Prototype Audio released Fusion Core, a free saturation plugin with multiple distortion modes. The freebie is a VST3 release for macOS and Windows.
Fusion Core is the little brother of Prototype Audio’s Fusion plugin, an analog multiband saturator now available for $35, down from a list price of $75.
We all love free stuff, so what do you get in the free version?
Fusion Core offers four analog saturation algorithms that emulate hardware units.
Prototype Audio says it delivers warm crunch and texture and can enhance the detail and character of samples.
The algorithms are designed in a way that preserves the low end and punch of your signal.
The tagline of the release is “clean design, dirty sounds” and I have to say that checks out. The minimalist user interface does indeed look hella clean.
The four saturation algorithms are Tube Heat, Tape Warmth, Wave Designer, and Console Character.
Tube Heat offers soft tube saturation with gentle high gain clipping, while Tape Warmth delivers old-school tape flavor.
Wave Designer is a dirty wavefolder combined with a clean saturator, and Console Character is a distortion and high-end fuzz inspired by analog mixing consoles.
To download Fusion Core, just plug an email address into the form on the product page.
Prototype Audio will then email you a link to a page that hosts the macOS and Windows installers, which are 91.91 MB and 24.25 MB Zip files, respectively.
There doesn’t seem to be much in the way of audio demos available online for Fusion Core.
Prototype Audio does, however, host a brief YouTube demo and four audio demos on the product page for the full Fusion release, which gives you a pretty good idea of what Fusion Core offers as well.
The main difference between Fusion Core and Fusion is that Core has a single band of saturator active at any one time.
The paid Fusion release instead offers multiband saturation, so you can have three saturators active across three bands.
This allows you to mix and match different saturation algorithms across the different bands, helping to create some very versatile sounds.
The current $35 deal for Fusion is an introductory deal, and the plugin will return to its list price of $75 at some unspecified date in the future.
Download: Fusion Core (FREE)
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