BeatMaker Releases Free Retrox Virtual Instrument VST/AU Plugin

BeatMaker has introduced Retrox, a free sample-based rompler VST/AU plugin featuring the classic sounds of analog synthesizers.

Looking to add some of those classic 80’s synth sounds to your arsenal? The team and BeatMaker might be able to help out a bit with their brand new freebie called Retrox. It is a rompler instrument with thirteen multi-sampled patches of this exact kind, sourced from unnamed equipment. We’re not sure if they sampled a real analog synth or a software emulation for this, but the included sounds are decent. Not breathtakingly good, but decent. They cover some classic strings and pads that work well in the mix and don’t use almost any CPU resources because the instrument is sample-based.

Just like the Molekules virtual instrument by Flintpope which we featured in our news section earlier today, Retrox was made with Maize Sampler. This means that the sound adjustment options are somewhat limited, but you can still customize the sounds a bit using the provided ADSR envelope, HP/LP filtering, LFO, Reverb, Panning, Gliding, Amplitude, and Voice Mode controls.

The interface design is clean and pretty straightforward. Getting around the sound-shaping controls mentioned above poses no challenge whatsoever. The size is just about right for use on modern high-resolution screens and the control knobs are easy to identify.

Retrox may be a small freebie, but it can be useful for music producers who don’t want to mess with the controls of an actual synthesizer. Sometimes you just need to fire up an instrument and play a nice pad to use as a background element in a mix. With such situations in mind, it might be worth keeping this one around for the 80’s analog vibe it has. On the other hand, there are plenty of freeware synthesizers that won’t use a lot more CPU than Retrox, while still providing tons of flexibility for editing patches. One such example is the legendary Synth1 plugin which is incredibly lightweight in terms of CPU usage and has literally thousands of available presets from third-party sound designers.

Retrox is available for free download via BeatMaker (95 MB download size, ZIP archive, 32-bit & 64-bit VST/AU plugin format for Windows & macOS).