ASP Radar: November 2026

Flame Sound - Pyro

Pyro is a cinematic starter kit: 269 effects across eleven categories — braams, impacts, sub drops, risers, whooshes, alarms, glitches, interface sounds, ambience — delivered as 24-bit WAV up to 192 kHz, 3.5 GB, royalty-free. It normally costs $49, and Flame Sound is giving it to UJAM users until the end of November. The code is applied automatically at checkout and no card is needed, only an email address.

Verdict: 269 cinematic effects in eleven categories, 24-bit WAV, free until the end of November for an email address. The radar's first sample pack.

Ends 30 November 2026

Busy Works Beats - Soft Clipper 3000

Soft Clipper 3000 does the two jobs beatmakers keep reaching for: catch the peaks without squashing the life out of them, and show you what the gain is actually doing while you do it. Busy Works Beats gives it away for an email address. It runs as AU and VST3 on macOS 11 or later, Apple Silicon and Intel, and as VST3 on 64-bit Windows.

Verdict: A soft clipper and limiter with precision metering. The metering is the reason to keep it; the clipping is a crowded field.

PSP Audioware - ClassicQlite

ClassicQlite is PSP Audioware's take on the classic British equaliser curve, given away outright. Getting it means creating a free account in the PSP user area and having an iLok user ID, which is also free — no purchase and no dongle required. It runs as VST, VST3, AU and AAX on Windows and macOS.

Verdict: A British-style EQ from a house that has been modelling consoles for decades, free for an account and an iLok ID.

Flame Sound - Vatrica

Vatrica is built on the processing engine behind Flame Sound's VATRA: one knob, three modes — MSTR, TAPE and SUBS — to add loudness, warmth, punch, weight or air to a mix without deciding which of a dozen controls to turn. It is free outright, and unusually there is no licence key, no trial and no account: download, install, use. VST3, AU and AAX on Mac and Windows.

Verdict: One knob, three modes, no licence key and no account. The lowest-friction thing on the page.

Black Salt Audio - Low Control

Low Control is Black Salt Audio's tool for shaping the bottom of a mix — the part that decides whether a kick and a bass are arguing or working. It normally costs $79, and the house is giving it away until 12 November for a name and an email. VST3 on Mac and PC, AU on Mac, AAX in Pro Tools; 64-bit only, macOS 15 or Windows 10 and up.

Verdict: A $79 low-end processor free until 12 November. The kind of tool that gets used in the next mix, not the next project.

Ends 12 November 2026

Karanyi Sounds - Brigade

Brigade takes one vocal and multiplies it into a stack — the doubled, layered sound that normally means four passes through the microphone. Karanyi Sounds puts it out free for Black Friday, starting 27 November at 12:00 CET. It is normally $49.

Verdict: $49 free is strong, but a vocal multiplier does one job — and it has not opened yet.

Opens 27 November 2026

FFOSSO

FFOSSO is a place to start rather than a plugin you reach for: a modular grid that combines pre-mapped samples with sequencer, chord and layer engines, built to get a session moving before the blank page wins. The free tier carries 11 instruments, over 100 multi-sampler presets and 14 integrated devices; Pro adds more than 150 instruments and weekly content for $10 a month. The installer offers three parts — a standalone application of about 623 MB, which is mandatory, plus optional VST3 and AAX builds of about 14 MB each — so it works on its own or inside the DAW, and the whole thing needs a little over 640 MB of disk. Windows only.

Verdict: A real free tier, a background process and more than 600 MB of downloads. The idea is good; the risk is that it becomes furniture.

RiverFlux Audio - BIT LAYER

Most bit crushers give you one knob and a wet/dry. BIT LAYER gives you eight independent layers, each with its own bit depth, sample rate, jitter, effect order, mid/side routing and gain — and a frequency target, so the destruction lands on the bass while the hats stay clean. Tonal and transient modes split sustained sounds from sharp attacks, and there are 88 presets if the routing matrix looks like too much on a Tuesday. It comes from RiverFlux Audio on Gumroad at a price you name, zero included. VST3 and CLAP on Windows and Linux, plus AU on macOS 12 or later, Apple Silicon and Intel.

Verdict: Eight crush layers with their own frequency targets and gain, and it runs on Linux. The most distinctive thing from this house.

