On Monday, Signal Perspective released the Grindbox Mk2 distortion, a free plugin for macOS, Windows, and Linux.
Grindbox is a VST3 and AU release with several tricks up its sleeve.
You can run the plugin as an amp sim for bass or guitar, as a saturator that adds slight coloration, as an exciter, or just to completely destroy the signal.
Signal Perspective founder Giorgio Presti told us about the Grindbox lore, saying the plugin came about through waveshaping techniques he learned while experimenting with audio processing in his early years.
The Italian indie dev added that the dirt box is “wrapped in a modern framework with 384kHz oversampling and a fancy interface.”
Grindbox offers continuous morphing between cabinet sims, various static transfer functions, mic sim, limiter, resonant LPF, Auto Gain, tilt EQ, slew rate distortion, variable topology settings and the aforementioned 384 kHz oversampling.
Presti really threw in everything but the kitchen sink, didn’t they? I have to say that’s quite a nice feature selection for a free release.
The indie dev notes that the plugin is donationware, so if you’d like to support his predilection for pizzas, then you can drop a few digital bucks on the PayPal link on the product page.
On the product page, Presti offers direct links to download Zip files of the Windows installer and manual install packs for all three OS formats.
Presti notes that on some Windows systems, the installer is incorrectly marked as a trojan virus.
If that doesn’t sound like your cup of tea, then you can work around it by doing a manual install instead.
There doesn’t seem to be an official audio demo of Grindbox available at present, although there is at least one user demo up on YouTube right now.
The demo puts Grindbox through its paces on a drum groove, and it really shows how varied the sounds that you can pull out of the plugin are.
On higher drive settings with the different mods engaged, then you can get some really gnarly tones.
I love the array of sounds on offer, and it’s easy to see how it could be a really handy addition to a bedroom producer’s toolkit to experiment and create distinctive sounds for a track.
The inclusion of a range of presets is also quite nice, with the categories covering presets for bass, drums, guitar, keys, utilities, vocals, and waveshaping.
Download: Grindbox Mk 2 (FREE)
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9 Comments
alex
onGreat! Thx!
John Shepherd
onA great sound. The diversity of choices really make this one stand out. Definitely donate to this guy, he could have easily charged for it!
Docent Novak
onThe downside of this plugin is that it is mono. Also, lowering the LPF slider down causes unpleasant and unexpected crackling. Fl Studio has crashed a few times. Trailbender is a great plugin, this one unfortunately does not match its quality.
alex
onIt takes the stereo input in Reaper, no problems whatsoever. No crackling, either. It’s a bit heavy on CPU, but that’s because of oversampling. Yeah, Trailbander is great.
Calidreads
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Expiry: November 30th
Joris
onThere is one small problem in the applied README.txt
sudo xattr -d -r com.apple.quarantine /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST3/Grindbox Mk2.vst3
sudo xattr -d -r com.apple.quarantine /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components/Grindbox Mk2.component
This should be:
sudo xattr -d -r com.apple.quarantine /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST3/Grindbox\ Mk2.vst3
sudo xattr -d -r com.apple.quarantine /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components/Grindbox\ Mk2.component
musicanywhere
onI’m using Catalina. I manually installed the plugin and did the terminal command but Reaper still doesn’t seem to recognize it??…any ideas?
Steffen
onI’m currently underway with an old Intel Mac and the plug-ins aren’t recognized by my DAW.
Looks like they are Apple silicon only?
Kuig
onThere was a problem with the Mac version… But it seems to be fixed now…
Audio samples have also been added!