Replicat Audio Has Released LowFire ($25+) and LowFire Lite (free) lo-fi multi-effect plugins for Windows and macOS.
Replicat Audio has released its take on the lo-fi craze, with the aptly named LowFire providing a bevy of familiar effects in an easy-to-use package. LowFire itself is reasonably priced, with Replicat Audio asking $25 for the full license. LowFire Lite bears identical functionality but will ask the user to upgrade through a reminder every few minutes.
LowFire is a testament to clear and effective design. It features a variety of lo-fi effects, all easily selected on the front panel. Directly above the effects controls is the effects matrix which allows the user to select one of seven routing algorithms for how the sound is processed through LowFire.
There are seven effects in total for users to manipulate as they see fit.
The filters need very little introduction for most producers, offering up a respective high and low pass with accompanying resonance controls. Self-oscillation with these is certainly possible, but make sure you’re running a track limiter or soft clipper to protect your ears and monitors.
Gain Up and Gain Down correspond to overdrive or LowFire’s take on the overdriven guitar amplifier. Overdrive is a very pleasing effect overall, with lower values adding some much-needed warmth and higher values giving a nice crunch and crust to sounds.
Noise generators add grit, and the internal routing selections in LowFire can allow for the included noise module to radically alter the sound depending on the algorithm selected.
The downsampling and bitcrusher also work well together. The downsampling does change depending on the routing algorithm chosen. This can run the gamut from clean and somewhat milder downsampling to rather extreme applications on some algorithms. This pair of effects is probably the one that urges the most in terms of experimentation.
LowFire and LowFire Lite are easy to install, with users just dragging and dropping the VST3 file to their intended directory. No registration is required for downloading and using Lite, but an account on Itch.io allows for saving to your collection.
LowFire Lite is free to use without any functionality limitations. The only limitation is that it shows an upgrade reminder popup every few minutes (you can see how that looks in the cover image).
LowFire supports VST3 on Windows computers. VST3 and AU are both supported for macOS.
Download: LowFire Lite
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Last Updated on January 24, 2023 by Tomislav Zlatic.