RiverFlux Audio - Relic

Relic is not one plugin but fifteen, each installed on its own: five compressors, five equalisers, two tape machines, a channel strip and two reverbs, complete with meters, needles and the rest of the theatre. Fifteen separate units is a strange way to ship a suite and a good way to use one — you load the Fairchild-alike on the drum bus and nothing else comes with it. The store shows over eleven hundred ratings, which for a free bundle at a price you name is a lot of people who bothered to say something. Zero is an accepted price.

Verdict: Fifteen classic studio units, each installed as its own plugin, free at a price you name. Eleven hundred people bothered to rate it.

RiverFlux Audio - ECHO LAYER

A single delay applied to a whole sound makes one decision for everything in it. ECHO LAYER splits the signal into four delay layers and gives each its own frequency target and its own tonal or transient behaviour — so the low end can have a short slap while the tail of the reverb keeps ringing. It is the same philosophy as BIT LAYER from the same house: separate the parts, then treat each one. Zero is an accepted price.

Verdict: Four delay layers with frequency targeting. Good, and the third delay from a house that already took two spaces.

RiverFlux Audio - PHIXER

Wide bass sounds impressive in the room and disappears in mono. PHIXER exists for that moment: it fixes phase problems on a stereo bass while leaving the width you were enjoying, with EQ, low and high cut, wet/dry and mid/side controls around a single large phase dial. It is the least glamorous plugin in the shop and probably the one that saves the most mixes. Zero is an accepted price.

Verdict: Phase correction for stereo bass. No glamour at all, and it saves mixes.

Waves - Unannounced plugin

Waves is doing the thing it does in November: announcing a plugin without naming it, releasing it on 27 November and giving a limited number of licences away to whoever signed up first. The page says "a (VERY exciting) brand new plugin", which is not a specification. We are telling you the offer exists because the licences are limited and the signup is open now; we are not telling you whether it is any good, because nobody outside Waves has heard it. When the name lands, the verdict gets written.

Verdict: Waves has announced a plugin it will not name until 27 November, with a limited number of free licences. We can tell you the offer is real; we cannot tell you the plugin is good, because nobody has heard it.

Opens 27 November 2026

ysia - bubblegum

bubblegum does the one job that separates a vocal that sits from one that fights: it shows you the notes as lines and lets you move them. Version 1.1 adds glide for bending a note wherever you like, fades for a smoother slide from note to note, and stretched notes that stay legible instead of turning into a smear. It runs on macOS, Windows and Linux — on Windows without an installer, just an executable — and it is free, with a donate link if you want to fund the next version.

Verdict: A free pitch editor for Mac, Windows and Linux. Version 1.1 adds glide and fades, and there is a donate link instead of a price.

Expetri

Expetri treats each cell in a dish as a sound source: they are born, drift, combine, divide and interfere, and the interference is the instrument. It is free forever on macOS and Windows — the developer's words are "try it on your system before buying" — and the paid version, $9.99 down from $14.99, adds the rare cells that make the dish more complex. Whether the free dish has enough cells to be an instrument or only a demonstration is the thing to find out before paying.

Verdict: A synthesiser that behaves like a petri dish, free forever. The paid version adds the rare cells; whether the free dish has enough is the question.

Glitch State Lab - Glitch Drive

Glitch Drive is a drive and distortion plugin from Glitch State Lab: six tempo-synced gears, a NITRO switch for octave-up damage, reverse, and an autopilot. It is listed at $24.99 and currently costs nothing on Pluginomat. Two things to know before the download: the page says WINDOWS ONLY in capitals, and it gives no real end date — the 2027 date in its metadata is the shop's placeholder, not a promise. Treat it as cheap today and recheck before assuming it is cheap next week.

Verdict: .99 down to nothing, Windows only, and no real end date — the 2027 in its metadata is the shop's placeholder, not a promise.

Audio Spices - Unannounced spice

Audio Spices is doing what Waves is doing, on a smaller scale: a new spice drops on Black Friday, 27 November, and anyone who leaves an email now gets it free. The page lists the rest of the rack — a depth panner, a voice-note sampler, a morse-code gate, a gliding reverb, a drum bus chain, a step slicer, an FET compressor, a saturator — and declines to say which of those shapes the new one takes. Free plugin, unknown product, real deadline: the email list is the offer.

Verdict: A new Audio Spices plugin drops on 27 November and costs nothing if the email is in before it lands. No name, no spec, no opinion.

Opens 27 November 2026