Cana San Martin has released a collection of freeware mixing and mastering tools in 32-bit VST plugin format for Windows based digital audio workstations.
The bundle contains a set of six mixing and mastering effects which were developed using FlowStone/SynthMaker, meaning that they’re only compatible with 32-bit host applications on Windows. On the other hand, standalone versions of each plugin are also provided, which might work for some Windows users (although it will definitely require a bit of virtual cable patching wizardry).
Bundle contents are listed below:
- Bus Compressor – A bus compressor effect with tone and timing controls. It’s more suitable for adding punch than “gelling” a stereo bus. It sadly lacks a dry/wet knob, which is a feature that’s almost necessary in a bus compressor, in my opinion.
- M/S Matrix Encoder – Encodes stereo signal to M/S (isolates the mid signal on the left stereo track and the side signal on the right stereo track). Useful if you want to process mid and side signals separately using third party tools.
- M/S Matrix Decoder – Decodes the M/S signal back to stereo.
- Mystique Tape Machine – An interesting tape emulation. It offers two different tape flavors (labeled 1968 and 2009), a transformer switch, input/output gain and tone controls.
- SCL EQ V2 – A mid-side equalizer with per-channel low-pass and high-pass filters, four EQ bands and phase invert.
- x10 Multiband Compressor – A powerful 10-band compressor with adjustable bands, a lookahead limiter, oversampling and M/S processing.
My first impressions with these plugins, in terms of functionality, are rather positive. Mystique Tape Machine and Bus Compressor were the least impressive of the bunch, whereas the x10 Multiband Compressor and SCL EQ V2 seem to have quite a lot of potential. Surprisingly enough, the CPU usage isn’t that bad either, except in the case of x10 Multiband Compressor which lavishly consumes 10% of my i7 CPU’s available resources on average.
On the other hand, the GUIs, although fairly nice looking at first, could definitely benefit from larger, easier to read fonts and better looking color schemes. I kept squinting at the screen while testing the compressor and the M/S equalizer, and that’s definitely not something you want to do during a long mixing session. As mentioned above, the plugins are also 32-bit only on Windows, which becomes more and more of a serious limitation nowadays. Finally, the plugins don’t come with any sort of documentation in English, so it might be hard to figure out how some of the controls work at first.
The plugins are available for free download via Cana San Martin (46.6 MB download size, ZIP archive, contains 6 effects in 32-bit VST plugin format for Windows).
UPDATE: We’ve removed the download link, because it seemed to redirect to a spam website. Hopefully the developer with solve this issue soon.
15 Comments
Esol
onNice. Too bad they are rather small though. My eye sight aint that good. But might find them useful. Not shure if I need a multi band compressor though. Dont believe in those tbh. But those encoder/decoder plugins sounds interesting, although i have the MSED plugin by Voxengo so we will see how they sound in comparison to the one from Voxengo. Cheers. :)
Ike
on32bit only in 2016 is maybe a bit anachronistic. I have a bridge though, but I use it exclusively for Variety of Sounds plugins.
Octavius
on32 bit only?
It’s current year!
No thank you.
H.Bliss
on1st of all, thanks for all your effort @BedroomP! And of course to all the developers who give away their stuff for free.
I am just wondering why there is still so much stuff developed in VST32-bit format? Shouldn’t 64-bit be the standard by now? I mean, I know successful producers who are still using 32-bit, because they don’t want to get rid of their 32-bit library and don’t want to upgrade their whole system – but to be honest: I skip every post about 32-bit plugins, because I don’t like the hustle of making them work in my 64-bit hosts – I simply don’t trust bridging at all. Is it weird to ask, why so many developers aren’t jumping on the 64-bit train? Is it so much more effort?
That’s about my 2 cents here. Keep up the good work!
Esol
onBecause some people still use 32 bit. Some software are still in 32 bit, and will be for quite some time.
And Flowstone is a 32 bit software.
H.Bliss
onWell, as I said, I know that “some” people are still using 32-bit. But “many” are on 64-bit already and don’t want to be limited to a 32-bit environment. I am not a developer, so my question remains the same: Is it so much more effort to use a different tool than Flowstone/SynthMaker to produce future-stable 64-bit plugins? Or preferably both, 32-bit and 64-bit? Just asking, not complaining! ;)
Bryan Lake
on“Shouldn’t 64-bit be the standard by now?”
With exception, the vast majority of freebies are made with VPL (visual programming language) software like SynthMaker (now Flowstone) and SynthEdit. I think SynthEdit is now capable of 64-bit VST3, not sure about SynthMaker. Even then, you have to roll up your sleeves and write some code if you want to produce the most desirable result, regardless of the VPL environment; the factory modules are merely an example of what’s possible. This is just one of the reasons why developers don’t even bother with visual platforms and dive right into C++.
Jose Cosin
onBroken Link. Beware!
Jose Cosin
onThe first call, send you to a Romanian page
Tomislav Zlatic
onYou’re right, it seems that something weird is going on with their website. I’ll remove the link temporarily, hoping that they’ll fix it soon. Thanks for reporting.
Duckett
onIf you google the developer’s name, the 1st result will take you his page (go to “plugins”); however, only the tape machine and multi compressor are available.
djkanuk
onStill weird redirection from the link.
Fed73
onI do not know the rules of this blog, but if someone wants the vst I leave the link uploaded by me. Sorry for my english use the google translator, I hope you understand. [link removed by admin]
Tomislav Zlatic
onThanks for your help, however we don’t allow non-official download links (unless permitted by the author/owner of the software in question).
arseniy
onIs this the right link? I was able download from here
http://www.canasanmartin.com.ar/plugins/