Dolphin bassline
by Signaldust
4.1 / 5     (14 votes)
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VST
This little monophonic synth is a proof-of-concept toy inspired by a well-known silverbox from the early 1980s. Emphasis is on "inspired" as calling it a model would be something between a joke and a lie. It should still do techno.

It has an oscillator, which you can ask to output either saw-waves or square-waves. The output of the oscillators goes into a variable frequency filter with optional resonance. Finally the output of the filter is multiplied by a slow, fixed-time envelope. Tweaking the knobs is suggested.

The oscillator will simply track the latest MIDI note-on message, so you'll probably want to sequence it. MIDI note-off messages matching the current note will gate the amplitude envelope. Overlapped notes won't retrigger the envelopes, and will cause the oscillator to slide to the new pitch. Notes with high velocity (about 101 and up) will trigger "accents" (these can be sliding notes too, or even half-way through the same note if you manage to convince your host not to send note-off in the middle), which will temporarily set the filter envelope timing to minimum and depending on the accent knob (and for slides also the remaining level of the filter envelope) boost volume and cutoff a bit (but see here).

Other than the tuning and accent knobs, the rest of the knobs conspire to modify the behaviour of the filter in somewhat chaotic way. In theory the cutoff will manually change the cutoff, the resonance will improve the filter quality factor, the env mod will control how much the filter envelope modifies the cutoff and the decay will change the decay time of the filter envelope.
Downloads
Dokkyoshi May 14 2022
(4 / 5)
May 14 2022
The best free 303 VST I've tried, sounds great and very tweakable. Like John Burns said it's a little iffy if you're trying to play it with a keyboard but that's not a problem for me since I'm just drawing MIDI into my DAW. It would be cool to see a distortion be built into it but obviously I can just throw on another plugin to get that.
John Burns Jul 31 2021
(2 / 5)
Jul 31 2021
Doesn't play well with my keyboard. Seems to treat half the notes I play as a sustain of a previous note and half the notes as a new note. Might work ok if you are programming with a mouse instead of with a keyboard.
Audio Engineer Jul 21 2021
(5 / 5)
Jul 21 2021
Square is shit but saw is great, this sounds like FREEBASS Hardware Rack unit thumbs up G
Enriq G Mex Dec 29 2020
(5 / 5)
Dec 29 2020
I love this VST, it sounds good.
Bob Angelo Aug 31 2020
(5 / 5)
Aug 31 2020
I dismissed this VSTi at first because it does'nt look like much and because there is'nt the typical Roland 303 interface, and that it should be used with a piano roll, I thought I could'nt do "ties" and "accents"... I was so wrong... this VSTi can do ties and accents while using the more user friendly interface of a piano roll, and it sounds really great. The cutoff and resonance are really very close to a real 303.
psionyx May 19 2020
(5 / 5)
May 19 2020
really cool sound with a soft overdrive :-)
Oseias Feb 13 2020
(5 / 5)
Feb 13 2020
CPU wise is not effective, but sound is! And it's free. What else could we ask for? And yeah the dev have seem to have disappeared , but fortunatly vst4free stores all these nice gems. Thanks guys!
ondoloco Jan 02 2019
Jan 02 2019
Hi, is this an updated version? web page seems doesn't work.
GSilent Nov 14 2017
(0 / 5)
Nov 14 2017
Sorry but if you need a lightweight Bass Synth take TAL-Bassline. Dolphin takes too much RAM and CPU for being such a little thing.
alpa peewikle Aug 02 2017
(5 / 5)
Aug 02 2017
A lot of Bang for no Buck. Cheerio!
Slippytin Apr 30 2017
(5 / 5)
Apr 30 2017
Cracking for acid stuff :) https://soundcloud.com/slippytin/dolphin-demo
BIG V Feb 18 2015
(4 / 5)
Feb 18 2015
THIS IS VERY GOOD BUT NEED UPDATES
Anonymous Apr 19 2014
(5 / 5)
Apr 19 2014
This Synth is freaking amazing for Techno Basslines! It has a very clean sound, and a warm sounding filter. Try it out ;-)