Audiolatry releases Zumzet Lite, a freeware lo-fi virtual instrument for Windows and macOS.
Zumzet Lite is a feature-limited version of Zumzet ($12), but it still offers a decent number of presets and enough options for tweaking them.
As a lite version, it has only a handful of the sounds that the original, paid version has. Yet, it manages to hold its own. It can be a quick way to get started on a Lo-Fi sound that has been buzzing around in your head.
It’s often nice to have a dedicated plug-in for a genre-defining sound. It speeds up the sound design process when the starting point is already pretty close.
Zumzet Lite comes with 23 presets covering keys, leads, pads, and synths, with a small footprint of just over 200 MB. It has an ADSR envelope shaper, low/high pass filter, voice mode and glide, and many of the other basics that you would expect in an instrument like this, such as an LFO modulator.
There are even some fx modules, including chorus and distortion. Thus it seems to have given all the basic tools for sound design, and the 23 included sounds are quite useful on their own.
The only actual difference between the Zumzet Lite and the paid version is the reduced sound bank. Otherwise, the free version is fully featured, which is a good move on Audiolatry’s part.
While it looks like a smart way to release a kind of free sampler for the actual product, it is certainly very usable because the sound quality is that of the original. This is what actually makes it a good release plus the included features are also fun to play with.
The UI is fairly basic, and that is perhaps the only thing that works against the plugin. However, at the price of nothing at all, there’s no reason why producers cannot take it for a spin in their DAWs.
The included presets are usable for any music project that requires a nice Lo-Fi sound. The pads sound especially nice. Here’s a demo video that shows off some of the best presets.
The instrument is available for both Mac (VST/VST3/AU) and Windows (VST/VST3).
Zumzet Lite is available for download from Audiolatry’s website via a Gumroad link. Gumroad has a limited number of free downloads, and it needs the Code FREE for it to be, umm, free to download. Check it out at the link below.
Download: Zumzet Lite
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