Sender Spike has released qb (Kyubi), a free multimode distortion plugin for Windows.
If you’re familiar with the name Sender Spike, that’s likely because we recently featured the developer’s SN Zero hybrid synthesizer. That one is a fun FM vector hybrid synth with a clean interface and a nice sample loading feature. Well worth checking out if you missed it.
Interestingly, Kyubi came about while the developer was working on SN Zero. The question was whether to include an effects section in the synth, but the developer ultimately decided against it.
Kyubi was the first candidate that came out of that process, and I’m glad that it’s available as a separate plugin instead of a synth’s built-in distortion module.
The plugin offers nine distortion modes sandwiched between a pre and a post EQ. The nine modes are soft clip, hard clip, linear fold, sine fold, full rectifier, half rectifier, asymmetric tube screamer, an additional asymmetric waveshaper, and bit crushing.
Drive gain is adjustable from -30 dB to +30 dB, and there’s a wet/dry mix running from 0% to 100%.
The pre and post EQ sections each feature a low shelf and a high shelf. The low shelves cover a frequency range from 35 Hz to 400 Hz, the high shelves from 1100 Hz to 12 kHz, and all four filters have a gain range of -18 dB to +18 dB.
Having EQ both before and after the distortion stage is a practical setup. I like that it gives a decent amount of tonal control and lets you tame the distortion if needed or push specific frequencies into the distortion module to get a different flavor.
The interface is text-based, which might not be the most intuitive way to interact with a plugin, but there’s something I like about the retro digital font aesthetic here. It has a subtle video game quality to it that I find charming.
As for what Kyubi offers to your plugin arsenal, it covers the standard multimode distortion territory without breaking new ground. If you already have a solid collection of distortion plugins, this one probably isn’t a must.
But if you’re newer to VST plugins and building out your toolkit, or simply enjoy testing different distortion flavours, it’s worth a download. It’s free and available directly from the developer’s website (no registration required, either).
The one limitation to note is that Kyubi is Windows-only.
Download: qb (Kyubi) Multimode Distortion (FREE)
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Last Updated on February 24, 2026 by Tomislav Zlatic.
