Vagabond Synth vs Ispin Saturator

Vagabond is an idiosyncratic wavetable synthesiser, running standalone or as an AUv3 instrument in compatible hosts such as GarageBand, AUM, Loopy Pro or Cubasis. It features 16 voice polyphony, 4 unison oscillators per voice plus a sub-oscillator, switchable filter, a bit of modulation and some effects. Also built in is a MIDI processor plugin, Twelve, a generative music toy that creates 12-bar blues sequences. Vagabond uses this for demo purposes, but you can load it in other hosts if you like. It's kind of a one trick pony, but one trick is better than none. As always, Vagabond is 100% free, no IAPs, no subs, no spyware, no nag screens. We don't want your money and we don't want your data.

Ispín adds weight, warmth and grit to thin-sounding tracks. Push it gently for compression and glue, or drive it hard for full distortion. Four controls, no menus, nothing to set up. RICHNESS: Density and drive. Goes from subtle thickening to heavy saturation. COLOUR: Tilts the harmonics dark to bright, so the dirt sits where you want it. ROUGHNESS: Drives the waveform off-centre for buzz, grind and edge. OUTPUT: -18 to +6 dB of trim, for a level-matched A/B against your dry track. At zero, Ispín passes audio at unity gain — so bypass tells you what you added, not just what got louder. Six presets included: Grand So, A Bit of Dinner, The Crispy End, Hot Tea, Full Breakfast Consequences, and I Left the Immersion On. Save your own alongside them. The interface resizes to fit the space your host gives it, in portrait or landscape. Note: This is an Audio Unit Effect Plugin (AUv3), which requires a host such as AUM or Loopy Pro – or a DAW such as GarageBand, Logic Pro or Cubasis.