Spectral Plugins, a relatively young plugin maker, has announced the end of its business. They’re making their three excellent plugins available for free download, complete with macOS and Windows VST2/VST3/AU/AAX support, so grab them while you can.
I always feel especially bad watching developers go out of business – not that I’m here to be a cheerleader, but I do honestly want to connect makers with musicians. It’s hard to keep up on my side, and times are hard on the business side.
And while the market is overcrowded, Spectral’s creations had some really great ideas. They’re an extremely young developer; these tools all came out in the last couple of years. So if those same hard times mean you’ve got zero budget for plugins, by all means grab these now. Pancz got an update just a few days ago; everything is up to date for current systems.
Tom at Synth Anatomy is first on this story. Download and statement:
(This still requires a newsletter signup. But it does also mean that existing customers make sure they have a copy-protection-free download.)
Here’s a guide to the three, so you know what you’re getting, including their tutorials. (yeah, don’t delete your YouTube account, please!)
Pancz is a multiband processor focused on transient shaping. That combination means you can use it as a clipping tool, dynamics tool and mastering option, to add distortion (via soft clip limiter function), and even add “NYC” parallel compression and swap in presence/air EQ controls. That combination in multiband I think did make sense.
Spacer is the one I’m a bit sad that I didn’t cover, as it’s nice having reverb, delay, convolution, grain reverb, and grain delay in one place with saturation and finishing. This is basically a “finish your ambient/experimental” track all-in-one.
OCS-45 is a cassette simulator notable for its realism and multiple timbral controls – four noise types, a choice of tape (Type I – IV), dropouts, and a higher oversampling mode. Plus it looks really nice. This was the one where you say, okay, that’s up against just too many tape models, but they did execute nicely.
“We hardly knew ye” pretty much covers it. Good luck to the team.