PreSonus Blog

Freebie Friday – VST Classics

Freeby FridayI’ve noticed that during the week I often pick up a very cool new plugin or impulse response and end up playing with it all week, and then blogging about it on Friday (see several previous posts) so I think I may make this a regular “Freebie Friday” slot…

This week it’s the turn of VST Classics. Some of you may know that myself and several other members of the Studio One team used to work at Steinberg back in the day, and helped develop and define the original shape of digital audio recording. I still remember being on stage at Frankfurt MusikMesse 15 years ago showing off the very first VST plugins – the Neon and Model-E synths, VB-1 virtual bass guitar, and the Karlette tape delay (named after Karl “Charlie” Steinberg). These plugins were pretty bleeding edge back then, and I still look back at them fondly. So imagine my surprise when Steinberg announced they were re-releasing new versions of them as free downloads! Yeah, they won’t win any awards for innovation now, but they still have a unique sound, so if you fancy a trip back to the dawn of digital audio to hear what we had to play with back then, now is your chance.

The Model-E is still a decent emulation of the classic MiniMoog sound (the filter programming was done by industry veteran Marc Lindahl, who is also now at PreSonus working on some groovy new products as we speak), and it has a ton of great presets, including a bank from Wolfram Franke of Waldorf, one of my favourite synth programmers. Unfortunately in this re-released version for some reason I can only access the Hubertus Maas bank from the Model-E, although I can see all the preset banks listed in the Studio One browser. Not sure what’s happening there. If anyone can figure out a workaround let me know.

Trivia: Kraftwerk were one of the first users of this plugin, after seeing me use it to cover one of their songs at a show. They even came backstage afterwards to say how much they liked my cover version. One of the best compliments I have ever received

The Karlette is also a fun little multi-tap tape delay emulation that has quite a cool old-skool sound to it – worth playing with if that 70’s Zeppelin analog tape delay sound is what you are looking for. As regards Neon and VB-1, they are really showing their age, but somebody somewhere will love them I’m sure 🙂

VST Classics Vol.1

VST Classics Vol. 2