Diodow - Freeware VA Synthesizer VSTi Plugin By HrastProgrammer

HrastProgrammer has released Diodow, a freeware virtual analogue synthesizer in VSTi plugin format for Windows based on the commercial Tranzistow synthesizer.

Diodow is a Digital Modeling Synthesizer with Advanced Virtual/Analog DSP Engine. It contains roughly 10% capabilities/features of it’s mighty bigger brother – Tranzistow. But don’t worry, despite this 10% it has enough capabilities to keep you busy for quite some time and very complex sounds can be made with 4x oscillators, 4x filters, 4x LFOs, 4x 5-stage envelopes, 16x+16x modulation matrix, 4x delays, etc.

Diodow is available for free download via HrastProgrammer (2.0 MB download size, ZIP archive, 32-bit & 64-bit VSTi plugin format for Windows).

Based on the info provided by the developer, the freeware Diodow synthesizer offers 10% of the functionality found in the commercial Tranzistow virtual instrument. On the other hand, this freeware plugin is fully functional and the developer says that he often uses it instead of the full version of the instrument due to its simplicity. Both plugins were originally developed for personal use.

Diodow features four oscillators which can be morphed between saw and sine waveforms. The oscillators are also capable of loading WAV files as samples, which is pretty awesome. The features also include 4 envelopes, 4 filters, 4 LFOs, and an impressive 16×16 modulation matrix. A link to several great sounding audio demos is available on the product page linked above. Unfortunately, the current version of Diodow doesn’t come with a factory preset library.

The plugin doesn’t emulate any hardware synthesizer and goes for an original approach to subtractive synthesis. This is one of the reasons why you’d want to download Diodow even if you already have many virtual analogue syntesizers in your VST plugin arsenal. This instrument offers a different workflow which may inspire you to create new and unusual sounds.

For more freeware virtual synthesizers take a look at our freeware synthesizer round-up. My favorite ones from the pack are Charlatan and the amazing Tyrell N6 synthesizer.