LeadStation-VST has introduced Lead Station, a virtual rompler instrument in VST/AU plugin formats for PC and Mac based host applications.
Lead Station is a sample based virtual instrument made with Maize Sampler. It was designed to work as a plug and play lead instrument for use in techno, trance, house, dubstep, hip hop, trap, and similar music styles.
The product is is available in two different versions: the free Demo version containing 16 patches and the Full version (priced at $19.95) which contains a total of 128 patches. The freeware version doesn’t have any other limitations apart from the fact that it features a much smaller sound bank. All included sounds are 100% royalty free for use in free and commercial music projects.
I haven’t tested the full version of Lead Station, however I have to admit that I wasn’t really blow away by the free demo. Granted, it does include some good sounding leads, but the majority of them are somewhat basic synth sounds that come bundled with most freeware and commercial synthesizers on the market. The fact that the presets don’t have unique names (the patch browser shows generic titles such as Program 01, Program 02, etc.) doesn’t really help either.
Also, I’m noticing a strange roll-off in the higher frequency range whenever glide or pitch modulation kicks in. This could be one of the limitations of Maize Sampler (the software which was used to developed Lead Station) but I’m not really sure why this is happening. Either way, for an instrument focused solely on synth leads, the sound quality bar should be set much higher.
On the positive side, some of the included patches sound pretty good and the instrument is indeed very easy to use. The free version is available for direct free download as well (no registration required), so it won’t hurt to download the plugin and see for yourself if you like it or not. After all, having tested so many freeware plugins for BPB over the past seven years, it’s quite possible that I’m becoming a bit too old and grumpy of a reviewer to be taken seriously.
Lead Station is available for free download via LeadStation-VST (0.99 GB download size, RAR archive, 32-bit & 64-bit VST/AU plugin format for Windows & Mac).
