like this is going to be my most used delay.
I only have 2 small complaints with this and Bootsy’s other great effects. 1- No mousewheel control of knobs (yeah most fx are like that) and 2- No Mac version.
I <3 delays more than most things in this world. They are just so fun and useful when mixing. I don’t require anything too fancy in a delay so most of the free ones or the ones in your DAW of choice will do the trick. Here are my 5 favorites which also happen to be free.
TAL Dub – I like this stereo delay for spacey guitars. It has a pretty dark tone and you can make the filter oscillate.
E-Phonic Tape Delay – This little plugin is no match for my real hardware tape delay, but it does that exaggerated, dark and gritty tape delay sound really well.
Valhalladsp Freqecho – This one is new and can do some cool weird stuff. It’s simple and it can give your sounds anything from a smooth chorus to demonic possession effects.
Digidesign Mod delay 2 – While I do like the new AIR effects that came with Pro Tools 8, most of the time I know exactly what I want to do and there’s no delay more straightforward to use than the Mod Delay series. All my mixes done in Pro Tools have at least one of these in use.
Cockos ReaDelay – This is one that comes with REAPER, it’s basic but has different features than the others on the list. It’s a multi-tap delay essentially giving you as many separate delays as you want, each with complete control over speed, feedback, panning, filtering, and bit depth. The one thing this one can’t do is chorus/flanging effects.
That’s my list – What’s YOUR favorite delay plugin? Leave a comment below.
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Native Instruments KOMPLETE 7 is out now and it’s a massive 90GB. There’s a smaller more affordable bundle called KOMPLETE 7 Elements with 12GB of content, and for FREE you can get the 1GB KOMPLETE 7 Players.
KOMPLETE 7 PLAYERS brings you four powerful audio platforms from Native Instruments for free, ready to use in your studio or on stage: REAKTOR 5 PLAYER, GUITAR RIG 4 PLAYER, KONTAKT 4 PLAYER and KORE 2 PLAYER. The included libraries provide over 450 high-quality sounds and effects ranging from futuristic synthesizers to edgy drum rhythms, stage-ready keys, versatile amp emulations, effects and much more. All Players are bundled into one installation file, making the setup as comfortable as possible.
Enjoy the sheer quality of Native Instruments products with 1 GB of sounds for free, and expand the included sounds at any time by selecting from a huge and constantly growing range of KOMPLETE Instruments and Effects, available directly in the NI Online Shop.
This is Mac and PC compatible in Standalone, VST, AU and RTAS formats. These are somewhat limited but you may get plenty of use from them. A really nice taste of what KOMPLETE contains.
I downloaded this on the weekend and played with them a little. I can see myself using some of the REAKTOR 5 PLAYERS for pads and loops. GUITAR RIG 4 PLAYER won’t get much use as a guitar amp, but should prove useful as an effects unit. KORE 2 PLAYER AND KONTAKT 4 PLAYER have been around for a while and see some use from time to time in my studio.
