Acustica Audio released Fire The Gold, a freeware saturation plugin.
The color and sound of classic mixing desks are still very much in style. Acustica Audio knows this like anyone else, and is providing Fire the Gold for free.
Fire the Gold serves as a precursor to the upcoming launch of Gold5, one of the larger plugin suites sold by Acustica. The naming convention of Acustica plugins is unusual, but Gold serves as a collection of emulated Neve hardware.
Fire the Gold fits alongside this upcoming collection, acting as the preamp saturation you might get from the 1073 preamp.
In the past, Acustica Audio made quite CPU-heavy plugins, and a common complaint related to the lag and delay present on the controls. You weren’t going to track with the compressor and EQ on Gold3 unless you had one beastly computer.
This has changed somewhat with the advent of Acustica’s proprietary HYPER technology. CPU load is greatly decreased and you could very easily slap multiple instances across a wide mix.
Fire the Gold’s control set is quite slim, with a single knob sitting right in the middle of the user interface. This controls the degree of saturation applied to the incoming signal. I personally found the sweet spot to be around the middle of the knob’s full range.
Also present are interface resizing, a must for modern plugins, and oversampling.
Fire the Gold serves as an interesting preview into one of Acustica’s popular plugin suites. I personally wish they were tackling Sand or Pink next, but having a slightly lighter comprehensive set of classic Neve hardware in your computer is hard to turn down.
If you want to snag Fire the Gold for yourself, you’ll need an Acustica account and to head to the provided link.
After filling in your information, you’ll receive a code to activate Fire the Gold in Aquarius. After that, you’ll just need to enter the code and download Fire the Gold to get to work.
Fire the Gold is available for Windows and Mac computers. Supported plugin formats are VST, VST3, AU, and AAX. It is also a Universal binary, so Apple Silicon and Intel users can join in the fun.
Download: Fire the Gold
13 Comments
Michael
onInteresting. I had removed all my acustica plugins due to the CPU usage you mention. This is making me think I ought to give them another try.
Dee
onA great sounding plugin and cpu is low…until you engage “ultra” and/or the over sampling (the ZL version). It REALLY shines with ultra mode though so worth rendering out anything it’s used on to stop the cpu begging for mercy 😂
Diego
onHi! I can’t wait to use this one! Could you give me a quick breakdown on the difference with the ZL version? Which is your go-to? I’d really appreciate the input!
Michal Ochedowski
onZL version means zero latency with a cost of some more CPU cycles used. If your computer can handle it, than this seems like a better option over “regular” one.
Divyanshu
onNEED 73 by noiseash is free with Beat Magazine issue 208
Jerry Yang
onAny detail about it?🤩
Pisces
onThere software is good, if a little cpu intensive. I’m just not into managing applications, the Acustica one appears to be permanently connected to there server.
Klanghelm, Sonimus, TDR, DDMF and many others offer great alternatives without the additionally manager overhead.
obo
onComplete waste of time. It’s like 15 steps to get their free plugin. Wanted my blood type, mother’s maiden name… and then still didn’t install! lol
Human Bean
onExactly! What a pain
Wardbest
onYeah right!? Click download, and on the Acustica Audio site you get a code that you have to insert in the activation code field (in their Aquarius Desktop, their product manager). From there you can install it. Piece of cake!
alex
onI’ve never got Acustica Audio to work on my system(s) and I tried like ten years ago and a year or two ago. Also, it takes quite some time to uninstall and delete all the leftovers. So, I gave it up for good. If the software doesn’t work I just ditch it and move on. There’s so many choices nowadays. However, the Computer Music magazine API emulation (Pink CM) that has a normal installer works nicely and is a really good plugin. I mean, their plugins are very good, no question about it, but not worth the hassle.
Shane Sanders
onWaste of time. Doesn’t work at all.
Ivan
onI just can’t seem to get the download. I signed up with no download or email follow up