Sticking true to that classic studio delay, the dimensions offered up by UAD’s Galaxy Tape Echo are both multifaceted and warm. Featuring six analogue-sounding filters, adjustable feedback and a drag-and-drop modulation interface that encourages you to dive into its grand depths, its resulting delay effects are indistinguishable from those conjured by the fabled pedalboards of the past.
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The best free VST plugins 2021: must-have freeware synths, drum machines and effectsįabFilter’s Timeless 3 captures a vintage tape-flavoured studio delay that is a great fit for guitars. While legendary delay pedals such as EHX’s Memory Man and Boss’s DM-2 are still available from certain suppliers today, and modern alternatives like Strymon’s exemplary TimeLine can be put to astounding use in a studio context, from a purely in-the-box perspective, you’re spoilt for choice. You're one click away from a completely fresh soundĭelay is a time-based effect that replicates and plays back the signal after an adjustable period of time, creating a ghostly after-image that reinforces certain moods.
Time was, room characteristics were (and actually still are, to many producers/musicians) fundamental in capturing a good guitar sound, but as we discussed in the previous section, virtual room modelling has come on a long way, and allows for far greater manipulation than capturing a signal that has the room sound hard-stamped onto it. Expect delaysĭelay is one effect that isn’t solely synonymous with guitarists, being used across the music production spectrum, but it’s hard to imagine mixing a guitar without a significant amount of spatial processing being done to the signal, should the signal be dry that is. Softube’s Saturation Knob is easy to get to grips with – being just one main knob with an additional three-state switch that cycles through saturation types, it’s an all-purpose overdrive that has a pretty big range of applications, particularly for being a generously free plugin. If you’re not in the market for expensive new software, then there are free solutions. Wondrous new sounds can be wrangled via creative experimentations with all three.
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With two virtual distortion units running in parallel, interesting blends can be mixed, the additional FREAK and BITE effects from the same series add modulation and bit-crushing flavourings too. Speaking of dirt, Native Instruments have some serious chops in the sound-muddying world, with their DIRT effect doing exactly what it says on the tin.
Modelled after some of those classic pieces of kit that defined the early experiments in studio guitar sound-effecting, its high and low-pass filters are a godsend for sculpting just the right levels of dirtiness for your track.
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Outside of the variety of distortions you’ll find in the aforementioned fully-featured software guitar suites, plugins like the magnificent Decapitator from SoundToys can yield unrivalled levels of grit. Overdrive, distortion and fuzz are the most well known guitar effects, and while variations exist between them, the beefier tone is one which lead and rock players rely on as pretty much the default state for their instrument. The thrill of mixing and matching a personalised signal routing is retained, while further tweaks can be applied and effects can be switched and A/Bed long after recording has taken place. These virtual pedalboards feature heaps of vividly-designed, distinctive pedals modelled after some of the most well-regarded from pedal history.
Take BIAS’s FX 2, or the range of virtual pedals found as standard within Logic.