Freeware

Zebralette 3 is a single oscillator plucked from the mothership and embedded within a minimal synth environment: ADSR envelope, MSEG, two LFOs, mod matrix, delay and reverb effects. Like its predecessor, Zebralette 3 is freeware.

Created in 2005 and still going strong. Podolski is a free, straightforward, CPU-efficient virtual analogue synthesizer. One oscillator, one filter, one envelope and an arpeggiator / sequencer. Simple, but with a few tricks up its sleeve. Create high quality sounds with ease.

Zebralette is our version of a Trojan horse. A free synthesizer and an introduction to Zebra2’s fantastic oscillators. Perhaps it will persuade you to try Zebra2 and upgrade. If one oscillator is this powerful, imagine what you can achieve with four … and all the other great features available in Zebra2.

Triple Cheese, winner of the 2006 KVR Developer Challenge, is a truly unique freeware synthesizer. No traditional oscillators or wavetables, no FM or phase distortion and no analogue modelled filters here. A touch unusual and a little cheesy, Triple Cheese is quite capable of some surprising sounds.

Beatzille is a compact version of our monster modular synthesizer Bazille. Although its condensed feature set makes it the ‘little brother’, Beatzille is still an engaging and capable synthesizer. Power and style run in the family. Digital oscillators, analogue-style filter and flexible patching will keep you busy for a good while before thinking about tackling Bazille.

BazilleCM is a compact version of our monster modular synthesizer Bazille. Although its condensed feature set makes it the ‘little brother’, BazilleCM is still an engaging and capable synthesizer. Power and style run in the family. Digital oscillators, analogue-style filter and flexible patching will keep you busy for a good while before thinking about tackling Bazille.

ZebraCM is a stripped-down version of Zebra2 with a selection of modules organised in a simple layout. Though smaller, ZebraCM is still an adept synthesizer with enough features to keep you busy before stepping up to the full experience of Zebra2.

History

The long road from hardware to software …

Designed to be both powerful and affordable, TyrellN6 is a compact but versatile synth based on ideas for a hardware instrument by Amazona (www.amazona.de) that never came to fruition. After many ups and downs with the hardware concept, Urs (u–he) offered to develop a software version as he already had a majority of the proposed features in an early version of Diva. It was eventually agreed that u–he would provide the synth engine if Amazona would take care of everything else, and distribute this version as freeware. The original concept called for a streamlined set of modules, which was retained in the software: No panel switching or menu diving at all ensures a very fast, fun workflow!

A natural sounding reverb based on the concept of a room simulator. Protoverb is an experimental researchware plug-in, developed to aid our research. Download and use it for free.

In 2002, when Apple introduced Audio Units (AU), Urs realised that nobody was offering a decent GUI construction kit for plug-ins. While others discussed the general AU feature set, he created a quick and easy GUI toolkit called CAUGui.

CAUGui allowed Urs to create the first AU with a fancy custom user interface—Rumblence:pure. An incredibly buggy distortion plug-in. He subsequently developed Zoyd, one of the first ever AU synths. Zoyd never really left the beta stage, but apparently some people still use it now and again.

LtmLab is a very simple but fun drum machine, with a new set of samples and patterns supplied every month.

The original design was a Max/MSP device by Joker Nies, and the editor of the German magazine Sound & Recording asked whether u-he could convert it into a plug-in for both Mac and Windows.

LtmLab has 64 patterns in 8 banks, and up to 4 patterns can be linked to form a longer sequence. There are 8 instruments, with up to 16 steps per instrument. Each step includes accent, pan, volume and tune settings. Some instruments play an alternative sample instead of an accent (notably the hi-hat). To add variety or even weirdness, individual steps can play the sample in reverse.