Full Bucket Music releases Bucket ONE, a FREE 80s-inspired synth plugin for macOS and Windows.
Bucket ONE emulates the sound of the Crumar BIT 01/99 synths from the mid-80s. It is the latest candidate for our free retro synthesizers article.
These Crumar synths are pretty desirable today, but for one reason or another, they didn’t enjoy too much success when first released in the 1980s.
Of course, they faced a lot of very stiff competition then, but that still doesn’t fully explain the lack of interest because, in some areas, they sound as good as many of the big hitters of the era (sometimes better).
The Crumar BIT synths were instruments that you could ask five different people what they are best at and get five different answers. Some people say they have the best synth bass sounds, some say pads or leads, and it shows that these synths do just about everything very well.
I think they have some of the smoothest synth pads around, and I also think they more than give the Juno a run for its money when it comes to those lush, brassy, stabby chords that Jazz and Funk players love so much.
Remarkably, despite becoming somewhat of a cult classic, you can sometimes find one of these synths for sale around its original retail price, which is in the hundreds, not thousands, of dollars price range.
However, if Full Bucket Music can bring us some of that magic for free, then hats off to them!
The resizable interface mirrors the hardware closely and features a visual sound editor; it’s also quintessentially 80s. You can create a hands-on workflow, as all parameters are controllable by MIDI CC.
Bucket One has two oscillators offering Triangle, Sawtooth, and Pulse waveforms. It also has two LFOs, a self-resonating four-pole filter, VCA and VCF with individual envelopes, and an additional white noise generator.
The plugin supports MTS by ODDSound if you want to get into some micro-tuning.
I have to credit Full Bucket Music for putting together a great demo track for Bucket One. I know a lousy demo doesn’t always mean a bad synth, but as soon as I heard the bass on this one, it took me straight to an 80s montage (probably from something like a terrible Jean-Claude Van Damme movie that was so bad it’s kinda good).
I’m glad that Full Bucket Music revived these underappreciated synths, and I think they did a stellar job.
If you want to leave the 80s and head Back to the Future, check out the AI-powered Neural Synth.
Bucket One is available in AU, VST2, VST3, and CLAP formats for macOS and Windows.
Download: Bucket One (Free)
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