BlauKraut Engineering has released version 2.0 beta of Charlatan, a free polyphonic, subtractive virtual analog synthesizer plug-in 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.

Changes in Charlatan v2.0 beta

  • 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 (*).

Charlatan is available to download for Windows (VST 32/64-bit).

More information: BlauKraut Engineering