Old VST Nostalgia Thread

This is a thread for vanished/archaic/lost VSTs that make you misty-eyed. Post plugins that you used and loved which have disappeared from the face of the earth, or just don’t see much use anymore. They don’t have to be ‘good’ as such, just stuff with character that you had a connection to.

This is a weird thread for me to start because I don’t actually use VSTs that much, plus I’m aware how ridiculous it is to get nostalgic over plugins, but fuck it.

[thread prompted by me finding an old CD from Computer Music magazine that has a medley of outmoded soft synths full of cheesy trance presets]

Edit: just saw Brisbot's 'Most Unique VSTs' thread, hope this doesn't cover too much of the same ground!

Rubber Duck

Buffer Override was ma jam

Played boatloads of live shows a bit more than a decade ago, relying on Bram @ Smartelectronix.com's Supatrigga A LOT. Was super fun to use, quite a temperamental plugin, the key was to play with it's dry/wet rather than bypassing/activating it. It's basically a buffer override plugin, just like the one you've posted @mcbpete.

The original Cheese Machine was awesome what they've replaced it whether has none of the original character. Shame.

Used to fuck around with this a lot, one time I kicked it up to 500 BPM, threw on a delay, looped a bass drum hit on one step and made this cool oscillating noise. Some developer (Peff?) had a bunch of cool add-ons and presets he came up with, I think he help make the iPad version. Had it on an old Mac before the OS made it unusable.

I can't find it but there was a free CD I had of some circa 2004 dj software - Ejay Mixx or something. Had a beat match ability, flange effect, 3 EQs and that was about it. I think it was a beta version because when I found another download for it there were different features.

Looked kinda like this but even more bright colors and no vinyl images:

Anyway made some decent mixes with it a shitload of weird mash-ups, including chopped n screwed weirdness by mashing SAWII and Eno tracks with stuff like acoustic Nirvana and Syd Barrett

  On 5/4/2020 at 12:35 PM, mcbpete said:

Buffer Override was ma jam

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Much fun. Still use it sometimes via 32 Lives.

Anything cracked by Radium

NI Battery v1 with the electronic drums sample discs.

  On 5/4/2020 at 3:32 PM, TubularCorporation said:

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Zynaptiq have bought the rights to this one, apparently the new build is due to be out in ... um ... mid-2019 ......

@Nil Don't know if you've seen, the Bram @ smartelectonix plugins are now opensource so there are more modern builds (i.e. OSX and VST x64) available here:  https://github.com/bdejong/smartelectronix

Pro tip : only using old VSTs to get that vintage sound.

  On 5/4/2020 at 5:17 PM, d-a-m-o said:

Pro tip : only using old VSTs to get that vintage sound.

This will be a thing! 

theres already threads in more sad forums about people going out to buy old macs so they can run turbosynth because NIN did back in 98 or whatever

Delay Lama is my man!

I spent the whole day trying to remember the name of this plug. It's Kantos by Antares and only runs on winXP if I remember correctly... Amazing little plug, shove audio in there, pick a scale and you have an instant in-tune noodler for ambient or whatever, plus lots of wacky modulation options. 

For me it's the mda plugins, especially "mda dubdelay". Probably half the sounds in this track were made using it, layering with it, etc.
 

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Edit: just saw Brisbot's 'Most Unique VSTs' thread, hope this doesn't cover too much of the same ground!

nah, lol. Different topics. Reminds me of different vsts. The ones I am nostalgic for aren't the most unique ones to me.

The BlueLine plug-ins.

I still have/use them.  That chorus.  That compressor.  That filter!  That delay!!

The only BlueLine plug-in that really left something to be desired was the reverb.

I still use Melda MAutopanMB all the time, and it's basically a way deeper version of Spectral Autopan.

  On 5/5/2020 at 1:45 AM, Brisbot said:

For me it's the mda plugins, especially "mda dubdelay". Probably half the sounds in this track were made using it, layering with it, etc.

Ohhh man, mda DubDelay blew my mind back in the day! I still remember the first few times using it in AudioMulch, I thought I had magic powers.

  On 5/4/2020 at 11:49 PM, nikisoko said:

theres already threads in more sad forums about people going out to buy old macs so they can run turbosynth because NIN did back in 98 or whatever

Up until just a year or two ago here was an operation called Note Museum that was selling officially licensed, turnkey Seer Systems Reality Reality systems based on refurbished Windows 95 machines (since all it runs on is pre SP1 Windows 95 and the original release version of Windows 98) but I can't find them anymore.

EDIT: also Ensoniq Paris - the most "analog" sounding DAW?

  On 5/5/2020 at 3:35 AM, TubularCorporation said:

 

I still use Melda MAutopanMB all the time, and it's basically a way deeper version of Spectral Autopan.

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Is there anything current that can do “spectral autopanning”? Sounds like an interesting effect.

  On 5/5/2020 at 8:45 AM, rhmilo said:

Is there anything current that can do “spectral autopanning”? Sounds like an interesting effect.

Yeah, I mentioned it at the very bottom, Melda MautopanMB does the same effect but with exponentially more features, I use it all the time. If nothing else, if you're doing autopanning it's really natural sounding to have a few bands with different widths so the panning is wider the higher up the frequency spectrum you go, but obviously you can to a lot weirder stuff than that.

The AnarchyEffects one was just a multiband autopan plugin, you could do that in Reaper with nothing but bussing, the built in parameter modulation, and some EQ.  IIRC Corkscrew was basically a Shepard tone except with a comb filter instead of tones, so you got sort of a phaser with an infinite sweep in one direction.

QuadraFuzzVST was my go to distortion plug

I always wanted to build a Quadrafuzz and now you've got me thinking about it again. The kit's only $77 (no enclosure included and the rack panels are sold out now, but it would probably make more sense to build it as a desktop box anyway).  Multiband output!

Maybe later this year, I'm going to be taking a break from building stuff after I finish up the three things I've got in the immediate pipeline (Kijimi, Dubldeca module and EAS Mindreader module).  I was averaging about 10 hours a day soldering for a good chunk of last week and I'm getting sick of it.