Charlatan

Free Virtual Analog Synthesizer Plugin by BlauKraut Engineering

Charlatan Screenshot

Charlatan is a polyphonic, subtractive virtual analog (VA) synthesizer plugin with focus on sound quality and easy usability. It comes with a flexible, yet not overwhelming feature set which encourages artists to start tweaking instead of just relying on presets. Inspite of it's simplicity, Charlatan's architecture is flexible enough to create both classic sounds and rather experimental noises. While making no compromise about sound quality, the sound engine has been highly optimized for efficient CPU usage making Charlatan well suited as a "bread and butter" synth even in projects with a large number of plugin instances.

Best of all, it's FREEWARE! Enjoy!

Key Features

2 oscillators with shape modulation
Oscillator hard synchronization and ring modulation
Unison mode with upto 7 voices and stereo spread
Stereo noise generator
2 ADSR envelope generators
LFO with host tempo synchronization
3 filter types modeled after classic analog hardware: 4-pole (24 db/oct) and 2-pole (12 db/oct) lowpass, bandpass
3 voice modes: Monophonic, Monophonic Legato and 8-voice Polyphonic
Ultra-low CPU usage

Latest Version

2.0 Final (2015-06-05)

Fix loading of 1.x presets
Fix popup menus with multiple monitors
Make Amp envelope sustain parameter logarithmic
Fix old presets (LFO Wave), add some new ones
Reduce pitch drift

2.0 Beta 3 (2015-05-03)

BUGFIX crashes on AMD systems

2.0 Beta 2 (2015-05-02)

BUGFIX not loading in some hosts
BUGFIX note hanging after switching voice modes

2.0 Beta 1 (2015-05-02)

completely rewritten DSP engine resulting in roughly 50% (!) CPU savings in polyphonic mode
unison mode with upto 7 voices and stereo spread. Even with 7-voice unison, CPU usage is very bearable
major GUI overhaul
additional LFO waveforms
stereo noise
some more presets
mostly compatible with presets for Charlatan 1.x (*)

(*) Due to some tweaks to the sound engine, there may be subtle audible differences when loading some of the old patches. In most cases, it should be possible to compensate for those with some fine adjustments. Still, I recommend to keep an old 1.x version of Charlatan around if you need to fully preserve old projects. Sorry for the inconvenience...

Download

Charlatan 2.0 Windows 32/64-bit VSTi (ZIP file)

Latest version from 1.x (legacy)

Charlatan 1.4.1 Windows 32/64-bit VSTi (ZIP file)

User preset banks

Please note that many of the presets are already included (maybe slightly modified) in the official releases.

ZN_Classics_for_Charlatan.fxb (Zorniko)
ZN_Classics2_for_Charlatan.fxb (Zorniko)
Charlatan_Bank_NedK.fxb (NedK)
Charlatan_Bank_2_Tek.zip (Teksonik)
alvfaria_charlatan_banks.zip (Alvfaria)

More banks can be found at the KVR database. If you want to share your presets, please upload them there.

Demo tracks

Solidtrax - Charlatan 21 by Solidtrax

Also, many exciting songs made using Charlatan exclusively are the submissions for the KVR One Synth Challenge (OSC) 33.

Support

Discussion about Charlatan takes place in the Instruments sub-forum @ KVR audio. If you have questions or suggestions, post them there. You can also contact me at KVR via private message (username karrikuh). Note that I don't take any responsibility for any damage you might experience from using my plug-ins, so use at your own risk!