Brain Control Releases Tunefish 4 Virtual Synthesizer BETA!

Brain Control has released a public Beta version of their forthcoming Tunefish 4 freeware virtual analogue synthesizer in VST/AU plugin format for Windows and Mac (a Linux version of Tunefish 4 should be released soon!).

Tunefish is a very tiny virtual analog synthesizer. It is developed to fit into about 10 kB of compressed machine code while still producing an audio quality that can compete with commercial synthesizers. Tunefish 4 was developed as a smaller replacement of Tunefish 3 with roughly the same power, it is however not compatible and uses different synthesis algorithms.

Tunefish 4 is available for free download via Brain Control (764 kB download size, 32-bit & 64-bit VSTi/AUi plugin format for Windows & Mac).

This virtual analogue synthesizer was designed by the demoscene group Brain Control for the 64k intro Turtles all the way down (it’s breathtaking, make sure you watch it!). The original instrument (the synthesis engine) which was used for the intro is highly optimized and takes only about 10 kB of memory space! The VST/AU plugin version is larger because of the GUI and added data, but it is still very efficient and will probably work great on slower machines.

The instrument features a sound generator module (additive/wavetable oscillator), 4 filter types, 2 ADSR envelopes, 2 LFOs, 7 effect modules, and various global controls. A cool 8-slot modulation matrix is also included, as well as a 10-slot effects stack.

Tunefish 4 is currently in Beta and some bugs may occur during use. The plugin has been tested in Renoise and is yet to be tested in other DAWs. You can report issues to Brain Control and they’ll try to sort it out in updated versions of Tunefish 4. They’re also looking for demo tracks and sound banks for this synthesizer.