VST is 30 years old, and Steinberg is giving away some of its earliest plugins

It’s the format that changed software music making forever: the VST plug-in format turns 30 this year. Steinberg is giving away updated versions of Neon, CS-40, Karlette, VB1, and LM7 — some of its earliest plug-ins — to celebrate. And that means you can run these vintage instruments (plus one tape delay) on your modern Mac or PC.

D16 PunchBox 2 is a surprisingly deep sequel to the brutal kick plug-in classic

D16’s kick plug-in PunchBox was already a legendary drum weapons development laboratory, full of layers of crunchy, cruel, wonderful sounds. The Polish developer isn’t messing with that formula, but they’ve packed more than just a few extras into the long-awaited V2 update. It’s just in time for us to work out any aggression with kicks.

Peter Kirn - June 29, 2026

Sequential Prophet-5 gets an official software remake by GForce — tested

Following GForce’s official renditions of Oberheim instruments, now we’re treated to an official Sequential synth in plug-in form. This Prophet-5 combines painstaking recreations of the various revisions with new features like MPE, a dual-layer architecture, and lush effects. I’ve been testing it and got some behind-the-scenes details from the devs. It’s such a total pleasure to bring that Sequential sound into the box.

Peter Kirn - June 16, 2026

Free: Minimal Audio Hybrid Filter, and some tips on how to use it

Peter Kirn - May 19, 2026

Spring cleaning: free up space by deleting duplicate plug-ins

Peter Kirn - April 27, 2026

Free emulations of 80s Alesis MIDIVERB II, MicroVerb, in plug-in form

Peter Kirn - April 27, 2026

Find whole worlds inside samples: Baby Audio Grainferno deep dive

Peter Kirn - March 11, 2026

Poly Flanger: a guide to Minimal Audio’s new tunable 8-voice FX

Peter Kirn - February 18, 2026

Novagrid, sequenced multi-effect with bitcrusher, sonic motion plug-in

Peter Kirn - February 11, 2026