Adam Monroe's Tremolo Updated To v2.0 - BigSur Support and New Waveforms
8.3.2021
Adam Monroe's Tremolo Is a Free 32/64-Bit VST AU AAX Plugin For Windows And OSX
* Amplitude Tremolo
* Stereo Panning
* Dry/Wet Mix
* Sample Rate Selection
*Selectable Waveshaps (Standard and Experimental)
Requirements:
VST

Windows 7/8/10 (32 or 64-Bit)
OS X 10.9 - 11.0 (64 Bit)

4 Gigabytes of Ram (8 Gigabytes recommended)

Intel Core 2 DUO @ 3GHZ or higher recommended.

Firewire or PCI-based Audio Interface recommended

*Plugin may work with older hardware, but performance will be affected
*Plugin designed to work at 44.1, 48, 88.2, and 96 kHz sample rates.
AU

OS X 10.9 - 11.0 (64 Bit)
(little endian CPU)

4 Gigabytes of Ram (8 Gigabytes recommended)

Intel Core 2 DUO @ 3GHZ or higher recommended.

Firewire or PCI-based Audio Interface recommended

*Plugin may work with older hardware, but performance will be affected
* Plugin designed to work at 44.1, 48, 88.2, and 96 kHz sample rates.
AAX

64 Bit MAC OS X 10.9 (Mavericks) or later
64 Bit Windows 7/8/10

Protools 11/12/2018/2019

4 Gigabytes of Ram (8 Gigabytes recommended)

Intel Core 2 DUO @ 3GHZ or higher recommended.

Firewire or PCI-based Audio Interface recommended

* Plugin designed to work at 44.1, 48, 88.2, or 96 kHz sample rate.
Download Includes VST (Windows/OSX),
AAX (Windows/OSX), and AU (OSX) Versions

  1. Beck - Where It's At Riff
  2. Money Mark - Hand in Your Head Riff
  3. Queen - Best Friend
  4. Chick Corea - Spain
  5. Cycle through all fifty presets

Adam Monroe's Tremolo is a free vst, au, aax effects plugin conceived as a companion piece to Adam Monroe's Mark 73 Electric Piano. There are many free tremolo effects plugins to chooose from, but I wanted to design my own, with both traditional amplitude tremolo and stereo panning. The idea was to implement both "vertical" and "horizontal" oscillators, and to be able to easily tweak these values via knobs.

I wanted to make a simplified, streamlined GUI, with direct access to the plugin's parameters. The user can adjust both the speed and depth of the plugin's tremolo, and the speed and depth of stereo panning. Both effects are routed to a mixer, so the user can adjust the wet/dry signal.

Sample rates can be easily adjusted (all of my plugins now include automatic sample rate conversion but I've left this is an adjustable parameter here because it's more efficient for this kind of effect). This has the added effect of either slowing down or speeding up the tremolo, depending on your chosen sample rate.

The values for depth and speed of the tremolo and panning effects are quite large. With the depth values set at maximum, the plugin utilizes full-spectrum sine wave oscillation for tremolo (amplitude) modulation and full stereo panning for the "panner."

This tremolo plugin is provided for free as a compliment to Adam Monroe's Mark 73. The decision was made to implement a separate plugin for two reasons: Firstly, to provide tremolo to Kontakt users, and secondly, to be provide functionality with other plugins.

This tremolo is now included in Adam Monroe's Wurlitzer and Adam Monroe's Mark 73.

With version 2.0 of this plugin, I've added new tremolo and panner waveforms. These include standard waveforms like Square, Triangle, and Saw, as well as some experimental waveforms I've created. Check out the manual to learn about the new waveforms.

A Tremolo plugin VST, AAX, or Audio Unit effect isn't that difficult to program. Originally, I intended to make a non-parameterized version, to go a long with an upcoming Wurlitzer sample library that would mimic the traditional "vibrato" oscillator of a Wurlitzer 200A. Having accomplished this, the decision was made to make an independent plugin, as the tremolo effect sounded nice with my Rhodes sample library (Rhodes suitcase models also include a stereo panner).

Stereo panning was added to make the piano more robust abduseful. Technically speaking, the tremolo sine wave is half the length of the panner sine wave, so that with all knobs being equal, the Tremolo effect should pan at 2:1 ratio with the panner effect. However, in practice amplitude and stereo modulation are different sounding enough for ratios to become difficult for the ear to quantify. By varying speed and depth, the user can produce all kinds of unique relationships between the two oscillators. Adding a parameter to change oscillators from sine waves to square or triangle waves was considered, but for practical purposes, it is my feeling that sine waves produce the best tremolo effect - I might update this in a future version.

The length of the Tremolo and Panning sine waves are 18,000 and 36,000 points respectively, so that the slowest possible oscillation can occur at 2.45 and 1.225 Hz (or lower if selecting a higher sample rate) up to 100x (about 245/125 Hz). With the speed set at maximum, it becomes difficult to discern the tremolo effect.

This plugin was coded in native C++ for VST, AU, and AAX versions. The majority of build time was spent teasing out Apple's Audio Unit and Cocoa frameworks. By default, Audio Units are designed o process audio data independently, one channel at a time. For the stereo panner, this is a limitation that had to be overcome.

A bit of time was also spent making 3d models and artwork for the GUI. The entire build process took less then a week. As such, the decision was made to make it a free tremolo plugin. As with all my plugins, I am continuously updating and improving the tremolo, so if you have comments or suggestions you can email them to me at adammonreo@adammonroemusic.com